begged to state, that on a former occasion, in giving his opinion on that subject, he had been misunderstood, in reference to a Company belonging to the city of London which had land in Ireland. He did not allude to the Merchant Tailors' Company, which had no land in its own possession in Ireland, but to the Fishmongers' Company, to which he himself belonged. That Company had only had their land ten years, during which time they had laid out 70,000l. upon it. The people who lived on it were comfortable and happy, and the only complaint they had to make was against the tithe system. Colonel Butler presented a Petition from Kilkenny, against the present Tithe system. The petitioners were of opinion, that if the Government took the Church property into its own hands, it would be possible to exonerate the people from payment of tithes. He agreed with them in opinion, and in order to convince the House of the real value of Church property, he would read the particulars of a document which he had carefully gone over. In a parish of the diocese of Ossory, in the county of Kilkenny, not far from where he resided, there was a portion of land, amounting to 407 acres, two roods, and thirty perches, belonging to the Bishop, for which the occupying and ostensible tenants paid a rent of 6581. 5s. Old., being an average of about 32s. an acre. The Bishop of the diocese received from this land, of which he was the head landlord, a rent of only 2s. 6d. per acre, and 1s. 3d. by way of renewal fine, making together 3s. 9d. per acre, or one-eighth, as near as might be of the actual rent paid for the land. The noble Lord (Lord Althorp) when he had spoken about the Bishops not getting above one sixth of the actual value of the land, instead of saying he would take means to enable them to get their full value, and thus support the clergy entirely out of the Church lands, and remit tithes, talked of the vested rights of the tenants and proposed to allow them to perpetuate those rights on the payment of six-yearsand-a-half purchase of the rent, they paid a proposition which he must call perpetuating the plunder of the Church. The noble Lord seemed to think that these tenants had a right to take advantage of the situation in which they stood with respect to the Bishops, but he contended that they had no more right to do so, than the peasant who wished to perpetuate his lease under the Rockite system. He had also a Petition to present from Lisdowny against the tithes and praying for a Repeal of the Union. Mr. Finn did not want the hon. Alderman behind him to apprise him that a wealthy company having land in Derry was on good terms with its tenantry. It received 84,000l. in rent, and in the course of the year, had expended 70,000l. in improvements, and received of course the blessings which were bestowed on landowners residing on their own property. But Ireland, in general, could not in any way be compared to that condition of things. He knew of a nobleman who was in the receipt of about 20,000l. a-year from Ireland, and 20,000l. from England, and he ventured to assert, that that nobleman did not expend 2007. a year in Ireland. Was it to be wondered at, then, that there should be discontent among the poor tenantry of Ireland? Five millions of money were sent from Ireland to this country every year, and nothing could have been more injurious to Ireland than the system of absenteeism which had so long prevailed. The gentry withdrew from their country-their moral influence was also withdrawn-the employment which a residence there would give to the poor was likewise withdrawn, and everything contributed to distress the already afflicted people of Ireland. In the other House of Parliament it had been stated, as a ground for the necessity of the coercive measure, that Juries in Ireland could not be found to do their duty. One of the petitions presented from Kilkenny had falsified the statement in the most decisive manner, because it stated, that no less than seventy convictions had taken place in Kilkenny itself. He would venture to assert, that instead of no convictions taking place, in the present state of the minds of Jurors, persons would be too easily convicted. He recollected a case in which, by his own exertions, he had saved an innocent person from punishment, after that person had been convicted, because he had felt satisfied in his own mind that that person was innocent, and he was able afterwards to prove to the satisfaction of the Government, that the verdict was wrong. There were also the circumstances concerning the murder of the Mara's, and the execution of the six men who were supposed to have committed the murder, a circumstance which was not to be forgotten. It was shown to demon both fed and clothed a great deal better than the working people in England, Ireland, and Scotland. He should like that some Member, when the Bill should be brought before the House, should submit some statement which would show the comparative modes of treatment in the stration that no less than five of those Petition laid on the Table. He was aware of the zeal of many Members, and that some bad cases had been produced merely to suit their particular views. He was confident that many Members had been much misled on the subject. For his own part, he had told his constituents that he would vote for the Bill, merely to please them; but if the House went into an examination of the mode of treating negroes in the West Indies, and the mode of treating the poor people of England, Ireland, and Mr. Scotland, he was sure that it would be found that the latter were by far the worse off. ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.] Marshall presented a petition from Leeds, signed by 18,800 persons, praying for the Abolition of Slavery. He considered the present petition was a proof that the interest that had been taken by the people of Yorkshire in the abolition of slavery had not in the least diminished. Mr. Andrew Johnstone said, he was in the Committee appointed last year, and he was of an entirely different opinion from the hon. Member. Petition laid on the Table. BOROUGH OF HERTFORD.] Mr. Bernal the Chairman of the Hertford Election Committee, stated that he had given notice of his intention of moving that the special Report of the Hertford Committee desiring that a Message might be sent to the House of Lords, to request their Lordships' leave for the attendance of the Marquess of Salisbury, and the production of certain of his leases of property in the borough, be taken into consideration that night. He had now to inform the House that the further consideration of this subject was rendered unnecessary, in consequence of Lord Morpeth, in rising to support the prayer of the petition, observed, that it might be considered obtrusive on the part of Members for counties to come forward to support the prayer of a petition from boroughs in that county; but he considered that if, at any time, the Member for a county was justified in coming forward for this purpose, it was on the presentation of a petition from the most important town in the West Riding of Yorkshire a community that had been more prominent in their opposition to negro slavery than any other part of the British empire. Mr. Cobbett said, that how far members for counties might be justified in support-a letter addressed to him that day by the ing the prayer of petitions coming from the boroughs in the county they represented was, in his opinion, a question that had much better not be discussed, for every Member had a right do on that point as he liked. With respect to the matter of the petition, his constituents wished as much as any set of men could do that negro slavery should be abolished, but they had expressed their desire, and he thought it was reasonable before that abolition took place, to know whether the Negroes were fed worse or clothed worse than his constituents were. His (Mr. Cobbett's) opinion was, and he knew something of the matter, that they were Marquess of Salisbury, and which he would take the liberty of reading to the House. The letter was dated "The House of Lords," and was to the following purport. "Sir-Understanding that it will suit the convenience of the Committee to see the agreements entered into with some of my cottage tenants, and as some difficulty may arise in the way of obtaining them by motion in the House of Commons, I beg to enclose one, which I have in town, for the information of the Committee. They are all of a similar form, and I shall have no objection to submit to your inspection those specified in the votes of the House of Commons. But some delay will against which the Bill was directed, its provisions should not be applied to him until the pleasure of that House was first taken. No such clause, however, appeared in the present Bill, and any Member of that House who happened to be in Ireland either by accident or design, might, at the will of the Lord Lieutenant, be seized and tried before one of those red-coat tribunals, and transported the next day. Any one of the Irish Members of Parliament, who stood up in that House for his country, and spoke against this Bill, was liable upon his return to that country, to be condemned and sent off to Botany Bay before the House could hear of his arrest. And would they allow this? Was the House sunk so low as that? Would it suffer that any Member of that House might be transported at the pleasure of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with a red-coat tribunal, every Member of which the Government might dismiss at its discretion. This was a new power to invest a Government with. They were obliged to come to a Reformed Parliament for that power. The unreformed Parliament Mr. Cobbett rose, and said, that as he had not had an opportunity during the debate on the Bill to express his sentiments on it, he should take advantage of the present opportunity. He was sorry to think that the Bill had been engendered in the heart of an Englishman, and brought into that House by the hands of an Englishman, but he should deem himself unworthy of existence if he did not stand up and declare the horror he felt at the Parliament of the boroughmongers, the introduction of such a measure. He their nominees as it was called, never did had been lately looking into-though, in- anything like that. He had always said, deed, it was not necessary for him to look that to a military Government this country into for he well remembered the deeds (as well as Ireland) must come, unless the of Pitt, and Sidmouth, and Perceval, and Government reduced the pressure of taxaCastlereagh, but the present measure had tion. It was impossible to carry on the an infamous pre-eminence over all the Government as at present, without a mideeds of all those men. In the first place, litary force. The taxes could not otherunder this Bill military tribunals were to wise be levied; Judges and Juries must be supersede the ordinary Courts of Justice. dismissed wholly and entirely, in order to They had heard a great deal of Whitefeet carry on a system so partial, so oppressive, and Blackfeet, and midnight outrages, so villainously unjust. Therefore he and murders; but when he looked into the warned the House, and he warned the Bill, he found that the military tribunals people of England, against the scourge were not confined to the trial of the which his Majesty's Government was preWhitefeet and Blackfeet. Those red-coat paring for them. It was nonsense to say, tribunals were to decide in cases of libel, that this was only a temporary measure. without the intervention of a Judge or a Ministers meant that it should be perJury. The Whitefeet, and the midnight manent-the settled mode of governing robbers and assassins, were not the writers the country; and they meant to introduce of libels? This part of the Bill, therefore, the same into England as speedily as poscould not be intended for the Whitefeet, sible. He said, the other evening, and and the midnight robbers and assassins. the assertion was well, as the argument Comparing this Bill with others to which had been left unanswered-that he believed it bore any resemblance, he found in it the Government had the project in conone very remarkable omission. The Mem-templation to begin to govern England, as bers of that House were not protected. It had always hitherto been usual to insert a clause, stating that if any Member of that House was charged or suspected of having committed any of the offences Ireland has been long governed. He believed that they had it in contemplation to establish, first, police stations in all the towns and villages of the kingdom; second, to supplant these by a more direct military force; and third, to erect the proceeded, and we should by-and-by, see even though it be a decrepit old man who wields it, is ever found sufficient to exact the most implicit obedience of the laws. This is the highest test of a good government and of a happy people-this is the beauty of England, of its laws, its Constitution, and its community." How the noble Lord, therefore, could reconcile to the integrity of his mind the course which he and his colleagues were pursuing, was a matter of the utmost astonishment to him. He conjured the noble Lord, as a member of the Government, to take heed, lest, by his proceedings, he prevented the hope of ever again seeing the people of England willing to yield to the unbacked authority of the constable's staff. He, and those who thought and spoke as he did, were accused of harbouring wishes to destroy the Constitution. The fact was not so. His desire was, to restore it to its former brightness. He wished to see England as happy as she was when he was born; and the principle he went upon was, not to leave her in a worse condition than he found her. But he feared he should not succeed in his object. Blackstone, in his "Commentaries on the Laws of England," laid it down that the main principle upon which those laws were based, was the prevention of the Executive from forming a body too dis tinct from the people; and, therefore, that it ought to be selected from the people, as in the Roman republic; but the main object which the Constitution seemed to be directed towards now, was to make the Executive as distinct from the people as possible-in fact, if it must be said, to make it an instrument of tyranny over them. The same authority to which he had referred, said also, that the army ought to be composed only of the real subjects of the King of Great Britain, not of Hanoverians; that they ought to be enlisted for a limited time; that the soldiers ought to be encouraged to mix with the people; that they ought to have no separate camp, no barracks, no inland fortresses; and Blackstone said, also, that it would better accord with the principles of the Constitution, if the soldiery were so enlisted and discharged, as to keep up a general and constant change throughout the army, so that all the people should serve by turus. The people had only to read Blackstone to be made sensible of the full extent of their present degradation. To be sure, some of the commentators upon that Judge differed considerably from his explanation of the law; Mr. Christian, for instance, who said that barracks were good for the soldiery. He would not trouble the House with any further remarks upon this topic, but would proceed to inquire what the next step would be after this Bill was passed; he believed it would be the introduction of military tribunals into England. These tribunals, to be sure, at present were only collaterally introduced. They were introduced into Ireland; but he thought it his duty to resist their introduction as much as if they were about to be introduced into England. Every man loved his country-every man had a peculiar liking to that part of the country in which he was born. He also felt this love; he was affectionately attached to the spot of his birth-place-the western district of the county of Surrey; yet so help him God, he would as soon see the introduction of military tribunals into that part of the country as into Ireland; because nothing could be baser or viler than, when a Government demanded extraordinary powers, to demand it for one place alone, and that a weak or distant one, and not for the whole kingdom. When this power was introduced into the districts of Ireland, it would be soon introduced into those of England. Why, if the slightest disturbance appeared in Cornwall or Kent, they would immediately have recourse to the same measures, and extend them all over England. If the people consented to this monstrous precedent, they would shortly see armed stations in every hole and corner of England. He might be asked, perhaps, whether he believed that the nobility and gentry of England--the country gentlemen of England-whether they, who had such a stake in the country, would ever give their consent to the introduction of such a measure into England? He believed that they would; that they would even like it. He thought they would find it very convenient to have a police-station in their several villages, to serve as gamekeepers, and the instruments of a little parochial tyranny. That was his real belief; and, therefore, he would recommend the people of England to look well to the progress of this measure; they should use every means in their power to prevent the consummation of tyranny. For his own part, he had seen no information to warrant the assertion, that the ordinary laws were not sufficient for the present state of Ireland. At one Assizes he saw that seventy persons were convicted, or ran a chance of being so; but the framers of the present Bill represented Ireland as in such a state that the ordinary laws could not be enforced. The truth was, some counties were disturbed, but Ministers wanted to make the whole country alike, for their own particular purposes. In circumstances somewhat similar, how did Washington act? When the country he governed, within 200 miles of the State of Pennsylvania, was in a state of commotion to put down the excise laws, what did he do? Did he demand a suspension of the Habeas Corpus? Did he ask for Courts-martial? No; he told the disaffected to obey the laws, or he would use military force to compel them. Not that of a standing army, but a force composed of freemen and citizens. The discontented did not obey the first order, and in less than ten days Washington had an army of 10,000 volunteers, accoutred at their own expense, to enable him to enforce obedience to the laws. The commotion was soon quelled; one culprit was condemned, and the others pardoned. What was the consequence of such conduct? Why, the most ready obedience to the laws was restored. Why did not the present rulers of the country act in |