shed their blood in support of a constitu- | attainment of their wishes; and that here tion which unnerves the hand raised in its they hope they shall be indulged in addefence, by intercepting its fair reward, ducing, as a crowning proof of the tenets and checks the aspiration of their genius and practice of their ancient faith, the by the opposition of ungenerous barriers sublime example of its spiritual head, the to its course; they are precluded from nu- suffering and magnanimous Pius, who merous offices of trust and honour, the ob- stands an illustrious monument of glory to jects and incentives of a noble emulation, his religion, and of shame to many Christhough to many of these the more favoured tian princes; on him humiliations have alien is invited at home, and all are open, been heaped, and the cup of bitterness with the concurrence of the House, to the impotently exhausted; immovable in con. newly conquered Catholic subject abroad; scious rectitude, he alone has defied the the native Catholic alone, as if marked by vengeance of a ruthless power, and, as bethe reprobating stamp of nature, is pro- came the great minister of peace, refused nounced unworthy of making his services, to join a confederacy leagued for the in every station, acceptable to his sove- overthrow of these kingdoms; his despoiler reign, or useful to his country; and that they may confidently maintain will meet these proscriptive statutes, the Petitioners little countenance or partiality from Calament to say, have transplanted from tholic Ireland; and that the Petitioners their natural soil the talents and fortunes will not stoop further to repel these caof many an able statesman and valiant lumnies, which even their propagators do soldier; born to diffuse lustre on their not believe, but they refer with compla own, and compelled to promote the glo- cency, to the solemn recognition of their ries of another land; the Petitioners claim, meritorious demeanor by their own paras their kindred, while they deplore to liament, when it first invited them to the their country, the loss of many names of threshold of the constitution, a measure renown in foreign annals, and on the pre- wise and salutary at the time, but doubly sent great theatre of war, they trace, in grateful as a spontaneous emanation from some of the most distinguished actors, the royal breast; the benign and parental the blood and spirit of banished Irish- source, they are proud to acknowledge, of men; and that still a system, so injurious numerous other gracious favours; and in its operation, generated in times and with equal pleasure do the Petitioners apunder circumstances of which the very peal to the honourable and decisive testishadow has passed away, is, they blush mony of their Protestant fellow citizens, to add, attempted to be justified by whose just discernment has long obliterimputations aspersive of their morality ated, in society, the partial demarcations as Christians, and allegiance as subjects, of the law; with them the Petitioners are their enemies, and the enemies of the blended in all the sympathies of private edifice, would fain blot from the page life and communion of dearest interests; of history, and from the recollection of they would open wide, and hail as reathe House; that to their Catholic ances- son's triumph, their unqualified admission tors, Britons are mainly indebted for the to the sanctuary of British freedom, for to transcendent blessings of their constitu- them they have amply proved how deeply tion; they laid the firmest basis of the they have imbibed, and how prepared empire; and it surely is an ungenerous they are to vindicate its principles; they retribution to their memory to make the witnessed and they cheered their late ascreed they professed a title of exclusion sertion, constitutional they trust, and aufrom the more perfect fabric; that religion, thorized of that radical provision of its they are bound to infer, could inculcate guardian law, the right they at this monothing dangerous to society or prejudicial ment exercise of addressing the House; to the state, the sole and paramount sway and the Petitioners therefore feel warranted of which was owned by those men who respectfully, but most earnestly, to impress first defined the grand outlines of our civil on the wisdom of the House the policy of rights, and the influence of which, at the cherishing those elements of harmony and present day, subjects the master passions conciliation, which will unite in consentaof our nature, even interest and ambition, neous impulse all the energies of the state, to the controul of conscience; by moral will elect for their rulers, in the bosoms of man alone is that sacred bar held insepa- enfranchised Irishmen, a temple of everrable and inviolate which the law has in-lasting gratitude, and impart vigour to the terposed between the Petitioners and the arm, and ardour to the heart, of every (VOL. XXII.) (2 B) in.3 dividual of this nation; the time and talent | ment. In the case of general Delancey, too they consume in complaint will be devoted, unfettered and undivided to the common cause; and that it is reserved, the Petitioners presume to hope, for the House, and it is worthy the character of enlightened statesmen, to redeem at length the great name of the British empire from the disparaging imputation of sacrificing an eternal principle of justice, and a commanding maxim of legislation, to a passing expediency and to fleeting events; and praying the House, in this crisis of unprecedented emergency, to hearken to the monitory voice of those great luminaries of their councils, whose discerning patriotism has identified their cause with the security of these realms, and who have exhorted the House, as they contemplate a successful resistance to our inveterate foe, to make a brave and gallant people happy in the possession, and invincible under the banners of the British constitution, by the repeal of those laws so manifestly hostile to its genuine spirit." Ordered to lie upon the table. the balance due in March, 1806, amounted to 97,000l. though in the December of 1804, he had been called upon to make up his accounts. With respect to Mr. Steele, he was glad to learn, that the public were not likely to be a sufferer, but still it was desirable that the public should have authentic evidence of that circumstance. With respect to the case of Boyd, Benfield and Co. he understood that the claims upon the interest of the 100,000l. advanced to them were still in a course of legal proceeding. With respect to Mr. Hunt, the defalcation amounted to 93,000l. he thought it expedient that the public should know how much of that large sum had been as yet recovered, or was considered as irrecoverable. He wished also to know, whether that person's pension was still conti nued to him, or whether it had been finally withdrawn? The case of the Dutch commissioners, of Mr. Villiers of the Marine. Pay Office, and of Mr. Charles Barnes, called for investigation, as to each of those particulars. Mr. Chinnery's defalcation, he understood, had exceeded 80,000l. and PUBLIC DEFAULTERS.] Sir J. Newport that legal advice having been taken by the rose, pursuant to notice, to move for an in- bail of Mr. Chinnery, they were considered struction to the Committee of Public Ex- as exonerated, because there had not been penditure, to enquire into the balance due due diligence used on the part of Mr. Chinto the public in consequence of certain nery's superiors in office, on the first sus public defalcations. He admitted that, picion upon their parts of the defalcation. with respect to some of those defaulters, a The next case had not yet been before the great part, if not the whole of the money, House, it was taken from the 12th Report had been recovered; but it was as certain, of the Board of Works of Ireland, and it that with respect to many others, but a appeared, that between the years 1796 and very small part had been recovered, and 1802, when the office of Treasurer to the in some, that the whole had been irrecove- Board of Trade was abolished, the sum of rably lost. He thought that the public 1,835,000l. had gone into the hands of the had a right to be put in possession of an Treasurer, and was to that day unaccounted accurate detail of what was lost, and what for. The noble lord had been frequently recovered, in each of those instances; they called on to make out his accounts, but the had, in short, a right to know the actual answer uniformly was, that the accounts state of those accounts: it was but justice were in a state of preparation. This was to the individuals, who had so far lessened one of the many cases that shewed the nethe culpability of their conduct by paying cessity of the motion with which he should up the whole of the deficiency, that the now conclude. The right hon. baronet public should know that such individuals then moved, "That it be an instruction to had made the best amends within their the Committee appointed to examine and power; it was necessary too, that the pub- consider what regulations and checks have lic should know, what progress had been been established in order to controul the made, or was making, in the recovery of several branches of the public expenditure the sums due, and what was the amount of in Great Britain and Ireland, and how far those sums which were concluded to be ir- the same have been effectual; and what furrecoverably lost to the public. These ther measures can be adopted for reducing were matters which he thought it became any part of the said expenditure, or dimithe duty of that House at any time to in-nishing the amount of salaries and emolu. vestigate, more especially in so advanced ments, without detriment to the public sera period of the life of the present parlia- vice;-That they do examine into the pre 373] the propriety of omitting that part of the Sir J. Newport repeated his reasons for The motion, as originally worded, was then put and carried. Corporal Punishments in the Army. sent state of account of the several balances of money which have been reported on, or have since appeared to the said Committee to be due and owing to the public, or which have been stated in any report laid before this House by the commissioners of military or naval enquiry, or by the parliamentary commissioners of enquiry, or the commissioners of imprest accounts in Ireland, to be so due and owing; and that they do, with all convenient speed, lay before the House an abstract account thereof, and of their opinions thereupon, specifying particularly the amount of the several balances originally appearing due, the sums which have been received thereout, with the date of such receipts; whether any and which of the remaining balances may be considered as entirely irrecoverable, and also the progress any measures taken towards such recovery, or the adjustment of such balances; and whether any and which of the persons, who have been deficient in their payments, continue to enjoy any place or office of trust or profit or pension under the crown." of The Chancellor of the Exchequer conceived, that the powers of the Committee were already sufficient for those purposes; if not, he had no objection to the present motion. It was another question whether the Committee ought to apply itself immediately to this object, so as to supersede all other business. As to the pension of Mr. Hunt, it, had been all along withdrawn effectually, though not formally till last year. Mr. Bankes said, that the Committee had the power, and if he had thought it expedient that the state of the balance should be known before the end of the session, he would, as chairman of that Committee, have undertaken the labour: as it was, he was ready to begin the business immediately, though, perhaps, it might be better not to embrace that mass of subjects to which their attention was now directed. Mr. Long took that opportunity of explaining a circumstance which had occurred upon a former night, and which his absence had precluded him from then adverting to. An hon. baronet (sir F. Burdett) had stated, that though the principal had been paid back to the public by Mr. Steele, the interest was lost. He therefore begged leave to state, that not only the whole of the principal had been paid up, but also every shilling of the interest. The Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS IN THE ARMY.] The Hon. Mr. Bennet rose to make the motion of which he had given notice respecting corporal punishments in the army. He began by observing, that he could not anticipate any serious objections to the motion which he was about to make. Returns were regularly laid before the House of the number of capital punishments inflicted, and he did not perceive that any greater inconvenience or danger was likely to result from publishing the number of punishments in the army. The punishments to which he now alluded were such as were not generally known; they were most debasing and degrading to the soldiers; and were attended with such cruelty and inhumanity that they were from the ministerial inflicted in secret, in holes and corners. [Hear, hear! benches.] He repeated it-in holes and corners; because it would not be possible to inflict so much torture and ignominy in open day, and in the face of the world, without the presence of an army to keep down the indignation of the people. The horrors of the middle passage had led to the destruction of the Slave Trade, and the horrors of the present system of military punishment, he hoped, would soon lead to its abolition. It was a mode of punishment objectionable in the first place because its infliction was arbitrary in the second, because it varied with the varying powers and feelings of the sufferer; and in the third, because it had been proved to be utterly inefficacious as an example. Its abolition would greatly conduce to the good of the service by rendering recruit. ing more easy, and would be of advantage to the discipline of the army by freeing soldiers from that disgrace and debasement they were at present subject to. He concluded, therefore, with moving, "That there be laid before the House a return of the number of Corporal Punishments inflicted in the army, in the militia, and in the local militia during the last 7 years, up to January, 1812, specifying the offences, where committed, and the number of lashes inflicted respectively." Mr. C. Adams spoke against the motion. Mr. Manners Sutton conceived, that if it was the object of the hon. mover to revive the debate on the question of corpo ral punishment, this object might be attained without acceding to the present motion. If the returns were desired merely for the purpose of examining whether there were any cases of abuse, he thought it hardly a fair proceeding; and that the only ground which could induce the House to consent to the motion was the previous production of such cases. It certainly would not be difficult to procure the returns, because under the excellent system of management introduced and adopted by the commander in chief, the most minute records were preserved. The present illustrious commander in chief had laboured incessantly to bring the discipline of the army to the highest possible state of perfection, and as speedily and generally as possible to do away corporal punishment; but such an alteration could be effected only by degrees. There was much variety of opinion on the subject, even in the army; and he believed if that whole body was consulted, whether corporal punishment should be altogether abolished, there would be as much difference on the subject among the men in the ranks, as among the officers who commanded them. No slur ought to be thrown on the administration of the army, without just cause. As to the effects of the punishment on the discipline of the army, what better answer could be given than to appeal to the character of that army, and the mutual attachment that prevailed between the officer and the soldier. His great objection to the revival of this discussion was, that it tended to unsettle the military mind, to lead the army to believe that there must be grievances, though to them unknown, which caused the subject to be so often agitated. He could not see how the abstract question could be elucidated or assisted by the production of these returns; and as he believed that no practical advantage could result from it, while its natural effect must be to impute remissness to the commander in chief, whose indefatigable attention to the welfare, interests and even comfort of the soldier was denied by none, he felt himself compelled to withhold his assent from the motion. Mr. Abercromby said, he thought nothing could be farther from a slur on the army than the present motion. On the contrary, if such an account were annually laid on the table, it would, according to the hon. and learned gentleman's account of the attention of the commander in chief to the army, redound more to his honour than any thing that could be done by concealment. Nothing also would be so likely to give a new tone of feeling to of ficers in general, as the consciousness that the legislature would review their proceedings. He should, therefore, vote for the motion. Mr. W. Smith expressed himself to be of the same opinion. The refusal to grant the paper moved for, shewed that some abuses did exist; he thought, therefore, it ought to be produced; and in voting for that production, he disclaimed any intention of censuring the commander in chief, or the military system of which he was at the head. Sir F. Burdett declared, that when the right hon. and learned gentleman announced his intention to oppose the motion, he had expected to hear rather more cogent reasons for his so doing. He had talked indeed of the necessity of producing some grave case as a foundation for this motion, but he seemed to forget that many such cases had been already brought before the consideration of the House. He had himself on a former occasion stated the instance of several men who had died at Gibraltar in consequence of flogging, as declared by the surgeon in the first instance, although he was afterwards induced to alter the return to" died of fever," and he had also stated, that several officers who had refused to join in that barbarous proceeding, had been dismissed the service, although on their return to this country they were re-instated on the representations of a distinguished officer (lord Hutchinson) to the Commander in Chief. He had recently seen in the public prints, many statements of suicide committed, in order to avoid this dreadful punishment, and that those men. who had attempted suicide ineffectually, had actually received additional punishment for the attempt. To these statements he was inclined to give credit, because they could not be made, if false, without danger to the publishers. the compliments so often paid to the officers of the army, he believed, and he was not inclined to flatter any man, particu larly in that House, that like the rest of the previous consent and sanction of that their countrymen, they were not deficient House? What then was it but a most in bumanity, but it was the frequency of flimsy pretence, a weak and miserable these spectacles of horror and suffering subterfuge, to talk of the slur or the imthat necessarily familiarised them to such plied censure which the motion conveyed scenes, and gradually extinguished all the with respect to those who had entrusted livelier sympathies of their nature. He to them the management of the army? had once mentioned to the House the case The right hon. and learned gentleman had of a man of 70, who was condemned for bestowed abundant panegyric on the consome trivial offence to be flogged. He duct of the Commander in Chief, and suppleaded that he had been 50 years in the posing it all to be perfectly applicable service, he pleaded too the excellence of and well merited, it was at the same his general character, and that it was not time altogether beside the present questhe pain but the shame, and the shame tion. He had no doubt that the Comonly, that alarmed him. In spite of every mander in Chief, as well as other military remonstrance however notwithstanding men, were possessed of humane sentiments, his age and his long and meritorious ser- but habit in time got the better of those vice he was flogged. In the Isle of tender feelings; and if it did not entirely Wight, no long time ago, a boy of 16 was eradicate them, imperceptibly blunted and sentenced to the same punishment, and he subdued them.-The right hon. gentleman pleaded his youth in mitigation. But talked of no case having been made out, neither the feebleness of age, nor the in- but he would assert on the contrary, that discretion of tender years availed against there was a profusion of evidence which the supposed necessity of making military he himself was prepared to produce, in examples by the application of the dis- proof of all he had stated, and all of which graceful lash; for example surely was concurred to establish one conclusion, that the only object, as it could not be said to the punishment was inhuman, had been be improvement. To him it appeared often inhumanly exercised, and was at once astonishing that men having the forms and repugnant to the dictates of reason, justice, feelings of their species could hear with and humanity. The right hon. and learned indifference and coolness, the recital of gentleman, however, treated all this such atrocious cruelties. The situation of with levity, and betrayed an indiffer the English soldier was at this moment ence of manner, and coldness of feelscandalously unprotected; no coroner's ing-that seemed to him utterly inconinquest sat upon his remains, he was con- sistent with a due sense or correct com. fined where no friend could approach him, prehension of the infernal nature of the to whom he might relate his tale of woe, infliction. He seemed to treat the subject er from whom he might receive the con- as a boy might be expected to treat the solation of a sympathising concern. He whipping of a puppy dog. He himself had lately heard of the case of a man looked at it in another light, and in its real named Tork, who being ordered to be colours. He saw it unite a degree of torflogged, his wife set out from Yorkshire to ture, with a still greater degree of ignovisit him, and on her arrival at the quarters miny and shame, which it was scarcely of the regiment, she met his body carried possible to imagine that human beings by his comrades to the grave, he having could have devised, except from the modied in consequence of the severity of his tive of imitating the supposed torments of punishment. Was the House then to be the damned. Was it remembered that the told that there existed no grounds for in- instrument of torture was the cat-of-ninestituting any enquiry? The right hon. tails, that when the wretched victim was and learned gentleman seemed to think, fixed to the halberts in order to have the that it was a kind of indecorous proceed flesh torn from his bones, each separate ing for the House of Commons to interfere lash inflicted nine stripes, every one of at all with what might be said to fall under which was capable of drawing blood from the exercise of the royal prerogative. the body! But in his opinion, horrible This was a doctrine about the unconstitu- as the punishment was in point of the botional nature of which it was not neces-dily torture which it created, its effects sary to say any thing; but he would ask whether the crown could carry into effect any one of the articles of war, or keep alive the army or its discipline without upon the moral feelings of shame and honourable pride, were still more grievous and deplorable. It was the disgrace which never could be obliterated, that in his |