wished to know whether any money had been so transmitted? and if it had, whether it was under the conditions of a treaty subsisting prior to the observation in the speech, or in consequence of the conclusion of a more recent treaty?

in this instance was, that it might ultimately be the means of introducing other articles into the continent. He moved, that the house should go into a committee to consider of the prohibition of the exportation of Cotton Wool and Jesuit's Bark.

The Speaker left the chair. The resolutions were put and agreed to; the report received; and bills ordered.

[ORDERS IN COUNCIL BILL.] The report. of the Orders in Council bill was brought up.

Mr. Secretary Canning replied, that the reason why the passage in his majesty's speech had not been followed up by the presentation of the treaty was simply this: until within these few days there had been no arrivals from the continent. No less than eight or ten Gottenburgh mails had Mr. Tierney objected to the bill on the become due. Within these few days, how-ground of informality. This was a bill not ever, dispatches had been received from only for imposing duties, but for the rethe British ambassador at Stockholm, stat- gulation of trade. But it was provided by ing that the Treaty with Sweden had been a standing order of the house, founded actually signed. His majesty's govern- upon that of 1703, that no bill for the regument were in daily expectation of receiv-lation of trade should orginate, except in a ing it, and within as short a period as possible after the arrival of the treaty, he should feel it to be his duty to bring it down to the house. It was unquestionably true, that a sum of money had been sent to Sweden, not in pursuance of any prior treaty concluded with that country, but in the contemplation of the treaty that had recently been signed.

was matter of commercial regulation was referred to a committee of trade; that which regarded the duties was referred to a committee of ways and means. The resolution of the ways and means was first reported and a bill ordered. The other resolution was then reported, and an instruction given to those appointed to bring in the Duties bill to make provision pursuant to that resolution. The present was a bill precisely of the same nature, and the same course ought to have been pursued. The right hon. gent. opposite (Foster) was to move resolutions of the same sort with respect to Ireland; and he would ask him, whether he would not feel it his duty to adopt the course which he had described?

committee of the whole house, called a Committee for the Protection of Trade and Navigation. That part of the bill which went to the regulation of trade, ought therefore, in his opinion, to have originated in such a committee. He had looked for precedents, and found one exactly in point in the Convoy Duty act. The course which had been pursued by [EXPORTATION OF COTTON WOOL AND the right hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Rose) JESUITS BARK.] The Chancellor of the Ex-in that instance was this that part which chequer stated, that he understood, by representations from various quarters, that it would be more acceptable to have a direct prohibition of the exportation of certain articles, the produce of neutral states as well as of this country, which it was intended to have prohibited by duty. The mode of prohibition under the Orders in Council was certainly generally intended to be that of imposing duties. However, as a direct prohibition of the exportation from this country of such articles as were produced by America as well as our own colonies appeared to be considered the preferable mode, he should adopt it. He would, therefore, move for leave to bring in a Bill to prohibit the exportation of Cotton Wool and Jesuits Bark; with a The Chancellor of the Exchequer replied, proviso, however, that licences might be that all that was required by the Standing granted in certain cases for such exporta- Order of 1772, which had taken place of tion. As to the prohibition of the expor- that of 1703, was that any regulation as to tation of Bark, he was led to it by the in- trade should originate in a committee of formation that the severest pressure was the whole house, and a committee of ways already felt on the continent from the and means was such. But, besides this, want of that article. It was of great im- there was a clear difference between the portance to the armies of the enemy. He Convoy Duty act and the present bill. understood that at Paris it had risen from There the alteration in the trade was the 10s. to 70s. per pound, and that attempts work of the legislature: here it was the had been made to procure it in spite of all work of the king, and to make the alterobstacles. The object of the prohibition ation, he contended the king was fully

competent. All that the legislature had to do with it was to impose the duty, and for that the committee of ways and means was the proper place.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted, that there was something in the argument respecting forfeitures. He would therefore not object to the dividing of the bill when it came to the committee.-The report was then received, and the bill or

and, on the motion of Mr. Tierney, it was agreed, that there should be an instruction to the committee to divide the bill if it thought fit. He also gave notice, that he would then move for the reference of the matter of regulation to a committee of trade.

Mr. Tierney mentioned some of the clauses which went to make new regulations in trade, and touched incidentally up-dered to be re-committed on Wednesday; on the pernicious custom the house was getting into, of overlooking the principle of confining the ways and means within the limits of the supplies. The words of the Property Tax act placed the proceeds from time to time in the hands of ministers, so that they might have the supplies under that act without any committee of ways and means at all. The war-tax act placed some millions in the hands of ministers beyond the estimated supplies. On the principle he had stated, he strongly objected to the bill going forward without an estimate of the expected amount of the duties imposed. Returning to the essential ground of his objection, he said, that the king might regulate the mode in which ships were to come to England, but he could not regulate the mode of their going out. There was also a clause for remitting forfeitures which could not be regulated by the crown. The bill, therefore, ought to be divided in order to proceed in the proper way.

Mr. Rose said, that there was a radical difference between the case of the Convoy Duty bill and the present. There a distinct alteration in trade was made by the legislature, here it was made by the crown. The regulations in the bill were minute points, and it was customary in the committee of ways and means to allow such regulations as were not essential, in addition to the duties.

The Speaker stated, that it was customary in the committee of ways and means to interfere in regulations respecting trade, such as in the instance of the expiring laws. Though the committee of ways and means was the only place for duties, yet, since 1772, the house had been in the habit of admitting there of certain minute regulations closely connected with these duties. Unless they were thus connected, the house would order a separate bill, originating in another committee. This was the principle, the house would apply it as it thought fit.

Mr. Tierney said, that the question was, whether the regulations in question were such as the Speaker had said might be adopted in the committee of ways and means, along with the duties?

[GREAT GRIMSBY ELECTION.] Mr. Horner rose to move that the order for taking into consideration the Petition complaining of the undue election for the borough of Great Grimsby, should be discharged. The grounds upon which his motion rested were, that the standing order of the house had not been complied with by the petitioner in the last session; that order requiring that the petitioner should give in a statement of his qualification within 15 days after notice to that effect had been served upon him, subsequent to the presenting his petition. Such notice had been given to the petitioner last session, but no qualification had been accordingly given in; and thus the qualification had, within the regular time after the renewal of the petition in the present session, been returned to the house, in the absence of any precedent, since the enactment of the Grenville act, that the house should be governed by the analogy of its practice, antecedent to the passing of that act, which would be fatal to the claim of the petitioner to be heard. He therefore moved that the order be discharged.

The Solicitor General stated, that hé agreed with the learned gent. as to the practice of the house antecedent to the passing of the 10th of the king, the Grenville act. But he contended, since the enactment of that statute, which transferred all jurisdiction on matters of controverted election from the house to the committees chosen under it, it was not competent to the house to discharge any order for a committee to determine the merits of an election, in any other manner than as prescribed by the act. The whole jurisdiction rested with the committee, which alone was to decide upon the question respecting the qualification, and therefore the house could not have power to discharge the order pursuant to the motion of the hon. gent.-After a few words from

Mr. Croker, the motion was negatived without a division.

[CONDUCT OF MARQUIS WELLESLEY.]-Lord Folkestone moved the order of the day for taking into consideration the papers; and on the question that they be now taken into consideration,

ing into consideration the model upon which it was formed. The justification of some of them was the perfidy of the prince who was dethroned; but would it be contended, that all the princes who had fallen the victims of his policy were equally perfidious? And if a general view was taken of the whole policy of his administration, what light, he would ask, was there to guide the house in forming its decision? The hon. gent. quoted the opinion of the court of directors, as it was expressed in a printed dispatch that had been published, in which that court, while it expressed a

Wellesley, condemned in the most pointed terms, the general tenor of his administration, as contrary to the existing laws, as an open defiance of the authority of the directors, and as an attempt, on his part, to convert the government of India into a simple despotism. In the same dispatch the profusion of his expenditure was censured, and the whole of his conduct to foreign powers reprobated, as a departure from those principles of moderation by which they were desirous that the governor-general should be actuated.-Here

The Chancellor of the Exchequer called the hon. gent. to order, upon the ground that at the opening of a proceeding, instead of arguing upon matters of fact, he was bringing forward the opinions of those who were to be considered in the light of accusers.

Mr. Creevey rose to give his negative to the proposition, for two reasons: in the first place, because it was impossible for the house to come to a decision upon the conduct of the marquis Wellesley, without at the same time deciding upon the general question of Indian policy; and in the second place, because it was quite impossi-high consideration for the talents of marq. ble that gentlemen could so have digested materials which would fill seven volumes, and which had been collected from the administration of that country, during a period of 17 years, which had been moved for by different persons, and with different views, and which brought into comparison the administrations of lord Teignmouth and the marquis Cornwallis with that of the marquis Wellesley, as to be able to decide upon the merits of that complicated system with which the conduct and character of the last mentioned nobleman were inseparably interwoven. The papers were in such confusion that it was indispensible that they should be arranged before they could be perused, so as to convey the information necessary to enable the house to form a judgment upon the facts to which they related; and though he was pretty generally acquainted with Dr. Laurence on the other side, conthem, he had not met with three gentle-tended, that his hon. friend was completely men who had read them. The course, in order, because in stating his objections therefore, which he would recommend to the proceeding, it was certainly comwas, that they should be referred to a petent for him to mention the grounds of committee. He did not care how that those objections, and his reasons for thinkcommittee was formed. He had no ob- ing that a different course should be jection that the three brothers of the noble adopted. marquis should be members of it, and it should be appointed exclusively by the hon. gentlemen on the treasury bench. As matters now stood, the house could not enter into a discussion of the question, because it was connected with a variety of others which required a detailed examination. The question before the house was the propriety of the treaty by which the Nabob of Oude was dethroned and stript of his territory. But this was not a solitary instance of this species of policy. He had concluded many treaties of the same kind, and each was referred to in his instructions to his agents as a model for the other. They could not, therefore, decide upon one treaty without also tak

The Chancellor of the Exchequer asserted, that it was irregular to refer to opinions which were not before the house.

The Speaker then decided, that if this parliament had refused the document which the hon. member was quoting, it would never consent to receive that indirectly which it had directly refused. But if the paper had not been refused by this parliament, he was of opinion that the hon. gent. was perfectly in order when he made use of it in the course of his argument.

Mr. Creevey proceeded to read another part of the dispatch, in which the system adopted by the marquis Wellesley, for extending the territory and increasing the revenues of the company, was reprobated

men who had not made themselves masters of the papers, who, he was convinced, formed a large majority of the house.

Sir John Anstruther called the attention of the house to the present state of the proceedings. Three parliaments ago, a charge had been brought against marquis Wellesley, by an hon. gent. (Mr. Paull) who was no longer a member of that house; all the evidence necessary for supporting the charge, had been moved for and granted; an inquiry had been challenged by the friends of the noble marquis, the charge originally brought forward had been aban

as unjust, illegal, and impolitic. He contended, that it would be extremely rash for the house, in the face of an opinion so decidedly pronounced by those who were the best judges of the subject, and with an unanimity almost unparalleled (this dispatch having been signed by 23 out of 24 Directors) to come to a decision with their present inadequate means of information, directly the reverse of this opinion, which would be the effect of a resolution of acquittal, passed in favour of marquis Wellesley. It ought to be considered, too, that the very circumstance of the marquis Cornwallis having been sent out to super-doned, but upon the papers that had been sede marquis Wellesley, then in the prime of life, in the government of India, was a proof that a disapprobation of his conduct was not confined to the court of directors, but that government likewise participated in it. It had been said, that any farther delay would be extremely hard towards lord Wellesley. He admitted that it was hard upon lord Wellesley. But was there not a third party who likewise merited some consideration? Would it not be hard on the East India Company to be defrauded of their possessions, in consequnce of his mal-administration? or would it not be hard upon the country if, in consequence of his measures, its Indian dominions should be severed from it for ever? What he wished was, that this question should be examined as all other Indian questions had been examined. For if the noble marquis had, during his administration, furnished more materials for discussion than any other governor, it would scarcely be maintained that, on that account, a decision should be more speedily adopted. He thought that one of two expedients should be recurred to, either that the house ought to follow the same course that had been pursued in 1772 and 1782, and that a committee ought in the first place to be appointed to make a compleat revision of the affairs of India, or that if ford Wellesley's conduct was to be discussed separately, that the evidence before them should be previously arranged by a select committee, so as to render it intelligible; which it was not in its present form. Were parliament to come to a decision upon the conduct of that noble person by this night's vote, he asserted it they would commit an act of injustice to the noble marquis, and that it would be wanting in its duty both to itself and to the country; and in proposing some farther delay, he fully expected the support of those gentle

produced, other accusations had been founded by a noble lord, and this night had been fixed for the house to pronounce upon the justice or injustice of these accusations. Nothing had been said of any deficiency of evidence, or of any confusion of papers, till about ten days ago. He contended, that the delay now proposed, was neither more nor less than an attempt to arrest the course of justice, in as far as lord Wellesley was concerned, for the purpose of entering into a detailed examination of the affairs of India, and to blend two subjects which were totally different and distinct. The Dispatch which had been read, ought to have no more weight with the house, than the opinion of 24 printers, and it would have been only fair in the hon. gent. when he read it to the house, to have read also the Answer to it, which was made by the Board of Controul, whose opinion he thought was fully as valuable upon such a question as that of the Court of Directors. Upon the general merits of lord Wellesley's administration, he should be ready to meet either the hon. gent. or any other person, when they came to be discussed. At present, that question was not before the house, and after the delay which had already taken p'ace, he thought the house could not consent to postpone their decision upon the particular and personal charges, without committing an act of gross injustice to the noble and distinguished individual whose character was implicated in them.

Mr. Robert Thornton professed his decided disapprobation most highly of many of the political measures of the noble marquis, at the same time he wished that the house should decide upon the charges that had been brought against him with dispatch as well as with boldness. For this reason he was against the appointment of a committee, because that mode of pro

ceeding would tend to postpone a decision | which had already been too long delayed. He animadverted with severity upon the backwardness which had been shewn by some gentlemen at a certain period, to prosecute the charges which they had pledged themselves to institute, and alluded particularly to the conduct of Mr. Sheridan, in declining, while in the last administration, to bring forward the Carnatic question, because he found that it would not be agreeable to some of his colleagues. His wish was, that the character of lord Wellesley should be either cleared by a vote of the house, or that the censure should be passed upon him which his conduct had merited. He denied that the Directors of the East India Company appeared as the accusers of lord Wellesley, but he, along with many of his colleagues, had disapproved of many of his measures, and it was necessary, in their own defence, that they should state the grounds of this disapprobation.

Mr. S. Lushington contended, that the only mode of doing justice either to marquis Wellesley, to the injured natives of India, or to the character of the British nation, was to institute a general inquiry into all the measures of the noble marquis's administration,

Mr. Hall thought that if the house had any sense of national justice, or any regard for its own character, it would not suffer any further delay to retard its final decision upon this question.

Mr. S. L. Lushington asserted that already British India had to lament the measures which had lately been adopted in this country. The charge in the present instance he maintained was personal, and therefore ought to be decided without further delay.

Lord A. Hamilton was of opinion, that as gentlemen were not very forward to encounter the obloquy of taking up such charges, and the noble lord had undertaken this with such laudable attention, the business ought not to be taken out of his hands. If his hon. friend should hereafter propose a committee to inquire into the transactions in the Carnatic, or at Furruckabad, he would be ready to support him; but in the present instance he thought the course proposed by his noble friend should not be rejected.

Mr. Grant would have supported the motion for a committee, if that had been originally proposed; but as the noble lord had taken up the question with a view to

another course of proceeding, he was not prepared to resist it. He hoped the house would not judge of the conduct of the court of directors on an ex parte statement, but that their case, as well as that of the noble marquis, would be considered with reference to the whole of the circumstances.

Mr. Windham rose, amidst a loud cry for the question. He said that he certainly should not be deterred from delivering his sentiments on this occasion by any such cry, more particularly as it was this importunity for the question which he was desirous to combat, and which he hoped to be able to do with somewhat better argument than mere clamour. He confessed, however, that he had little to say, on the present occasion, in addition to what he had stated on a former evening. The question now before the house was, whether it would come to a decision now upon a subject of the greatest magnitude and importance, or defer that decision till they were competent to judge of it? If it was asked, why the house was not competent to decide upon it now, he would leave it to every gentleman to give an answer for himself. He believed, that not one in 20 members had read the papers, and if this was the case, it was a sufficient reply to all that had been said on the opposite side. He allowed that marquis Wellesley was a man of high rank, of considerable talents, and that his conduct had been arraigned; but none of these circumstances was sufficient to counterbalance the material consideration of the incapacity of the tribunal in its present state of information, to pass a decision upon the charges which had been brought against him.

The accusations which had been lodged against him were what were incident to the lot of every great man. They were taxes which greatness and distinction had to pay, nor was the noble marquis so destitute of friends, or so run down in the world, that they bore upon him with any peculiar degree of weight. On the contrary, if his conduct was arraigned it ought to be recollected that it was in the nature of that conduct to beget friends. He denied that there had been any unnecessary delay. It was not fair in calculating this to count the number of parliaments since the subject was first introduced to notice, for the present parliament was not supposed to be acquainted with the proceedings which had been instituted by any preceding parliament. And when.