so generally known as the great deficiency existing in the places of public worship belonging to the established church, he might rest on the ground of public notoriety; but for the sake of a clear illustration of the subject, he would take the liberty of referring to the accounts laid upon the table of the House. The parliamentary account No. 1 gives a relation of those parishes, containing at least 2,000 persons, in which the places of worship are insufficient to accommodate one half of the inhabitants. They show that in the diocese of London there were eighty parishes of that description, containing containing 930,337 souls, and giving an average of 11,629 to a parish; in that of Winchester the average was 8,789 to a parish; and in that of Chester 8,195. He had himself extracted a list of 27 parishes in which the deficiency was most enormous, the excess of the means of accommodation in the churches exceeding 20,000 in each. It was not necessary, in his opinion, that the church should be sufficiently large absolutely to contain the whole of the inhabitants of a parish at the same time: a large deduction must be made for infants, and for those who were incapacitated by age, sickness, and other avocations. He should therefore conceive, that a parish might be considered as not inadequately supplied if the church could contain one third of the inhabitants at the same time; and it would be obviously desirable to provide in the bill for the performance of three services on every Sunday and the more important festivals.

From the returns on the table it appeared that the deficiency was greatest in the district of London, lying in the diocese of London and Winchester, and in those of Chester and York; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer undertook to make a comparison of the defective accommodation of the churches in these districts. He then proceeded to state the outline of the remedial measure which he had it in his contemplation to submit to parliament. He intended to propose a grant to the extent of one million sterling, to be raised by an issue of exchequer bills, and applied as occasion might require, under the direction of commissioners appointed by the Crown, in a manner analogous to the operations of the parliamentary commission established last year to give encouragement to public works. The distribution of this grant would require, at least, four or five years; and the sums raised in each might either, if parliament should think fit, be made good in the succeeding years respectively, or in one total sum at the close of the period when the whole should have been issued. The public bounty ought only to be given in aid of a fair exertion on the part of the district: where the commissioners were convinced of the inability of the district to complete the undertaking of itself, they would interfere, but rather with a view to assist, than to support the whole charge. In many parishes, not only the population was too numerous, but the extent too great for the pastoral care of one incumbent. On both these accounts it might be thought de

sirable

he believed parliament would feel equal readiness to come to its assistance. But the forms of church government in Scotland were so different from those of England, that an attempt to embody in the same act of parliament the provisions applicable to each, would tend only to embarrassment and confusion. The case of Scotland, however, had not been overlooked, and he hoped shortly to bring before the House a proposition upon this subject.

The right hon. gentleman concluded by moving "That his majesty be enabled to direct exchequer bills, to an amount not exceeding one million, to be issued to commissioners, to be by them advanced, under certain regulations and restrictions, towards building, and promoting the building, of additional Churches and Chapels in England."

Some remarks were made by several gentlemen, after which the resolution was agreed to.

On March 17th, the report of the committee on that part of the Prince Regent's speech which related to the building of New Churches in different parts of the kingdom, was brought up, and a motion made for reading it. A remark being made by General Thornton respecting the division of parishes, the Chancellor of the Exchequer assured him that it was not intended to propose a division of parishes for civil purposes. He then distinctly stated what were the objects of the present bill. In the first place, it would empower the king, in council, upon a representation to that effect, to direct the division of a

parish for ecclesiastical purposes, into two or more parochial districts. Secondly, to such divided districts would be assigned its church and minister. The third provision would extend to the erection of chapels of ease in parishes, the ministers of such chapels to be nominated by the incumbents of the said parishes, subject to the approbation of the diocesan, and without at all deranging the civil or secular rule of such parishes.

The Resolution was agreed to, and a bill was ordered to be brought in thereupon.

On March 18, Dr. Phillimore made a motion in the House of Commons relative to the Spanish ships engaged in the Slave Trade. He began by observing, that by a treaty lately concluded, the sum of 400,000l. was to be paid by the British government to Spain as a compensation for the losses which the latter power might sustain by consenting to the abolition of the slave trade. By a petition formerly presented to the House from Mr. Page, described as an agent for the per. sons residing at the Havannah concerned in the slave trade, it appeared, that the Spanish property employed in this trade might be divided into three classes; the cases of vessels condemned in the colonial courts where the appeal was interposed too late; the cases of appeals in progress; and the cases where the decrees of the courts of this country had ordered restitution to the full value of the property. With the two first classes he had nothing to do; and his cases exclusively referred to that of those claimants

claimants who were in possession of sentences of restitution from British courts in this country. The parties who had sought for restitution of their property, had appealed to the British courts in the fullest reliance on their acknowledged character for good faith and justice; and on referring to the cases in which restitution had been made, he found that it had been ordered in two instances as far back as January 1817, in another in May of the same year, and in a fourth in December, though the treaty with Spain was not ratified till the end of that month. Yet by that treaty, a decree of the law of nations putting these parties in possession of their property, or the value of their property, was rendered, to all useful purposes in this country, but as so much waste paper. Before the execution of the recent treaty, no merchant in England would have refused the most liberal advances to these claimants on the security of those sentences of restitution: at present they were wholly va lueless.

:

But the case of these claimants stood on stronger grounds than the mere sentence of restitution they were protected by an act of parliament, the 55th of the pre sent reign, by which, not only a restitution in value was enacted, but it was ordered that payment should be made on the production of the sentences by the treasurer of the navy. Application had been made by these claimants to the courts, in order to accelerate the payment, and the answer was, that a treaty was pending. Of the treasurer of the navy the

value of the property had been demanded, but the claim was from time to time evaded; although, under the provisions of the very act of parliament, a sum of 48,000l. was paying to French claimants similarly situated.

was

There remained one point on which, from what he had heard since he entered the House, he was anxious to be fully understood. No man more sincerely wished for the total abolition of the slave trade; no man more sensible of the embarrassments this country had to contend with in achieving that important concession by which the African continent to the northward of the equinoctial line was at length placed within the pale of civilized society. The question he had the honour to submit stood wholly independent of the slave trade.

The hon. and learned gentleman concluded with moving, "That an humble address be presented to his royal highness the Prince Regent, to represent to his Royal Highness, that it appears to this House, that several Spanish subjects have obtained sentences of restitution of vessels engaged in the African slave trade, which had been detained by his majesty's cruizers, and brought to adjudication in the courts of admiralty in this country, but have not yet been put into possession of the same: and that they commenced and prosecuted their suits at considerable expense, under the implicit confidence which they have reposed in the justice and integrity of the British tribunals, and upon the faith of an act passed in the

Lord Castlereagh said, that he had no doubt but that he should be able to present the subject in such a light as would give satisfaction to the House, and to the hon. and learned gentleman himself. He would first make a few observations as to the general grounds of the right upon which the arrangement was entered into. There could be no doubt that it was perfectly competent for one sovereign to contract with another as to the claims of their subjects with a view to adjustment. If any other principle were admitted, all claims of subjects might individually become an object of negotiation which could never be brought to a close. All writers upon the law of nations were agreed as to that point. It could be proved by two practical cases exactly in point which had obtained the sanction of parliament. One was, the treaty negotiated at Vienna in 1815, by which 300,000l. was stipulated to be paid to the king of Portugal in compensation for the same kind of injury as that to which the motion referred. VOL. LX.

Some of the Some of the cases respecting Portuguese vessels captured by British cruizers were then actually in progress before the courts. In the treaty with America in 1783, the subjects of this realm were to bring their complaints for unjustifiable capture of ships before the American tribunals. In some cases they obtained justice; in others it was denied; for which reason the sovereign entered into a stipulation for their adjustment, and the American government itself undertook to satisfy the claimant in cases where justice could not be obtained from the tribunals.

The hon. and learned gentleman had represented the great hardship and injustice of stepping in between individuals and the tribunals which had given judgment in their favour. This he wished to be kept particularly in view by the House, for he could show them that the claimants were deprived of no right they had possessed either in equity, or by statute. Now in equity the claimants were entitled to nothing. The statute of July 1815 was passed for purposes of humanity, that slaves found in captured vessels might be immediately relieved from their unhappy situation, and not obliged to wait the issue of a long litigation. With this view it was enacted, that if the capture should be afterwards declared illegal, an equivalent should be given for the slaves by the treasurer of the navy. As this act could only operate prospectively, not one case of those in question could be brought within its operation. There were altogether 21 cases in different [G]

stages,