Monday, 25th July. Committee which stood appointed for this day, put off to Thursday next.

Thursday, 28th July. House in Committee, (according to order). Bill reported without amendment. Amendments

made. Bill to be engrossed, and to be read 3rd time to-morrow.

Friday, 29th July. Same read (according to order). Amendments made. Bill passed, and sent to the Commons, without Compensation Clauses.

COMMONS' VOTES, 1842.

SAME DAY, 29th July. Message from the Lords that they had passed a Bill entituled "An Act for abolishing certain offices of the High Court of Chancery in England."

Same day. Read 1st time-to be read 2nd time on Monday next, and to be printed.

Monday, 1st August. Read 2nd time and committed for to-morrow. Bill printed and

delivered.

Tuesday, 2nd August. Bill considered in committee. COMPENSATION CLAUSES ADDED,

and altered.

Wednesday, 3rd August.

Reported and re

committed for this day. Bill as amended

to be printed.

Thursday, 4th August, 1842.

No. 31-Petition of Messrs. Tilleard and Son, for compensation to lie on the table. 32-Bill considered in Committee-to be reported this day.

4th August, 1842.

Reported-to be

Bill as

read 3rd time to-morrow.

amended, printed and delivered.

Friday, 5th August. Read 3rd time. Clause A added in Committee disagreed to. Bill passed with amendments.

LORDS' MINUTES.

Saturday, 6th August, 1842. Bill returned from the Commons with amendments.

Monday, 8th August. Commons' amendments considered and agreed to.

Wednesday, 10th August. Bill received the Royal Assent BY COMMISSION.

By the Lords' print of the 15th July, the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury and the Lord Chancellor are empowered "to proceed in such manner and upon such average as they may think proper, in fixing compensations. The amended bill in the Commons, after Committee, omits the co-authority and check of the Treasury, and singly constituted the Lord Chancellor the Compensator, with the average of the last three years' fees as his Lordship's rule of decision. In whom did this alteration

originate? Its design is manifest; the Six Clerks escaped the Treasury, and obtained the highest standard of compensation.

The COMPENSATION CLAUSES were therefore not known to the Commons till the 2nd of August, and were not in print for Members till the morning before the third reading-viz. on the 4th of August!

Whatever might have been the merits of the measure, this course of proceeding in a Ministerial Bill-ultimately appropriating ONE MILLION Sterling-was unprecedented and unjustifiable.

Such are the circumstances which have given rise to the public complaints against this gross Act, and to the Commons' notice of Mr. WATSON for a Select Committee of Enquiry.

The orders of Lord LYNDHURST, under the authority of the Act, fixing the Compensations, are printed in an Appendix to these sheets. Those Orders are the consequences of the Act; the Lord Chancellor, of course, being bound by the provisions of the Statute.

It remains, however, to be proved before the Commons Committee, whether the Compensations were justly and carefully adjudicated. But it must be remembered that Bankruptcy, and Lunacy, and other Law Acts passed in the same Session; and it will be material to enquire whether some or all of the new legal Officers appointed under those other Acts might not have been economically and expediently selected from the body of suppressed Equity Officers, and many

Compensations thereby pro tanto reduced. It is believed that not one single compensated Officer in Chancery was so re-enlisted for service and new offices under those other acts; but that the majority of Clerkships under the Bankruptcy and Lunacy Acts were chiefly political appointments of inexperienced persons! Nor did the Chancery Offices Abolition Act provide for the right of employing the unemployed compensated Officers in future public services. The majority of the fortunate gentlemen were simply pensioned, and not like the poor outdoor Chelsea Pensioners, subjected to future service, if required by the State.

But what possible right could the compensated officers have to Compensation after Death? And why was the Suitors' Fee Fund to bear the cost of Compensation, when heretofore such burthens had been generally placed on the Consolidated Fund? It is well known that Mr. GOULBURN refused to entertain the question of charging the public revenue with such an enormous sum.

The principle of Compensation, justly applied, is admitted; but the present question is, whether the quantum of Compensation is a justifiable mulct of the public. Was not the Legislature grossly imposed upon by the hasty and secret mode in which the Act slipped through the Commons? And ought such transactions to be tolerated without enquiry, or without guards against their repetition?

Notoriously the Officers of the Six Clerks Of

fices would have been content, if not fully satisfied, with half the sums conceded by the Legislature; and they would have gladly preferred a fixed capital sum on better terms to the public.

On the scale adopted the principal purchase of their rights would have saved half the ultimate cost of the present Compensations. Parliament might have made provision for the purchase of the claims on far better terms than the annuities awarded, and for re-employment of the compensated ex-officers..

The 14th section of the Act untruly represents the office of a Sworn Clerk as subject to sale, (which it was not legally) as follows:

“And inasmuch as the business of a Sworn Clerk and of a Waiting Clerk has been treated as a subject of Sale and succession, and has commonly been sold for half the profits during the seven years next after a sale, be it therefore enacted that a yearly sum equal to half the annual sum to be awarded as compensation to any Sworn Clerk or Waiting Clerk, or which, in the case of any Sworn C'erk or Waiting Clerk who shall die before the said 28th day of October next after the passing of this Act, or after the said 28th day of October and before compensation shall be awarded him, if he had survived the said 28th day of October and the award of compensation, shall for seven years, to be computed from the said 28th day of October next after the passing of this Act, or the day of the decease of such Sworn Clerk or Waiting Clerk (whichever shall last happen) be paid to the executors, administrators, or assigns of such Sworn Clerk or Waiting Clerk as part of his personal Estate."

If a Select Committee of the House of Commons