9. That it is therefore expedient to repeal so much of an act of last session for the regulation of the corn trade, as permits the warehousing of foreign corn at all times, duty free.

10. That in order further to promote the appropriation of part of our present abundance, and reserve it for future consumption, it is expedient to aid the means of those individuals who may be disposed so to employ their capitals, by an advance of exchequer bills to a limited amount.

11. That excessive taxation renders it necessary to give protection to all articles, the produce of our own soil, against similar articles, the growth of foreign countries, not subject to the same burthens, and in conformity with that policy which has been uniformly observed, of protecting by duties, and encouraging by bounties or drawbacks, all our other manufactures.

12. That it is therefore expedient to impose additional duties and restrictions on the importation of all articles, the produce of foreign agriculture.

13. That it is expedient, under due limitation, to encourage, by bounty or drawback, the exportation of the redundant produce of the agriculture of the united kingdom.

14. That the tithe and the poor rates, to the payment of which those whose capitals are engaged in agriculture are almost exclusively subjected, have recently been felt to press with increasing and unexampled severity, and that it is therefore necessary to relieve them, as far as possible, from the operation of other burthens.

After the reading of these resolutions, the hon. member made the motion for the committee of which he had given notice,

Mr. Frankland Lewis seconded the motion in a speech which began with a refutation of the summary opinion respecting the cause of the present distress-that it was entirely owing to the peace. If (said he) the present discussion did nothing more than dispel this dangerous illusion, he should be content, as a conviction of the benefits resulting from peace was a better guarantee for its continuance than treaties. It was to the continuance of peace alone that we could look for relief under our present afflictions. The war, glorious and successful as it had been beyond all former example, had left us forty millions a year to pay as interest of debt, and also, what we were told was necessary, an establishment of at least twenty millions more. hon. member then proceeded to state his reasons for thinking that we had arrived nearly to the point beyond which the borrowing system could not be extended; and he adduced a number of facts relative to the present situation of the country, which would afford matter for future discussion.

The

Other members spoke on the occasion; but the conclusion was an unanimous agreement to the object of the motion, and the committee was fixed for the 19th. The resolutions were ordered to be printed.

Various petitions for relief from the agricultural distresses were presented to the House of Commons previously to the 28th of March, when the order of the day was moved by Mr. Western for

going into a committee of the whole House on that subject.

The discussion which succeeded took so wide a range of enquiry into the nature of the distress, and its causes and remedies, that after a variety of discordant opinions had been started by the different speakers, the House at a late hour adjourned the debate.

The resumption of this important topic did not take place till April 9th, when Mr. Western moved the order of the day for the farther consideration of the agricultural distresses of the country; at the same time, on account of the thin attendance, he said he did not feel himself disposed to urge that the House should go into the committee on that evening. He had hoped that the most persevering attention would have been given to this subject, but whether from the pressure of business, or from whatever other cause, the House had not attended to it as he could have wished.

A debate then ensued concerning the postponement of the subject till after the holidays; which was terminated by a motion of Sir Egerton Brydges for the present resumption of the adjourned debate, which being carried, the House resolved itself into a committee.

Mr. Brougham then rose, and delivered a speech, in which at considerable length he entered into an historical view of the origin and progress of the difficulties into which the nation had unhappily fallen. In this luminous exposure, which was heard with much attention, the circumstance which he stated as lying at the

root of the matter was the progress of agriculture during the period of the last war, or from the year 1792 downwards. This he traced through the operation of its several causes; and concluded, that by their united action, a start had been made in the productive powers of this island, quite unexampled in any equal period of its former history. "On the other hand (said he) when I reflect on the nature of the causes which I have enumerated, and find that most of them are of sudden occurrence, and that their combination in the space of ten years was accidental; when,. moreover, I perceive that the most material of them were of a temporary duration, and could not remain long to support the great cultivation which they had occasioned, I am disposed to think that I have got hold of a principle upon which something like an overtrading in agriculture, and a consequent redundance of produce, may be inferred to have happened." He then took into consideration the circumstances which began and continued to operate to the disadvantage of agriculture; and finally discussed the probable effects of the proposed remedies. But as the matter of this speech has been given in a separate publication, it would be useless to attempt to bring a summary of its argumentation within our compass.

Lord Castlereagh, after complimenting the hon. and learned gentleman on the ability and temperance with which he had treated the subject, entered into a discussion of several topics on which he differed from him in opinion.

opinion. The debate concluded with the chairman's reporting progress, and with leave being given by the House for the committee to sit again on the 29th instant.

No account of the further proceedings of the committee is reported till May 25th, when Mr. Frankland Lewis rose, and adverting to the continued indisposition of Mr. Western, with whom the subject had originated, said he should move for the postponement of that gentleman's resolution till his recovery. The motion for this postponement being put and carried, Mr. Lewis rose again to state his opinions on the subject of wool-regulation, which had been referred to the committee of which he had been chairman. He entered into a train of argument to prove the impolicy and unreasonableness of the existing restrictions on the exportation of wool. The general tendency of the facts adduced by him was to shew that the prosperity of a manufacture did not depend upon advantages in possessing the raw material, since our manufactures of silk and cotton were flourishing, though the raw materials were imported and paid duty, whereas we were losing ground in those of wool, notwithstanding our attempts to prevent the export of the material, to the detriment of the agriculturist. The hon. member concluded with moving the following resolution: "That it is expedient to permit the exportation of wool from all parts of the united kingdom, under such regulations as may afford protection to the manufacturer."

The resolution was opposed by some speakers, and defended by others; and Lord Castlereagh, who, with the other ministers, appears to have given little attention to the proceedings of the committee, suggested the expedience of postponing the consideration of the subject.

Mr. Baring complained that the course now pursued in the committee had no other tendency than to keep the country in total uncertainty. It was high time to put an end to these questions; for, while they were agitated, the prices of all kinds of subsistence were undergoing perpetual fluctuation: corn was raised one day, and fell the next; and the House, by prolonging this kind

of mock discussion which must end in nothing, were only favouring speculation of every kind. The best way was to set the present question once at rest, and let the people carry on their operations in peace and quiet.

Sir J. Newport observed, that the report of the agricultural committee relative to this subject had been fourteen days upon the table, and yet ministers appeared totally unacquainted with it.

The question being put, the resolution was negatived without a division.

A bill for a purpose entirely novel, but of indisputable necessity, that for the effectual detention of Napoleon Buonaparte, was introduced to the House of Commons on March 12th, by Lord Castlereagh. It consisted of two parts; one that of detaining the person in question in safe custody; the other, for regulating the intercourse with the is

land

land of St. Helena, during his detention there. His lordship said, that doubts had been entertained of the competence of the crown to detain Buonaparte a prisoner after the termination of the war, and the bill proposed was deemed necessary to remove those doubts. With respect to the justice of this detention, it was warranted on two grounds. If he was regarded as a sovereign prince, he might justly be detained in consequence of his breach of treaty, and his incapacity of affording a guaranty for the observance of any treaty: if as a prisoner of war, being a native of Corsica, he was a subject of France, which power had declined to claim his restoration. As to the policy of this measure, it was imperiously called for by a due consideration for public safety and general peace. With regard to the treatment of Buonaparte, it was proposed to extend to him every indulgence consistent with his safe custody.

Leave was given to bring in the two bills; and it does not appear that they underwent any opposition in their passage through the House of Commons.

On April 8th, on Earl Bathurst's motion for the second reading in the House of Lords of the bill for the more effectual detaining of Buonaparte in custody, Lord Holland rose, not, he said, to oppose the bill, as whatever his own opinion might be, he was aware that a majority both in parliament and out of doors were of opinion that some such proceeding was necessary; but to call attention to a circumstance connected with the bill. Soon after Buonaparte

had delivered himself up, a treaty appeared, by which Great Britain had gratuitously offered to guard and keep him. His lordship asked, why the ministers had voluntarily shackled the councils of this country by such a treaty ? Because, if we were authorized by the law of nations, and the municipal law of the country, to detain Napoleon, then we had full power to do so without this treaty. If the other powers called upon them for a treaty to effect that object, why did not the mi nisters insist in return upon some benefit for their own country especially when it was so overburthened by the immense military establishment, which they had resolved to keep on foot? His lordship went on to argue, that before passing an act, it was necessary to know what we were to legislate for--was Buonaparte a prisoner of war by the law as it now stood, or was he not? And for the decision of this point, it was necessary to desire the attendance of the judges. He then mentioned five questions relative to this subject, which he would propose to submit to the judges; and in conclusion, he moved, that the bill should be read a second time after the recess, and for that purpose the word now should be left out of the motion for the immediate reading.

Earl Bathurst said, that Buonaparte's surrender of himself did not make him the less a prisoner of war; but there might be some question whether, after a treaty of peace, he could be detained as such; and this bill had been brought in to clear all doubt on that question, and to regulate the

mode

mode of his detention. We had been acting in strict concert with other potentates; and when Napoleon was in the power of one, it followed that he must be regarded as in the power of all. As to our undertaking to keep him, it was an advantage to this country to be allowed to do it, since we should be better satisfied that it would be properly done, than if it had been committed to another. As the bill would place him in the character of a prisoner of war, which was well known in our statute book, it did not ap pear material to have it ascertained how the law stood at present in that point.

After some farther debate on the subject, Lord Holland's motion was negatived, and the bill was read a second time. His lordship entered a dissentient protest on the Journals.

On April 9th, the House of Lords being in a committee on the bill, Lord Holland rose to protest against the doctrine maintained by the noble earl (Bathurst)-that when there was an alliance between several powers, if an enemy surrendered himself to one of the powers, he was prisoner of war, not only to that power, but to all the rest, and was to be treated not only according to the pleasure of the country to which he had surrendered, but of the whole allied powers. This, he contended, was subversive of the principles of public law, and of the independence of nations.

Earl Bathurst said, that he did not mean to hold such a doctrine as that imputed to him, generally; but to argue, that the alliance in question being directed

against Buonaparte personally, not only to dispossess him of his power, but to prevent his return to power, the other potentates had a right to receive some security, that the object would be carried into effect. It was not therefore a question of general law, but the consequence of this particular treaty.

The Earl of Lauderdale maintained, that the doctrine of general law connected with this subject was of more importance than the bill, or even than the safe custody of Buonaparte; and defied the noble Earl to point out any passage in a writer on the law of nations to show that, whatever were the nature of the alliance, a prisoner of war made by one power, was to be considered as much at the disposal of the other powers as of that to which he had surrendered.

The Earl of Harrowby replied, that they were now legislating respecting a transaction of an alliance which had no parallel in the history of the world; and therefore there could be no precedent applicable to the case.

In the course of the debate, amendments and clauses were proposed by Lords Holland and Lauderdale, which were rejected, except that an objection made by the latter to the preamble, was admitted. The bill then passed the committee.

On March 14th, a message was sent from the Prince Regent to each House of Parliament announcing the marriage, with his consent, of his daughter the Princess Charlotte Augusta, with his Serene Highness Leopold George Frederick, Prince of Cobourg of

Saalfeld,