JUNE 21.

REPORT FROM THE COMMITTEE ON SMUGGLING.

On this day Mr. Pitt moved several resolutions as the foundation of the act, since known by the name of the Commutation Act; and from which the principal benefit expected was the ruin of the smuggling trade.

MR. SHERIDAN said, the credit of this plan was neither due to the noble lord nor the right honourable gentleman, as he must well know himself; because he could not be ignorant, that Lord John Cavendish had it in his intention to do the very same thing; nay, had the right honourable gentleman asked for them, he would have given him two bills ready drawn upon the subject. Mr. Sheridan said farther, that it was not ingenuous in the right honourable gentleman to assume a merit which he must know did not belong to him, since he might have found traces of the bills alluded to in office.

JUNE 28.

MR. SHERIDAN begged leave to inform the right hon. gentleman, Mr. Pitt, that the act for appointing commissioners to take into consideration the state of the public accounts, would expire on Saturday se'nnight: and to ask him if he intended to bring in a bill for continuing a commission from which so much public advantage might be derived.

Mr. Pitt replied it was his intention.

JULY 1.

RESOLUTIONS OF THE COMMITTEE OF WAYS AND MEANS. COAL TAX.

Sir John Wrottesley observed, he had come down determined to take the sense of the house against the coal tax.

MR. SHERIDAN earnestly deprecated the honourable baronet's taking the sense of the house on the coal tax that day. He pointed out the extreme unfairness of opposing any tax in that stage. How could the honourable baronet know whether every possible objection might not be cured by some regulation or other contained in the bill? How did he know that Scotland might not be wholly exempt from the tax? (a loud laugh.) It certainly, Mr. Sheridan said, was possible; and till the bill was before them, no man had a right to contend that Scotland

would not be exempted, although he was aware the right honourable gentleman had said, he meant to extend the tax to Scotland. Mr. Sheridan declared, if his worthy friend did divide the house, he would divide with the Chancellor of the Exchequer against him.

Sir John withdrew his intention.

HOLDERS OF NAVY BILLS.

An offer of great extent had been made to the holders of navy bills, under which they were to receive what was described to be an equivalent in discharge of their bills. Mr. Eden stated, that if the offer was accepted by the holders of recent bills in point of date, and rejected by the holder of the oldest bill, the inference would be, that those who had a sacred claim from seniority to be first paid, would be forcibly postponed to others; and inquired whether if any loss should result to them in consequence, or any inconvenience, they would not be entitled to say, that they are suffering by the false faith of the public? Mr. Pitt in reply, said, he could not admit that the offer could be productive of any breach of public faith; it was a substitution, and not a payment, and that creditors who chose to stand out would have it in their power.

MR. SHERIDAN argued, that this answer was not satisfactory; the word substitution could not change the nature of the thing; if the offer to the bill-holders was considered as a payment at par by the holders of the old bills; it followed, that a preferable payment was made to those who had confessedly no claim to preference; he placed this idea in several points of view. He added, that the navy-bill holders would be more disposed to hold out, because a famous speech of the Earl of Shelburne's, under which the present Chancellor of the Exchequer's situation commenced, had expressly stated, that this mode of payment should be discontinued as ruinous..

The resolutions were afterwards passed.

JULY 1.

BILL FOR THE BETTER GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.

On this day Mr. Pitt moved for leave to bring in the above bill.

MR. SHERIDAN requested the Chancellor of the Exchequer would inform him if an idea of what was gone abroad, had any foundation, that the bill for preventing of smuggling, by commutation of duties on tea, was to be abandoned; as the delay of introducing it seemed to countenance the report, and these people who viewed many parts of it in an unfavourable light, particularly the people of York, were inclined to suppose that such was the intention of the administration; and he particularly

objected to that principle of commutation which burdened the public with so extensive a tax as that on windows; which he would recommend to be laid aside, and to which he would give every opposition.

Mr. Chancellor Pitt replied, that the bill was by no means to be abandoned; but he hoped the honourable gentleman would make some allowances for the weighty and complicated business to which the detail of West India regulations must necessarily subject ministers: the experience of the honourable gentleman who had already a bill prepared for that purpose, must give him a readiness beyond men who must weigh the matter here.

Some warm and rather ill-humoured expressions dropped between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan, when the house interfered, and put a stop to the conversation.

JULY 13.

ELECTION WRITS.

Lord Beauchamp moved for leave to bring in a bill for regulating the power of the Speaker, in regard to the issuing of writs for the election of members in cases of death during the recess of parliament. The Attorney-general was of opinion, that a power might be given in the same bill to the Speaker to issue a writ in case of a vacancy, occasioned during the recess, by a member's accepting of a place.

MR. SHERIDAN wondered that the honourable gentleman did not feel that it by no means became that house to facilitate its members in the obtainment of places under the crown. Mr. Sheridan said, there was a manifest difference between a borough remaining unrepresented a short time during the recess of parliament, and its continuing unrepresented while the parliament was sitting. Mr. Sheridan introduced the conduct of the High Bailiff of Westminster, and the case of the Westminster scrutiny, by way of elucidating his argument.

The motion was put and carried.

JULY 16.

EAST INDIA BILL.

Mr. Pitt moved that the bill be read, paragraph by paragraph.

MR. SHERIDAN said that so far from the consent of the company actually being with the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Pitt), in his present measure, that he thought himself authorised to ask, if he had not even had the dissent of the company signified to him? And if they had not a meeting postponed to Tuesday from yesterday, to take into consideration several objections which they expressed to have to the present bill.

JULY 19.

EAST INDIA BILL.

The order of the day having been read for the house to resolve itself into a committee, in order to procceed in filling up the blanks, and amending the clauses of the East India bill,

MR. SHERIDAN rose and observed, that when the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Pitt) had opened the subject of the present bill, though he had stated it as his intention to combine the three objects of it together, and put them all in one bill; yet he had not signified any determination tenaciously to adhere to that purpose, but had given the house to understand, that if it should be the wish of any number of gentlemen to have them separated, that he should have no objection. Mr. Sheridan declared, that the part of the bill that went to the institution of a new judicature, was of so much importance, that he could not but wish extremely that it was separated and put into a distinct bill. He reminded Mr. Pitt, that he had himself stated his ideas upon that part of the bill, as by no means settled, and confirmed in his own mind; but had rather thrown them out as hints of what he thought might be done; and had called upon gentlemen, in a very candid way, for their sentiments, in order that, by their assistance, the institution of a new tribunal might be so modified and guarded, as to leave little room for objection. Mr. Sheridan said, emboldened by these sentiments of the right honourable gentlemen, he now rose with the hopes of persuading the right honourable gentleman to divide his bill into two at least, by which means that which related to the institution of the new judicature might come fairly under consideration, and receive that distinct degree of discussion, which the very great importance of it, and the serious effect it would have on the criminal jurisdiction of this country, well entitled it to. As no delay would be occasioned by this division of the bill, and as every possible purpose the right honourable gentleman could propose to himself, from going on with the whole of it as one bill, would be effectually answered, he trusted there could be no objection to such a proposition; and therefore he moved, "That it be an instruction to the committee, that the bill be divided into two bills."

Mr. Pitt, in reply, partly consented to Mr. Sheridan's proposition; but in a subsequent speech retracted, on the ground that since he had first spoken, he had

learned from the friends around him, that they were extremely averse from acceding to the measure of dividing the bill into two.

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MR. SHERIDAN wished the right honourable gentleman had adhered to his former concession; though he acknowledged he was so seldom guilty of conceding to that side of the house, that he had feared his condescension would not continue till the question was put. With regard to what the right honourable gentleman had said relative to the lords, he thought the right honourable gentleman paid the understanding of their lordships a bad compliment; and relied less than he ought upon a house so full of his friends. If he was afraid of their not either comprehending the bill if it went up in parts, or receiving it cordially, let it go up in any shape the right honourable gentleman might choose to give it. As to the subject matters of the bill going to one object, undoubtedly it did so; but they were to all intents and purposes three distinct bills; and as not an hour would have been lost by the separation, he still hoped the right honourable gentleman would reconsider what might be termed his reconsideration; and reconcede what he had just retracted. Had the right honourable gentleman remained firm to his concession, it would be fair to say they would have gained a point; because he was persuaded many who approved of the former parts of the right honourable gentleman's bill, did not approve of that relative to the new judicature; in like manner, he made no scruple to acknowledge, that many who were most partial to the bill that had been brought in by his right honourable friend (who was not then present), before Christmas, had their doubts as to the plan that he had in contemplation, with regard to providing a system of jurisdiction applicable to the trial of the East India delinquents. If the bill had been divided, all those who held there had existed no peculation in India; that it was the scene of purity and integrity; that no oppression had been practised; no tyranny exercised over the natives: that rapine was unknown in the different territories we had acquired in the neighbouring princes' domains; and that out of five hundred persons who had gone to India, only thirty had returned to England, and all of them without any fortunes at all, must necessarily have voted against the tribunal bill; because men entertaining and avowing such opinions, would surely never consent to subjecting their friends and principles, their relations and employers, to so severe,