The house divided, and the numbers were-For the original motion, 65-for the amendment, 37. The bill was accordingly passed, and ordered to the Lords. FINANCE RESOLUTIONS.. The house having, on the motion of Mr. Martin, resolved into a committee upon the the third report of the finance committee, Mr. Bankes rose and moved the reading of the second resolution, which being read accordingly, the hon. gentle man expressed his intention of moving an amendment. It had been observed by many gentlemen, that sinecure offices ought not to be abolished until some other fund should be created, from which his Majesty might be enabled to make that provision for long and effcient public services which those occasions afforded. Now the object of his proposed amendment would be to couple the abolition of sinecures with the substitution of such a fund. He therefore hoped for a general acquiescence in his motion, which was grounded upon the principle of moderate reform, and which, while it did away obnoxious ofti ces, would establish a fund in their room, calculated to answer every object which those who pleaded for the existence of such offices professed to have in view. The i.. member concluded with proposing the amendment he had described. Mr. Martin said, that however much he felt disposed to prefer his original resolution, still he would vote for the hon. gentleman's amendment. If the abolition of sinecure offices were proposed without any substitute, it should certainly have his support. Mr. Long saw no advantage that could result from the adoption of the original motion, or his honourable friend's amendment. Siniecures ought, in his judgment, to be confined solely to civil officers, and therefore he combated the idea of granting a sinecure to Lord Wellington or Lord Nelson. Lord Althorp asserted that the influence of the crown had increased insomuch that, in order to preserve the balance of the constitution, it was desirable that that influence should be reduced. Therefore the total abolition of sinecures would meet his approbation. Mr. W. Smith contended that the abuses in the grants of sinecure places preponderated over any advantage which the country could derive from their continuance. Mr. Bastard declared it absolutely necessary for the extended patronage of the crown, and extended burthens of the people, to follow up the principle of retrenchment in every department of the state. There was a ferment abroad ; and the surest way to disarm those actuated by improper hopes, was to afford reasonable indulgence to the great body of the people. He concluded with ob serving, that even if the house was not inclined to be honest from principle, the time was now come when it should be se from necessity! Mr. Wharton asserted that the influence of the crown had of late actually diminished. Mr. Whithread said, with respect to these sinecures, the country bad but one opinion; from the system of favouritism pursued and the abuses visible in the way in which they were conferred, scarcely a man out of the doors of that house could be found their advocate. They were not suited to the taste of the army nor to the navy; but, in the language of the hon. secretary, they were fitted for the civil departmentthat was, for such efficient public servants as the learned secretary himself. Mr. Whitbread concluded with expressing his regret that the resolutions were confounded. He would, however, vote for the abolition, in any shape, of sucha monstrous exactions. Mr. Perceval warmly denied that any real advantage would be gained to the people by the abolition of such places. A Lord Milton had only one observation which he was anxious to make. sinecure, when once granted, must be conferred anew, whether there was or was not a deserving person ready to receive it. This was not the case with a pension. As to the influence of the crown, he thought it had increased in a very rapid degree. He was not a person whose sentiments would be suspec ted; but he would rather consent to be plundered of his property than to give up his liberties. The motion, therefore, had his support. Mr. P. Moore was of opinion the present motion did not by any means go far enough. He was for the direct abolition of every sinecure office, as called for, and indeed indispensibly necessary in the present state of the country. This was his opinion, and he could not agree to any thing like a drawback upon it. A systematic plan seemed to have been adopted, not to let the complaints of the people reach the ear of the Sovereign; and, in this situation of things, peculiar attention ought to be paid that the people were not unnecessarily burthened. The gallery was then cleared, and on a division, Mr. Bankes's motion was negatived, the numbers being, For the motion 93-Against it 99. Friday, March 18. SUPPLIES. as such part of the LEX TERRÆ mentioned in MAGNA CHARTA, under which terms (LEX TERRÆ) were to be comprehended the exceptions to the JUDICIUM PARIUM Summary proceeding for contempt by the ordinary courts of law, and by the houses of parliament-that the committee were of opinion, that the privilege was founded on the clearest principle of expediency, and as well established as any part of the law of the land, and that it was one of the best safeguards of the rights and liberties of the subject. In the committee of supply the sum of six millions was granted to his Majesty, to pay the exchequer bills outstanding, and unprovided for; the sum of 5,000l. to pay off annuities; the sum of 46,7881. for erecting buildings for the naval asy-report must be recorded on the lum; the sum of 25,0001. for re building public edifices destroyed by fire, in the island of Trinidad in 1808; the sum of 23,000l. for maintaining our settlements on the coast of Africa; and the sum of 10001. for the Veterniary College. COMMITTEE OF PRIVILEGES Mr. D. Giddy brought up a sccond report from the committee appointed to consider the notices of action sent by Sir F. Burdett. The report was read at the table by the clerk, and is in substance nearly as follows:-- That the committee had examined the precedents most closely connected with the subject, to which their attention had been directed. They had particularly adverted to the case of libel-that the house had always held them to be contempts, and had proceeded against them by summary attachment-that this privilege was founded on immemorial usage, as much as any part of the law was usage, as clear as would be required in any ordinary court of law to establish a right-that the ordinary courts of law had the right of proceeding against libel on themselves as contempts, by summary attachment-that this right was a fundamental law of parliament, and Mr. D. Giddy moved that the report be laid on the table and printed. Mr. Perceval observed, that the journals-a much more solemn act of the house, than an order to print. Lord Milton was for rejecting the report, and should move that the report should be re-committed. Mr. Whitbread would ask if the committee meant to print the appendix in the state it then was? He described it as overrun with crasures made by the pen, the pencil, and the penknife. In the appendix there were also extracts from Adam's reports, which had been subsequently corrected by the insertion, ATKYN'S Reports. Eleven precedents were also cited as immoveable rocks of our privileges, but of those eleven rocks It appeared that second thoughts had swept away four by erasures. The honourable gentleman proceeded to animadvert upon the indecorous haste evinced in the manner and circumstances of the report itself, and begged gentlemen who had any doubt upon the sub ject, would satisfy themselves by reading the report itself. Mr. Rose admitted that the report was rather slovenly transcribed, but an objection of that kind, could be casily remedied. Sir S. Romilly thought that the report ought not to have given the CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. Mr. Grattan commenced an eloquent speech by observing, that whatever others might think, it appeared to him a subject of vital importance -important to the security and integrity of the Empire, and important as involving the enfranchisement of a considerable portion of our countrymen. The ground upon which he meant to rest his motion was the extension of British privilege and the exclusion of foreign nomination. There were two modes of effecting it, the latter one was by a veto, the other by the absolute prohibition of all foreign nomination. His own opinion was in favour of the Veto; but it did not appear to him that there was any probability of inducing the catholics to accede to this arrangement. It followed then that some other mode should be adopted to effect this purpose, and that mode was domestic nomination--a nomination essentially domestic; for he knew the catholic religion too well to suppose, that it would be allowed to the civil magistrate to have all the powers which belonged to the mother church. But its powers vested in the pope as the head of the church would not be formidable, the pope was merely a spiritual power, and had no temporal jurisdiction; but should a Frenchman be made pope, this nomination would be in the person at the head of the French government. But supposing in this case that a French army should be in Ireland, would it lessen the danger of this foreign nomination that the laity were disqualified? would not this circumstance on the contrary greatly aggravate it, for there would in that case be a political separation between the catholics in Ireland, and the protestants in England; and an ecclesiastical connection beteween the catholics in Ireland and the government of France. He wished the people of England to say to the catholics of Ireland, follow your faith, we do not understand your creed, but there is one which we both understand, the creed which teaches an eternal separation of both from French politics: and it was this faith alone which could save the country. Mr. G. observed that the Irish catholics had answered the tests which had been proposed as to the effects of their principles, and in answer they had declared that they should consider any act of despotism by the pope as a, mere nullity, that they would acknowledge no person as pope who was not duly elected by the cardinals. They had declared the conduct of the French Emperor towards the pope to be that of sacrilege. With these sentiments the catholics of Ireland would not hesitate for a moment to refuse as the head of the church any person who should be appointed by Bonaparte to the see of Rome. The Roman Catholics knew extremely well that they had within themselves the nomination of catholic bishops, that all the spiritual qualities might remain in the pope, and yet the nomination be entirely domestic; and what was more, they had agreed to it as was evinced by their resolutions in 1799. But even admitting that Bonaparte had the appointment of the prelate who was at the head of the catoolic religion, the catholics of Ireland were persuaded that no religion ought to make a man obey the enemy of his country. Mr. G. said, he had no doubt that when this was fully considered, the catholics of Ireland would have no hesitation in estabilshing a domestic nomination, which would have the effect of isolating the Irish catholics from the pope, and in that case they would be fully entitled to every civil right which the protestants enjoyed. With respect to the communication of those rights to the catholics, he thought there could be no difficulty. It would be as easy for the house to give these rights as for the catholics to concede the principle of domestic nomination. In fact the principle upon which these rights were withheld was the most unjust and arbitrary imaginable: Parliament had disqualified one fourth of the people of the Empire for believing in transubstantiation, adoring the Virgin Mary, and receiving from the pope certain explications of scripture. To shew the absurdity of this, he would suppose that a catholic was charged with treason, and these matters should be attempted to be given in evidence; would not the very attempt be treated with the utmost contempt, and the judge who should suffer such evidence to go to a jury would be punished by impeachment, and yet upon this ground had the legislature deprived a numerous people of their just rights. To the charges preferred against the catholics innumerable answers had been given. He should reduce these answers within a narrow compass, they were the answers given by six universities, the names of which he enumerated; they denied that the pope had any temporal power in this country-they denied that the pope or cardinals had a deposing power-they dis claimed the doctrine of no faith being kept with heretics-the infallibility of the pope--and the doctrine of unqualified absolution. Nay more, in addition to the security afforded by the above answers, the catholics of Ireland, were willing to swear to defend the protestant establishment of church and state, this oath had been taken by the catholics generally. The catholics had thus answered the tests proposed to them by the protestants. The hon. gentleman proceeded to comment on the improbability of these charges being true, for the charges amounted to no less than a general imputation that they were willing to transfer their allegiance from their natural sovereign to their natural enemy, and that they acted upon principles subversive of civil society. These charges supposed a degree of depravity in catholics more inveterate than could be found in heathens, or the disciples of Mahomet, and that the christian religion had produced a worse effect on the salvation of men than the most gross idolatry. But government had themselves repelled these calumnies by forming treaties with, and subsidizing every catholic country on the continent, with the exception of France. But he supposed he should be answered that the objection was not to the catholic religion, but to the Irish Catholic. But whence does this imputation arise? It could not arise from physical causes, and he had never heard of moral plague, still less a sectarian plague, that passed the door of a protestant and stopt at that of a catholic. The cause of this disaffection was referrable to the laws and to the government; to the laws which took away their property, their liberty, their army. This was, in fact, a charge not against the Irish people, but against England. It amounted to a declaration that we had been in possession of their country for upwards of 500 years, and that the result of this connection was the hatred and alienation of the people. Mr. Grattan observed, that the penal laws inflicted punishments upon the Irish catholics, not for their acts, but for their opinions. We chuse to enter tain of them an opinion for which there can be no grounds but what has arisen from our own oppressive conduct. It has been contended that the fundamental laws of the empire, as exemplified in the Bill of Rights, presents an insuperable barrier against the communication of equal rights to our catholic subjects. But upon what was the Bill of Rights founded? Upon two great propositions; first it asserted, that civil and religious liberty was the inheritance of the subjects of these realms. Sccondly, that a violation of that inheritance, was a forfeiture of the crown. But was it to be contended, that because parliament had chosen to limit the succession to the crown to the protestant line, that therefore it had taken away all the rights of catholic subjects? No inference could be more illogical or absurd. He admitted that the qualifying oath was an objection, but by no means a fundamental one, the foundation of it was the madness of the moment, it had been introduced about the time of the pretended catholic plot, which heing now universally held to be a base fabrication, the law to which it gave rise ought to have shared in the same contempt. Sure ly a declaration of rights, of those rights which had been obtained by our catholic ancestors, could not be considered as a fundamental objection against the rights of the present catholics of Ireland. The rights of the people were not the gift of the King aud parliament, but the people were the foundation of both, for parliament did not make the people or their own privileges, but it was the people that made the parliament. He then referred to the terms of the coronation VOL. WIT. oath, by which the King swore to maintain the religion of the land as by law established; but the assent of the King to a law improving the condition of the Irish catholics, could not possibly be deemed a violation of this oath. The disabilities which affected the Irish catholics, supposed the protestant church to rest on pains and penalties, and the word of God to be founded on tyranny. If the interpretation which some put on the coronation oath was the true one, it was in effect compelling the first magistrate of the country to take an oath against the franchises of his people, of calling upon God to witness so unnatural an obligation. If this interpretation was just, how of ten had his Majesty been thanked for what in that case would have been considered as a violation of his oath. Mr. Grattan insisted that the catholics of Ireland did not deserve, by their conduct, the severities that affected them; the English parliament in effect said to them, "We have broken your hearts and your fortunes, and all we desire of you is, that you will lay down your lives in our service." The house by repealing the laws by which the rights of the catholics were restrained, by doing which they would not only perform an act of justice, but materially add to the strength of the empire; for the debasing light in which the catholics of Ireland had been treated, tended to debase their minds, and to prepare them for a foreign invader. If the enjoyment of civil liberty by the ca tholics be incompatible with the security of the protestants, and that it was necessary to declare so by act of parliament, it must be expressed thus: "Whereas the French nation has prevailed against all the powers of the continent, and whereas we have no reliance for support but in our fellow-subjects, therefore be it enacted that one-fourth part of our fellow subjects be disqualified." |