must be, to combine security with economy. It was on this principle, that, owing to the unsettled state of the world at present, it had become necessary, on many remote stations, to keep up a very considerable naval force, for the purpose of inspiring that confidence which was so indispensable to the prosperity of our commerce. The knowledge that there was a British flag in remote seas, gave to the merchant the earnest of security and protection for carrying on his traffic. To prevent any danger, the sure way was to give no opportunity for attack, by keeping up a strong force wherever it was most probable it could in any case be meditated. On the particular station alluded to by the hon. baronet, it was necessary to have a strong force for securing the safe custody of the individual confined there. As to the establishment at home, it had been found better, with a view to economy, instead of completely reducing the fleet and retaining only guard-ships, to keep the guard-ships at a very low rate, and to have at the same time other ships fit for service. It was a great advantage, in every respect, to have ships ready to be sent on foreign service. at the shortest warning. The noble lord said, he could not sit down without adverting to what had fallen from several honourable gentlemen in the course of the debate, as to the jealousy to be entertained towards foreign powers increasing their navy. He should be sorry if in that House, or out of doors, any inference was to be drawn to inculcate a belief that government entertained any feeling of jealousy on this subject towards any foreign state. As to America, it had been said, that the people of that country were jealous of us; and to a certain extent, perhaps, this was said with truth, but at the same time it was to be recollected, that in this country there existed great prejudices against America. It was his most earnest wish to discountenance this feeling on both sides, and to promote between the two nations, feelings of reciprocal amity and regard. Certainly there were no two countries whose interests were more naturally and closely connected; and he hoped that the course which the government of each country was pursuing, was such as would consolidate the subsisting peace, and promote harmony between the nations, so as to prevent on either side the recurrence of any acts of animosity. Above all he deprecated the | spirit of imputation against foreign governments, which, with whatever intention they might be thrown out, were always productive of the worst consequences. Conjectures on counsels not understood, were ignorantly hazarded, even on matters unconnected with the affairs of this country. He was happy that on this subject he had met with an ally in the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Ponsonby), and hoped they would cordially co-operate in the encouragement of feelings of friendship and good-will between America and this country. Mr. Ponsonby said, he had never heard any expressions on his side of the House, calculated to excite jealousy in the mind of any foreign power; if he had, he should have felt it his duty to reprobate it. Lord Castlereagh said, it was probable the right hon. gentleman was not in the House on the occasion to which he referred, but he assured him that the gentleman to whom he had alluded, had uttered observations which were calculated to excite jealousy in every state, with which we were in alliance, except America. Mr. Forbes entered at some length into the subject of remunerating the officers of the navy. He complained, that their case had never been properly considered by the House. Much had been said about placing the army and navy on the same footing, in the matter of the erection of a monument; but the subject to which he wished the House to direct its attention was of infinitely greater importance; it was, that the officers of the navy should be placed on the same footing with those of the army, as to pay and promotion. He enlarged on the advantages which the country had derived from the navy, whose services had absolutely effected the salvation of the country. He then complained of the situation of the officers in that service, as compared with those in the army, especially contrasting the hard service, scanty pay, and tediousness of promotion in the case of a midshipman, with that of a volunteer or ensign in the army. He took occasion strongly to animadvert on the remissness of the officers of the navy, who had seats in that House, in not bringing this matter forward, and proposing some addition to the half-pay. Referring to the monument which had been voted to the navy, and the miserable state of its officers, he remarked, that as to what the House had done for them, it might be truly said, that when they asked for bread they had given them a stone. Some poor naval officer, passing this monument, might perhaps read his own name inscribed upon it, when he had not a shilling in his pocket to pay for his dinner. The army was amply provided for, and he was heartily glad to see it; but he was very much afraid that the day might be long looked for before the navy was put upon the same footing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed, that in the course of the debate those discussions had very properly been deprecated, which tended to excite a feeling of jealousy towards foreign powers. What, then, was to be said of those who inconsiderately threw out what could only tend to excite dissentions between the two great classes of the public service? The hon. member who spoke last, had no right to conclude, that although no addition had at this time been proposed to the half-pay of the navy, that it was not proposed to increase the pensions. If the hon. gentleman had only waited until the proper time, when this subject would be brought before the house, he would have heard, what he was now happy to statethat government had given to the navy what would place them on exactly the same footing with the army. But even if the hon. gentleman, with the means of information open to him, had inquired, he would have found, that by comparing the half-pay of the navy now with what it had formerly been, it was as great as it could be made, and equal in proportion to the increase made in the army. It was, however, he was aware, impolitic entirely to assimilate the services. He only desired that gentlemen would take the pains, before they made their declarations in the House, to see how the matter stood with regard to former years, and it would be seen that in many cases the navy had much the advantage of the army. These were, however, subjects which would in a few days come under discussion, and therefore this premature debate could not be too much deprecated. He could answer for the government, that it was their earnest desire to do justice to both branches of the service; but he would remind the House how easy it was for gentlemen to lavish away the public money in detail, and complain of it in the gross. Every one must be aware of the difficulty of arranging such a subject as the present, with fairness and justice on all sides; but if it should be found that there was any disproportion of advantages either on the one side or the other, he should be ready to receive any hints that would be given, as far as the present situation of the country would admit. Mr. Forbes denied that he had ever entertained a disposition to sow dissentions between the army and navy; he was incapable of conduct so base. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not impute to the hon. gentleman any thing so base as a deliberate intention to excite jealousies, but wished he had well considered the subject before he had brought it forward in the way he had done. Sir Joseph Yorke was much surprised at hearing the hon. gentleman state that there was no officer in that House who on any occasion came forward and took part in endeavouring to benefit the officers of the navy, and considered that hon. gentleman was bound to apologize in a parliamentary way to the House, for his observations to that purport. Lord Palmerston reminded gentlemen that the navy had received pensions for wounds which the army did not do till 1811; but as far as possible both services had been put precisely upon the saine footing. Mr. Forbes again, in explanation, observed that he had before said that officers in that House had taken no part on this subject on the present occasion. The hon. admiral had risen that night, and he hoped to see him rise and do his duty upon all future occasions. In his own observations he perceived nothing improper or unparliamentary, nor any thing which required an apology to the hon. admiral, or any other person in the House. Admiral Moorshem said, that although neither himself nor the other naval officers in that House were in the habit of participating often in the debates; yet they were not idle elsewhere. As a proof of this, in the last year, 1000 midshipmen, without favour or partiality, had been promoted to the rank of lieutenants, according to the length of their service. Mr. Forbes was quite satisfied with this last statement. Had he known the fact sooner, he would not have agitated the subject. to. The several resolutions were then agreed COMMITTEE OF WAYS AND MEANS.] The House having resolved itself into a Committee of Ways and Means, necessary, unless the office of vice-chancellor was to be a permanent one; and against its permanency he must strongly protest on the same grounds on which he had formerly protested against its institu tion. The office had turned out to be productive of greater inconveniences than he had himself expected; and as to any assistance to the chancellor, he could say, that not one original cause had been tried in the minor court. As to the indecorum of having no place of sitting except one that was lent, it was an indecorum to which the greatest chancellors-lords Hardwicke, Camden, and Thurlow, had submitted without any diminution of the dignity of their characters. The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed, that in the present thin appearance of the House, it was not his intention to enter into any lengthened statement; he should confine himself to the bare mention of the nature of the different propositions to which he should call upon them to assent. It was his intention, in the first place, to move the ordinary annual taxes, and next, in order to defray the expenditure voted in the committee of supply, to move an issue of eleven millions of exchequer bills. There were two others sums of four millions and a half, and one million and a half, but he should reserve them for a future consideration. He should merely hint, that it had been usual to make part of the grant of one year applicable to the expenses of the The right hon. gentleman then moved, first, the ordinary war taxes on malt, &c.; next, the ordinary annual taxes on pensions, offices, &c.; and lastly, the issue of eleven millions of exchequer bills: -all these resolutions were agreed to, and the House resumed. next. COMMITTEE TO PROVIDE ACCOMMODATION FOR COURT OF CHANCERY.] The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose to make his proposed motion for providing accommodation for the vicechancellor. It was, he apprehended, merely necessary to state the inconvenience to which the vice-chancellor was at present subject, to induce the House to agree to his motion. He would not dwell on the indecorum of the first law officer in the kingdom having no accommodation for the transaction of business except what was gratuitously allowed him, for it was well known that he sat merely by permission in Lincoln's-Inn; but he must call to the consideration of the House, that the vice-chancellor had no place for business, except a room so small as to be injurious to the health of those who practised in it. He should not propose any particular mode of accommodating this law officer, nor should he point out any fund to be applied to that purpose, but he should move generally, "That a select committee be appointed, to consider of the means of affording accommodation for transacting the business of the court of chancery." Sir Samuel Romilly objected to the motion, because he conceived any accommo. dation of the kind contemplated to be un Lord Castlereagh insisted that the office had at least been beneficial in one respect, as it had allowed the chancellor sitting in the court of supreme resort to decide a great many more appeals than he had done in former years. For the three years preceding the appointment of the new office, the average number of appeals tried was 24; for the three years since the appointment, the average was 65. And though it might be true, that no original causes had been settled by the vice-chancellor, yet he had disposed of a vast deal of business which must otherwise have occupied the time of the chancellor. In the three years he had disposed of no less than 17,000 different proceedings. Upon the whole, he could not but consider an office useful which tended, in even the smallest degree, to prevent delay in the administration of justice; and of the delay of the chancery court some idea might be formed, when he assured the House that the balances now lying undisposed of in that court amounted to 30 millions. Sir Samuel Romilly fully allowed the extent of the evil of delay. Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Wrottesley, and Mr. Wetherall argued, that it was agreed on all hands that some assistant to the chancellor was necessary for the dispatch of business, and that assistant, whatever he was, ought to have a room for the transaction of his business. The motion was then agreed to, and a committeee was appointed. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Thursday, February 15. PETITION FROM THE CORPORATION of London reSPECTING TITHES.] The sheriffs of London presented at the bar, a petition from the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons, of the city of London, in common council assembled, setting forth, "That an act was passed in the 37th year of king Henry 8, intituled, an act for tithes in London; and that the said act directed that the decree to be made in consequence thereof should, within a certain period, be inrolled in the high court of chancery, and should remain and be as an act of parliament, and should bind as well all citizens and inhabitants of the said city and liberties for the time being, as the parsons, vicars, and curates of the parishes within the said city, and their successors for ever, according to the effect, purport, and intent of the said order and decree so to be made and enrolled; and that the petitioners have caused diligent search to be made for the enrolment of the said decree in the records of rolls chapel, but no such decree can there be found, and, upon inspecting the original of the said act of parliament in the office of the clerk of the parliaments, it does not appear that any such decree is either annexed thereto, or to be found amongst the records in the said office; the petitioners have, however, found that a decree made under the authority of the said act was registered in the bishop of London's registry on the 25th of February 1545, by which decree the yearly sum of sixteen pence was directed to be paid for every ten shillings rent of all houses, shops, warehouses, cellars, and stables, within the said city, and the sum of two shillings and nine pence for every twenty shillings rent of such houses, and other buildings; and that, by an act passed in the 22nd and 23d years of king Charles 2, intituled, "an act for the better settlement of the maintenance of the parsons, vicars, and curates in the parishes of the city of London burnt by the late dreadful fire there," it was recited that the tithes in the said city were levied and paid with great inequality, and it was thereby enacted that a yearly sum of money, in lieu of tithes, should be levied on the inhabitants of certain parishes in the said city destroyed by the said fire; and that the annual sums directed by the last-mentioned act to be paid to the several parsons, vicars, and curates of the said parishes, in lieu of tithes, were, from the best information the petitioners are able to obtain, very far below what they would have amounted to if they had been calculated according to the provisions of the first-mentioned act, or what would have been payable if the last-mentioned act had not been made; and that the petitioners, in consequence of applications made to them by the inhabitants of several of the parishes of the city of London not destroyed by fire in 1666, and who are not included in the act of king Charles 2, caused an investigation of the tithes payable in the said parishes to be made by a committee of common council, from whose report the petitioners are convinced that the said tithes are levied with great inequality; and that, by the prosecution of the claims of the clergy, with a view to their increase to the extent specified in the said decree, numbers of the citizens and inhabitants of the said city (many of whom are tenants of the estates of the petitioners in the said parishes) have been harassed and oppressed by vexatious and expensive law-suits; and that the petitioners, anxious to put an end to a system that appeared pregnant with dangers to our national establishment, and likely to engender discord and animosity, endeavoured to open a negociation with the several persons interested in the tithes of the said several parishes, with a view to an amicable arrangement upon liberal terms, but which has been constantly evaded or rejected; and praying the House to take the premises into their serious consideration, and grant such just and equitable relief as the nature and circumstances of the case shall appear to the House to require." Ordered to be referred to a committee. PETITION FROM LONDON RESPECTING AUCTION ROOMS.] The sheriffs also presented a Petition from the corporation of London, setting forth, "That frauds and deceptions are carried on to a considerable extent by means of numerous auction rooms for the sale of manufactured goods in small lots, in various parts of the metropolis, and most of the provincial towns, to the great injury of the manufacturer, the fair trader, and the public in general; and that they have long become an intolerable public nuisance, not only by the number of persons collected together, and the cheats and deceptions there practised, but by the powerful inducements they hold out to swindling, to unprincipled persons to obtain goods upon credit to defraud their creditors, and to servants to rob their employers, as well also as by the frauds committed upon the public revenue; and that they tend to encourage the manufacture of inferior and disreputable articles, to the great injury of the manufactures and commerce of the country, and which will now prove still more injurious, when we shall have to contend against the rival manufactures of other nations; and that, while the persons vending at these sales elude that responsibility, as well as various taxes, which attach to the regular trader, disreputable articles are not only vended with impunity, but, as the petitioners are well informed, the auction duty is to a great extent evaded; and that memorials have been presented to the lords commissioners of his majesty's treasury, and petitions to the House, but no remedy has yet been obtained for these grievances; and that a bill was brought into the House in the year 1814, with the concurrence of the chancellor of the exchequer, but afterwards withdrawn on account of some informality, but, for causes unknown to the petitioners, the same was not again introduced; and praying the House to take these serious grievances into consideration, and grant such relief in the premises as to them shall seem meet." Ordered to lie upon the table. MONEY PAID BY FRANCE TO THIS COUNTRY.] Sir James Mackintosh said, that in consequence of the claim which had been set up by the chancellor of the exchequer on the part of the Crown, to the right of disposing of the money which had been, or was to be, paid by the government of France to this country, he thought it his duty to bring the subject before the House. He should bring on the question, certainly not as a mere theoretical point of law, but as a question of constitutional practice, and he should at once have named the day, if he had not wished to wait a reasonable time to enable ministers to take such steps as might render the discussion unnecessary. He should state what he considered would be such an acknowledgment as would be sufficient: it was not the forbearing to urge the claim in words, nor the appropriating merely the money to the public service, because the form in which that money was applied would constitute the acknowledgment of the right of parliament. The money received should be placed at the previous disposal, as well as being subject to the consequent control of parliament; and the same rules should be observed as to the issue of it, as to any other public money. He conceived he should betray his trust as a representative of the British nation in parliament, if he were satisfied with any other recantation of the claim which had been set up. The hon. gentleman said he should not at present fix any day for his motion. ADDRESS FOR ACCOUNTS OF PEACE ESTABLISHMENTS.] On the motion of lord Milton, it was ordered, "That there be laid before this House, a return of the expense and numerical amount of the peace establishments, military and naval, for the years 1714, 1730, 1749, and 1764." It was also resolved, "That an humble address be presented to the Prince Regent, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, the best accounts that can be formed for showing the average_numbers and expense of the military and naval establishments maintained by this country in the several periods of peace from the treaty of Utrecht to the commencement of the American war." IMPROVEMENTS IN PALL MALL OPPOSITE CARLTON HOUSE.] Mr. Baring rose to move for accounts, to which, he apprehended, no objection would be given; he meant, a return of all sums of money expended, and contracted to be expended for the improvement of Pall-Mall, opposite Carlton-house. Mr. Huskisson said, so far was he from objecting to give information upon this subject, that he felt much indebted to the hon. gentleman for affording him an opportunity to state that which, he trusted, would put an end to some misconceptions which had gone abroad upon this subject. With respect to information as to the money expended in the improvements opposite Carlton-house, it was impossible for him to give any, as the public office with which he was connected had nothing to do with that expenditure. He was aware that some alterations had taken place in the buildings opposite Carltonhouse, from which, he apprehended, the misconception to which he alluded had arisen. These, however, were wholly attributable to the caprice of private indivi duals, and were in no respect connected with the general execution of the plan of |