Government in the settlement of the mat- | nourable, and satisfactory solution of the 66 question. I thank him for that admission. But it is said the French Minister at Lisbon, either not having sufficient instructions or misconceiving his instructions, declared he could only deal with the question as to the amount of the indemnity to be offered, and not as to the legality of the seizure. All I can say is, that Count Walewski and Lord Cowley are at one on the Marquis de Lisle having mistaken his instructions. What did Mr. Howard do? When he was informed, on the part of the Portuguese Government, that the Marquis de Lisle had stated he could only deal with the question of the indemnity, and not with that of the legality of the seizure, Mr. Howard said, very judiciously and wisely, that he had no instructions to enable him to meet that state of things; that that was not the way in which the case had been represented to him; but that, as the question had been put in that way, he-speaking for himself alone, and not for the Government he represented-would recommend an endeavour to be made with the view to an arrangement of the dispute. I think that under that state of circumstances no charge can be made against my noble Friend for not giving instructions in a case that could not be foreseen. I have always been of opinion, that when one party places his honour in the hands of another he is bound to place himself in the hands of that other person unrestrictedly and un ter in issue; and it was not till three or four days after he had done so that an application was made by the Portuguese Government for the employment of those good offices which he had already tendered. The noble Earl who has spoken last (Earl Grey) says, in dealing with the French Government we ought to have remonstrated with them, that we ought to have urged all the arguments that could be urged, to show the French Government that they were entirely in the wrong, and that Portugal was in the right. But, in order to show them that we ought to have been quite satisfied ourselves of it in the first instance. I do not think any person would be very likely to be accepted as a mediator between two contending parties, if he said to one of them, You are entirely in the wrong, and the other party is entirely in the right, and, therefore, I write you to accept my good offices for the purpose of settling the dispute;" and if a course could have been devised so entirely calculated altogether to defeat the possibility of coming to a satisfactory conclusion, and to prevent the French Government listening to what we might have to say, it was that recommend. ed by the wisdom and judgment of the noble Earl. But what did we do? We offered our good offices for the purpose of mediation. We have been told that a long despatch ought to have been addressed to Lord Cowley as to how he was to act. I think, knowing the character of Lord Cow-reservedly. In the present case there ley, my noble Friend acted much more was no treaty obligation in question, but wisely by informing him that we had of from ancient friendship Portugal asked fered our good offices in the matter, and us what was best to be done. We adleaving it to him, with the influence which vised them to accept the mediation that he deservedly possesses at the French was offered, because it involved all that it Court, to do what appeared to him right was desirable to obtain; and Portugal not under the circumstances. It is assumed having asked our advice for four months, that Lord Cowley did nothing in the mat- and then having refused to follow it, I say ter, except make a single representation that as against England she has no real to Count Walewski, the result of which cause of complaint. The noble Earl who was unsatisfactory. But during the whole spoke last said something about England time that Count Lavradio was in Paris he having had to submit to an insult, and of was engaged with Baron Paiva in nego- having lowered herself in the eyes of other tiating with Count Walewski, and con- countries. I know nothing of any insult stantly in the presence and with the assist- to which England has been subjected in ance of Lord Cowley, with the view to their this matter. It was no question of hers; arriving at a common understanding. And it was no question between her and they undoubtedly came to a common un- France. What she did was, to give this derstanding. They came to an agreement disinterested advice to an ally as to the with regard to a mediation which, if it had mode of extricating that ally from a diffibeen carried into effect, as has been ad-culty; and if Portugal had taken that admitted by the noble Lord who has brought this question under your Lordships' consideration, would have been a wise, ho vice, the negotiation would have been conducted in a manner which would have been satisfactory to all parties. Here is a case and secondly, if in Portuguese waters, whether it was taken under circumstances which gave her an exemption from the fiscal or municipal laws of Portugal. But as to the first ques presented of a vote of censure against the Government, though it has wisely not been put forward exactly in that form. The whole object in raising this discussion is to show that we have neglected our duty and lowered this country in the estimation of the world. My Lords, I say on the contrary that we had arrived at a point, late as it was before our intervention was sought, at which the matter was likely to have been brought to an honourable solution. It was only by an incomprehensible accident that that solution was interfered with, and that solution would still have been arrived at if Portugal had not repudiated our advice. I say more. I say that considering the difficult course which Her Majesty's Government had to pursue, I believe we adopted the course most consistent with prudence, most consistent with honour; we avoided entangling ourselves in a hostile controversy between Portugal and France, -a course of moderation and firmness by which we were enabled to hold the position we were bound to hold as the friend of both parties, and our moderation has had the effect not only of convincing France of the soundness of our arguments against her system of so-called free immigration, but has disposed her to allow fair play to her own reason, and to have yielded to argument and by the force of her own conviction that which she would never have yielded to unfriendly remonstrances pressed on her in a hostile spirit. Out of that difficulty, serious as it was, I believe we have come with honour to ourselves and advantage to the general peace of Europe; and until our conduct has been condemned by a vote of Parliament, which the noble Lord evidently does not think it desirable to ask at present, I shall be satisfied with the course we have pursued, and, if again placed in the same circumstances, I could rejoice to follow the same course, and to have it attended by the same results. LORD CRANWORTH said, that the noble Earl had stated that the main object of this Motion was to induce the House to express an opinion on the conduct of the Government; but he was apprehensive lest the result of the discussion should be that the House should seem to lay down general principles as to the law of Europe, which might seriously embarrass them on a future occasion. His noble and learned Friend (Lord Kingsdown) had said that there were two questions of international law material to be considered-one, whether the ship was taken in Portuguese waters ; tion, it appeared from all the inquiries on the spot, from the statement of the Portuguese authorities, and from the minute signed by the captain and French delegate themselves, that the vessel was at anchor within canuon range of the island; indeed, that point had not latterly been seriously brought forward. The second question was the real one, and he must extremely deprecate a silent acquiescence in such a doctrine of international law as the French authorities had laid down. He knew there were eminent jurists in France, and no doubt, before the French Government acted as it had done, it consulted the learned civilians of the Comité des Contentieux, and acted upon their advice. But it would be unreasonable that we should be bound by the unknown reports of foreign jurists. He could not even form an estimate of the value of their opinion without knowing the facts that were submitted to them. Here was a trading vessel-mark, not a Government vessel-from the Isle of Réunion, coming to get labourers from the African coast. By the French law no ship was to come from Bourbon or Réunion without complying with the regulations of the French Government, and in order to see that those regulations were observed, a French delegate was put on board. The ship then came within the waters of Portugal and violated its law. Was it protected from the jurisdiction of Portugal by having a French delegate on board? He protested that this doctrine was inconsistent with principle and not to be found in any work of international law. The consequences of such a law wonld be monstrous. The case of Captain Denman, which had been alluded to, was totally different; he was a Queen's officer, commanding a Queen's ship, and doing something which might be admitted, for the sake of argument, was unwarrantable, but which the Government adopted afterwards. It was therefore the same thing as though the Government had previously authorized the act. Let them consider to what a preposterous length the matter would go if the principle contended for were admitted. Suppose we had a law here that iron should not be sold in this country except under certain restrictions, and a foreign vessel came here to purchase iron; no severe punishments on persons engaged in doubt if our law were contravened we might confiscate the ship; but suppose there were an agent of a foreign Government on board, not in order to purchase the iron, but to take care that the captain of the ship should not violate certain other regulations of his own Government, would that prevent the ship being amenable to our law? As he had not seen the Report of the Comité des Contentieux, he could not positively say there might not be some principle suggested in it which had escaped his research; but he had not been able to discover, in any writer on international law, one opinion or instance to show that the presence of a Government delegate was a good reason for any exemption of this kind. LORD WENSLEYDALE said, that upon some parts of the case, as it appeared upon the documents laid before the House, different opinions might be entertained; but upon one there could be no possible difference, and that is, that the Government ought not to have taken up the cause of Portugal against France, and supported it to such an extent as to lead to war with that Power, unless there was a case on the part of our Ally which was clear beyond all possible doubt. Now, he had taken great care to look over all the documents, and he had attended to all the arguments on either side, and had looked into the authorities of international law, and after a good deal of reflection, he certainly could not see his way to the conclusion that the Portuguese Government had a clear case against the French Government. It appeared to him to be a very doubtful question. Supposing the Portuguese tribunal had jurisdiction over that vessel, he thought no fault could be found with its decision. There was evidence from which they might reasonably conclude that the captain of the ship was engaged in what might properly be called the slave trade. That word might be un derstood in different senses. The trade might be carried on with very different degrees of moral guilt. Slaves might be bought with a view of being carried away from their country, and kept in slavery a hateful crime-they might be bought with a view of their being employed with their own consent or without it, as hired labour ers, for a limited time. They might be bought by a benevolent person, with the view of immediate emancipation, and even this sort of purchase is within the words, but not the spirit of the Act, imposing such the slave trade; but every species of the purchase of slaves on the coast of Africa ought to be put a stop to, because it tends to encourage the practice of kidnapping and dealing in slaves in the interior, which impedes every other species of commerce and prevents the social improvement of that extensive country. The Court, he thought, might fairly decide upon the evidence, that the French captain meant to purchase slaves from the native chiefs, and so to carry on the slave trade in the less odious sense of that word, and which the Portuguese Government justly sought to repress. But the question was, not whether the Court decided properly or improperly, for that would be the subject of appeal to a higher Pourtuguese Court, but whether it had jurisdiction to decide with respect to this vessel at all. If the ship was seized out of the waters of the Portuguese settlement, that is beyond the range of cannon shot from the shore, the seizure was illegal, and the Court acted without jurisdiction altogether, and could not give itself jurisdiction, by finding that the seizure took place within these limits. That question would have to be settled, as all disputed questions are between Sovereign Powers, not by any tribunal of justice. This was the first objection raised by Count Walewski; but what he principally insisted upon was, "that the vessel was sent by the Government," and exempt from local jurisdiction on that ground. Ships of war are undoubtedly privileged by the tacit consent of all civilized nations. The noble Lord who commenced that debate had referred to Wheaton's work, as establishing that exemption, but confining it to ships of war. If he looked farther into its pages, he would find that the reference there was not to ships of war alone, but to public ships. If a public ship, not armed, but under the command of an officer of the Crown, were sent to a country for the purpose of obtaining provisions to supply an army, and the municipal law of that country forbade the export of provisions under the penalty of forfeiture, would that ship be liable to be seized and forfeited under the local jurisdiction of the country? He apprehended it would require a great deal of authority to show that it could. It would, he conceived, be protected as a public vessel; and it seemed, also, that if the ship was sent, and notice given that it was sent by a special order from the Sovereign for any particular purpose, it was not in 1471 Extension of the Capitation COMMONS the power of the municipal tribunal to deal no Grant to Schools (Scotland). 1472 friendly Power. At the same time, he could not but congratulate the noble Earl (the Earl of Malmesbury) on the great result which had been accomplished, since the attention of the Emperor was sooner called to the subject than, feeling the danger of encouraging this system of negro immigration, he spontaneously resolved to put an end to it. Such being the case, causes of dispute like those which had just been discussed could not again arise between the French and Portuguese Governments. LORD WODEHOUSE said, he should not press his Motion, being satisfied with the discussion which had taken place on the subject. The noble Earl (the Earl of Malmesbury) and the noble Earl at the head of the Government had spoken of him as though he had recommended the use of petulant language and angry remonstrances towards France. He assured their Lordships that he should have thought such language as much out of place in this as in every case submitted to diplomatic arrangement. Then the noble Earl the Secretary of State said he had treated the principle of arbitration very cavalierly. On the contrary, he thought this principle of the utmost value, and one ground of his complaint was that the Government had not insisted to a greater extent upon its adoption. Motion (by leave of the IIouse) withdrawn. House adjourned at a quarter-past Ten o'clock, to Thursday next, half-past Ten o'clock. THE EARL OF ST. GERMANS concurred in the opinion respecting this case which had been expressed in the course of the correspondence by Lord Cowley namely, that it would have been more in accordance with international polity that the Charles et Georges should have been allowed to go free, and that the question should afterwards have been treated diplomatically. He was not prepared to impute blame to the Government for the course they had taken in this matter. The original transaction was involved in so much doubt and obscurity that it was difficult indeed to judge of the merits. Thus, for example, the vessel appeared to have been chased into the bay of Conducia by a Portuguese sloop-of-war, and it was by no means an admitted fact, even then, that she was seized in Portuguese waters. Considering all the doubts which existed in reference to the legality of the cap. ture, he thought that any strong language. by Her Majesty's Government towards France, in support of the view taken by the Portuguese Government, would have been quite out of place. It was, perhaps to be regretted that after the mistake committed by the Marquis de Lisle the noble Earl did not urge upon the French Government the propriety of act- EXTENSION OF THE CAPITATION GRANT HOUSE OF COMMONS, Tuesday, March 8, 1859. MINUTES.] NEW MEMBERS SWORN.-For Bury St. stone. PUBLIC BILLS.-1° Poor Relief (Ireland) Act Amendment; Combination of Workmen; Law Ascertainment; Registration of Births, &c. (Ireland); Oaths Act Amendment. 20 Mutiny; Marine Mutiny. TO SCHOOLS (SCOTLAND). QUESTION. ing upon their original convictions, and of accepting mediation with regard to the question both of right and of indemnity; SIR ANDREW AGNEW said, he and he thought the French Government wished to ask the Vice President of the would have taken a more generous course Committee of Council for Education wheif they had accepted the mediation of a ther it is his intention to propose the ex tension of the Capitation Grant to Schools in Scotland. He would also inquire whether the Grant will be applicable to Ragged and Industrial Schools in Scotland. CLEARING OF THE SERPENTINE. QUESTION. SIR JOHN SHELLEY said, he rose to ther it is his intention to take a Vote in the ask the First Commissioner of Works whenext Estimates for clearing the Serpentine in Hyde Park? LORD JOHN MANNERS: Sir, it is my intention to propose a Vote this year for the purification of the Serpentine. MR. ADDERLEY said, that several applications had been made from Scotland for an extension of the Grant. The reason why it had not been extended, not merely to Scotland, but at first to large towns in England, was that legislative measures were being attempted in both cases, when Capitation Grants were introduced, for providing funds for National Education in SARDINIA-ENROLMENT OF DESERTERS. other ways. If it might be presumed QUESTION. that these measures were now dropped, there could be no reason why Scotland, MR. BOWYER said, he wished to ask as already the large towns in England, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign should not be put on the same footing as Affairs whether it is true that military other places with respect to the Grant. No deserters and other fugitives, subjects of estimate, however, would be proposed this the Emperor of Austria, are being, or year on the subject, because the Committee have been, lately received and enrolled as of Council on Education contemplated the soldiers by the Sardinian Government; revision of the Capitation and some other also, whether Her Majesty's Government Grants with the view of limiting their ex-have any information regarding the object of cessive accumulation in the case of that enrolment; and whether Her Majesty's Government have offered any and what ad very large and rich schools, and thus preventing that which was primarily intended for poor schools from being mischievously wasted. The Committee of Council deemed it desirable that a Minute for that purpose should be laid before Parliament; after which Scotland would be included with England in one and the same provision as to the Capitation Grant. The Ragged Schools in Scotland would, of course, be entitled, like the Ragged Schools in England, to the Capitation Grants allotted to such Schools. vice to the Sardinian Government on the subject with reference to the preservation. of the peace of Europe? MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALD said, he regretted to say that Her Majesty's Government had been informed that arrangements had been made by the Sardinian Government for the reception and enrolment of military deserters or refugees from the Austrian army. With respect to the object of that enrolment, the hon. Member was as able to judge as Her Majesty's Government. With regard to the advice which had been tendered on the subject, he had to state that Her Majesty's Government had in the most urgent way impressed on the Sardinian Government that they ought, in the present delicate state of affairs, to take no step that should give umbrage or cause any remonstrance MR. BERKELEY said, he would beg to on the part of Austria-that it was absoask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whe-lutely necessary for the preservation of the ther, in the event of certain conditions peace of Europe that the most pacific being accepted by the Atlantic Telegraph measures should be pursued. SIR ANDREW AGNEW: Will no Grant be available this year for Scotland? MR. ADDERLEY: There cannot be, for the reason I have stated. ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH COMPANY. Company, it is intended to confer upon them exclusively a guarantee or subvention, or whether the same privilege will not be extended to any other Company that may be the first to establish an efficient line of communication across the Atlantic? THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, it is not the intention of the Government to grant any exclusive privi lege to any Company. VOL. CLII. [THIRD SERIES.] LANDED ESTATES COURT (IRELAND). QUESTION. MR. J. D. FITZGERALD said, he rose to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether it is the intention of Government to recommend the appointment of a third Judge of the Landed Estates Court (Ireland), in the room of the Judge Martley, 3 B |