ence by both husband and wife. Would that House then consent, upon the ground of such an annuity, to exclude an officer's widow from her pension? Yet the circular alluded to would have that effect. services; and he deemed it peculiarly ungenerous that an officer should be deprived of it, unless he swore that he had no civil employment whatever under the Crown from which he could derive any additional means of subsistence. On this principle he objected to the affidavit, and the extraordinary restriction to which it referred. He appealed, therefore, to the liberality of the House, and to that of the government itself, in favour of a body of gallant men who had served their country amidst so much danger, and with so little profit. He appealed with the more confidence of success, because the removal of the restriction to which he objected would be attended with no additional expense to the country, while the governments, it was justly felt that it ment would still have the discretion of appointing any military man to a civil office. There was another point to which he also felt it his duty to call the attention of the House. He understood that a circular was issued, or about to be issued, from the War-office; stating that no widow of any officer who had died since December last should be entitled to the pension of an officer's widow, if it appeared that, from any source whatever, she derived an annuity equal to double the amount of such pension. This arrangement he thought peculiarly unjust, because it might happen that the annuity which was thus to deprive a widow of her pension, might be the effect of an insurance upon her husband's life, which insurance was paid for, perhaps, by a material sacrifice of the means of subsist Lord Palmerston observed, that as the affidavit alluded to was provided for by a section in the Appropriation act, the case did not apply on the present occasion. He denied the justice of the hon. gentleman's statement, that the half-pay belonged to an officer as a matter of right; as it was in fact granted merely for the subsistence of officers during the cessation of their services, and as a retaining fee for future services. But if officers were allowed to accept civil appoint would be difficult to recall them to military duties when occasion should require it. This affidavit was nothing more than persons connected with other establishments of the public service were called upon to make; for those who enjoyed superannuation or retired pensions were obliged to make the same affidavits. As to the circular letter alluded to by the hon. gentleman, the regulation to which it referred did not originate with government, but was recommended by the finance committee, which was of opinion, that the same rule which prevailed in the other departments of the public service should be applied to the army. The report of the committee was then brought up. Upon the putting of the first resolution, Sir W. Burroughs rose, and urged with additional force the objections objections which he had previously produced against the peace establishment. The arguments, indeed, were chiefly of the same kind as those already employed; and it will be sufficient to notice the motion with which the hon. baronet concluded, which was, the leaving out of 113,640 men, and inserting in their stead 103,640 men. Lord Palmerston remarked, that if what had passed that night in the House was calculated to show the necessity of a reform in parliament, he presumed it was the very scanty attendance which the opposite benches displayed on the discussion of so important a subject. He should think himself fully justified were he to abstain from making any reply to the so often repeated arguments of the hon. baronet, whose speech was entirely made up of threadbare references to the establishments of 1792. He could recognize no one point by which any identity could be established between the circumstances of the two periods. The additional charge upon the revenue was created by the increased pay and allowances and he had not understood that any hon. member was prepared to recommend a reduction in those branches of expenditure. Mr. Calcraft regretted as much as the noble lord the thin attendance given on all sides to a ques. tion of so much interest as the army estimates. He must contend that no satisfactory answer had been made to the objections to the amount of the estimates for the service of England and Ireland, and he had no hesitation in declaring his belief that the reduction of 10,000 men was practicable. When measuring the extent of an establishment, how could they proceed without adopting some basis, and what better one could they select than the peace establishment of 1792? But to this the noble lord replied in a declamatory way, that the year 1792 was not the year 1818, and that therefore there could be no similitude or point of comparison between the two periodsextraordinary logic for the representative of the university of Cambridge! He observed that the security we derived from the army of occupation in France had never been adverted to, and yet he supposed it would gradually return, and could not be disbanded immediately upon that event. situation of Ireland was now one of complete tranquillity; but in 1792 a large body of United Irishmen were in correspondence with the French government. He had himself proposed reductions in a former year, which had not been assented to. In one instance he had recommended a diminution of 3,000 men on a foreign station, for which he was described as an ignorant prejudiced person, who entirely misconceived the matter; but a short time after, his counsel was adopted, and the reduction took place. He trusted, therefore, that similar recommen. dations of retrenchment, though opposed in the House, would be attended to out of it. Mr. Peel accused the hon. gentleman of misrepresenting what he had said last night respecting the state of Ireland. For although he had stated it to be a source of satisfaction satisfaction to the House that the internal condition of that country was much improved, yet he had given it as his decided opinion that no force of a less amount than that proposed was compatible with the safety of Ireland. Some other gentlemen spoke on the subject; and the question being put, that 113,640 men stand part of the question, the House divided: Ayes, 51; Noes, 21; Majority, 30. In the House of Lords, on March 18th, when the order of the day stood for the third reading of the Mutiny Bill, Earl Grosvenor rose to move, in pursuance of notice given, for an alteration in the preamble of the bill. It was to this effect; that instead of the words "113,640 men," there should be substituted "100,000 men." He was replied to by Earl Bathurst; and the Amendment being negatived, the bill was read a third time, and passed. CHAPTER CHAPTER VI. Sir S. Romilly's Motion on the Repeal of an Act of King William respecting Privately Stealing from Shops, &c.-Lord A. Hamilton's Motion respecting the resumption of Cash Payments by the Bank of England. Mr. Tierney's Motion for the continuation of the Account of Bank Notes and Bills.-Chancellor of the Exchequer's two Bills, -Debates.-The same in the House of Lords. N February 25th, Sir Samuel Romilly moved for leave to bring in a bill to repeal so much of an act of William III as took away the benefit of clergy from persons convicted of privately stealing goods, wares, or merchandize, to the value of 5s. in any coachhouse, shop, warehouse, or stable. He said it would not be necessary for him to trouble the House at any great length on the subject, since their opinion had already been strongly expressed. The identical bill for which he was about to move had passed the House of Commons four times, in the last, he might say, unanimously; it had, however, always been stopped in the other House. It was not his intention to detain the House with many observations, but he must be permitted to call their attention to the returns which for some days had been upon the table, in order to show the state of the law on that subject. From 1805 to 1817,655 persons had been indicted for the above offence, of which only 113 had been capitally convicted, of whom not one had been executed. 365 had been found guilty by the juries before whom they were tried, of simple larceny, by which the capital part of the charge was taken away. It was evident, therefore, that these persons had been improperly charged with a capital offence, or that the juries had violated their oaths. latter, he should always contend, was a practice of a most immoral tendency, and the temptations to it were such as it was the duty of the legislature to remove. The The hon. and learned gentleman then carried the attention of his hearers to various other crimes; such as stealing within a dwelling house, fraudulent bankruptcy, and forgery, of which last offence the examples were of late years become extremely multiplied. He concluded with moving the bill first mentioned. Sir J. Newport strongly urged his hon. friend to persevere in his efforts to remedy the defects of the law in this respect, trusting that eventually he would be successful. Leave was given to bring in the bill. Sir Samuel Romilly having on April 14th, moved that this bill be be read a third time, the Attorney General said that he wished the terms of the preamble were changed. It asserted, that the bill was founded on the principle that extreme severity was calculated to obtain impunity for crimes. The consequences of such a declaration might mislead men into a supposition, that punishment ought to be proportioned to the precise degree of moral turpitude. Severity, how ever, ought to regard not only the moral turpitude of the of fender, but the pernicious consequence of his offence. The second proposition on which he founded his opposition to the preamble, that by declaring the change in the value of money to be a reason for altering the law, it pledged the House to alter every other law that was connected with such a variable commodity. He in consequence proposed certain alterations which would rectify these defects. Sir Samuel Romilly could not accede to the amendment, because it would expunge the very principle which made the bill both necessary and proper. There was an indolence of legislation in modern times which suffered acts to be passed founded on no distinct principle at all. He was anxious to conform to a more reasonable standard by stating in the preamble the precise character of the bill. It was a truth of universal notoriety that the fear of the punishment of death following conviction, had often prevented prosecutions for privately stealing, and had thus afforded entire impunity to the crime. As to the second ground of objec tion, could any one pretend that five shillings was now the same sum as in the reign of king William? This was undeniably the standard assumed in the act; and hence a change in the act was necessary. On these grounds he would press the preamble as it now stood. Mr. Wilberforce gave his full and cordial support to the measure proposed by his honourable and learned friend. He thought that if himself or any other member had any thing with which to reproach themselves, it was their not having exerted themselves in endeavouring to render the penal code of this country less bloody than it was at present. He was of opinion that the entire penal code ought to be revised, that punishment ought to be proportioned to the crime, and their united effects ought to tend to the grand object. of free and just legislation-that of adopting all possible means of preventing crime, and of checking it in its early stages. He hoped the Statute book would be looked over, and that such alterations would be made in the penal code as were suited to the present times, and to a liberal and enlightened policy. The amendment was then put and negatived; after which the bill was passed. On June 3rd Lord Holland in the House of Lords moved the second reading of this bill. The Lord Chancellor said, that the bill, together with its principle and object, had indeed been frequently and amply discussed in that House, as well as in another place. The opinions which he |