tend to Ireland, as in that country, previously to the restriction on bank payments, a difference had existed between money and paper prices.

On the motion for the third reading of the bill, July 8th, a long debate ensued, in which the whole subject was again canvassed by the different parties, though with little novelty of fact or argument. The most important suggestion on this occasion was, perhaps, that of Lord Stanhope's, in a remark upon a statement of Lord Grey's, "that it was a possible case, that the country might not be able to pay its obligations, and that the public creditors must receive in payment less than the debt. Lord S., on the other hand, held this to be an impossible case; for that no loss would fall upon the public creditor which would not equally fall upon the landed proprietor, each of them having only a portion of the national wealth. It appeared to him that the public creditors were the mortgagees, and that the other proprietors of the national wealth had not a right to take any thing till the debt was paid.

When the division took place, the third reading was carried by 43 votes against 16, and the bill passed the House.

On July 9th, the bill was introduced to the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who stated as the sole reason for its being adopted by the ministry, that the conduct of the noble lord, who had required gold in payment from his tenants, which they had thought not likely to be imitated, was openly defended, and even praised as a patriotic act

by many persons of great authority, who claimed for themselves and their friends a monopoly of all the talents and public virtues in the nation. It was therefore become a measure of necessity; for though he did not mean to question the motives which had induced that noble lord to act as he did, yet he could not conceive of any question which, if extended beyond the sphere of the concerns of the individual, could be attended with more peril to the country at large. The right honourable gentleman then proceeded to show how inconsistent it was for those who had supported Mr. Pitt in the Bank restriction act, and those who had since voted for a continuance of this restriction for two years to come, to oppose the bill in question; and after explaining the nature of the provisions it contained, he moved for the first reading.

In the debate which ensued, several members spoke warmly in opposition to the bill, upon principles nearly the same with those maintained in the House of Lords. The reading, however, passed by the majority of 64 to 19.

The second reading being moved on July 15th, the debate was renewed concerning it with much spirit, and by several new speakers. It is, however, unnecessary to protract this article by giving a sketch of reasonings which were chiefly a recapitulation of those that had been employed on both sides in the House of Lords. The result of a division was a very decisive majority in favour of ministry, the numbers being for the reading 133, against it 35.

On the 17th a motion of Mr.

Creevey's, that bank proprietors should not be allowed to vote on the present bill was negatived without a division. The House then having resolved itself into a committee on the bill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed three amendments; the first, to render the wording of the first clause more precise; the second, to introduce the words, that "every person who shall offend therein shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of a misdemeanour" the third, to extend the punishment of such offenders to Scotland; all which were agreed

to.

On the motion for the third reading of the bill, July 19th, the field was again disputed by the opposite parties, till the House became impatient for the question. The division which ensued gave 95 for the bill to 20 against it; upon which it was read the third time and passed.

Mr. Brougham afterwards rose to present certain resolutions, of which he had given notice, and by which he wished to record his opinion of the bill now passed. Several of these were put and negatived without a division.

While this matter was under discussion in the House of Commons, Lord Stanhope introduced to the House of Lords a string of resolutions relative to the circulating medium of the country. In his speech on this occasion, July 16th, he said, that if the bill now pending should pass, it would avert for a time the great mischiefs which were daily to be apprehended, but something further was to be done. He never thought his bill perfect: he had been

obliged to frame it to meet the distorted shape of the law as it stood. He then made a number of observations relative to the hardship of obliging tenants to pay gold; to the mistaken notion held by so many persons, that gold was exclusively the true medium of circulation; and to the impossibility in the present state of things of procuring it. He concluded a long speech with moving that the resolutions be printed. They were fourteen in number, of which the first asserted "that an internal circulating medium which shall be a legal measure of value is essen. tially necessary;" and the purpose of the rest was to declare that neither gold and silver, nor bank notes, possess the requisite qualities for this measure, but that it was to be found in the system of credits by book-entries which he had before suggested to the House in speaking on his bill.

Lord Lauderdale made some severe animadversions on these resolutions, but the motion for printing them was carried.

Thus terminated for the present session the discussions concerning the important subject of the circulating medium, in which it is to be lamented that the spirit of party appears to have predominated; for otherwise it is not credible that all the speakers on one side, and all on the other, should respectively have agreed in opinion concerning a measure of general policy, and not involv ing any of the points of declared difference between the ministry and the opposition. The emergency which gave origin to Lord Stanhope's bill was the necessary

consequence of causes which have been long in operation, and the effects of which admit only of temporary palliatives; and no better remedy seems to have been suggested, than that adopted. It is true, the bill made a great advance towards the measure so

much deprecated by many speakers, that of rendering bank notes a legal tender; but whether this result can be possibly averted, provided the war be long maintained upon the same scale, may well be doubted.

E

XCLUSIVELY of parliamentary proceedings, the domestic affairs of the British empire were not in general highly interesting during the present year. The commercial distresses, indicated by lists of bankrupts more numerous than were ever before known, induced among the middle classes of society a kind of desponding apathy, adapted to damp that political ardour which, in a free country, is continually exciting to action men of disengaged minds. At the same time, the uncertain state of his Majesty's health, and of the consequent duration of the regency, and the system of government likely to be pursued under it, kept persons in the superior ranks in a state of dubious expectation. With the exception, therefore, of some feeble attempts to awaken the public attention to the cause of parliamentary reform, and some of the usual party contests in the city of London, scarcely any occasions occurred to set in motion considerable bodies on a political account, in this part of the united kingdom. Another exception, indeed, might be made with respect to the alarm excited among the dissenters by Lord Sidmouth's bill; but its operation was silent, and its effect was produced before

the public at large was apprized of its existence.

Very different was the impression made on the public by the proceedings of the Catholics in Ireland, in pursuit of that restitution to the full rights of citizens which they claimed as their due, and which seemed to become a more interesting object to them, in proportion as their condition in society the more nearly approached that of their fellow-countrymen. This was, indeed, natural; for every relaxation of the shackles and disabilities under which they had long laboured being a kind of admission of the principle on which they claimed an equality of rights, there remained so much narrower a ground in argument for continuing such as still subsisted, and they were rendered the more acutely sensible of the indignity and injustice of restrictions of any kind.

In our account of the parliamentary debates concerning Mr. W. Pole's circular letter much has been anticipated with respect to the measures adopted by the Catholic Committee in Dublin. It there appeared to have been the plan of the Irish Catholics, at least of the major part of that body, to form a standing delegation in the capital, consisting of ten persons elected

from each county, which should take the management of their affairs, not only for the purpose of petitioning, but for that of redressing the general grievances under which they laboured. The alarm this kind of organization gave to the Irish government produced the letter in question, which went to the enforcement of the convention act, a law expressly levelled against representative delegation by self-constituted bodies. It remains to relate the proceedings consequent upon this resolution of the Irish ministers.

On February the 23d, two magistrates, Alderman Darley and Mr. Babington, by the direction of the government repaired to a house in Capel-street, Dublin, at which the Catholic Committee was accustomed to assemble, and were shown into a room where a number of gentlemen were met, some of whom were in the act of signing the Catholic petition to parliament. Immediately on their entrance, Lord Ffrench was called to the chair, who demanded of the magistrates by what authority they came there. He was answered, that understanding it to be a meeting of the Catholic Committee, they came as magistrates to require it to disperse, and that they had orders from government for that purpose. Some difference occurs in the two relations of the subsequent conversation; but it terminated in Alderman Darley's going to Mr. Pole for further instructions, while Mr. Babington remained in the room. On the Alderman's return, he said that as Lord Ffrench had assured them the meeting was not of the Catholic Committee, but of

Catholic gentlemen, for the purpose of signing and forwarding a petition to parliament, it was not the order of government that they should be interrupted. A desire was further intimated (but from which party is not agreed) that his lordship, with some of the other gentlemen, should have a conference on the subject with Mr. Pole. This conference in effect did not take place, neither party choosing to avow that the wish for it originated from them. Upon the whole it is pretty evident that government found itself embarrassed how to act on the occasion; for whether Lord Ffrench did or did not suggest the distinction between a meeting of the Catholic Committee, and one of Catholic gentlemen for the purpose of petitioning, there is no doubt that it was in fact a meeting of the Committee, and was so considered by most of those present. Such was the state of things when Mr. Pole departed for England. The petition was afterwards drawn up and presented; and the debates consequent upon it in both Houses, with its rejection, have been reported in our account of parliamentary proceedings.

The Irish Catholics were too confident of the goodness of their cause, and too sensible of the advantages arising from a well-concerted union, to renounce their plans in consequence of the prohibitions of government; and the summer was actively spent in county meetings for the appointment of delegates, several of which were attended by the Protestant gentlemen; for it seemed as if former jealousies and animosities were