General Burgoyne spoke against the | the subject of fortifications than that of enormous plan of fortifications proposed, the board of ordnance, and said, he should and reprobated them in their principle as be very willing to consent that a restraint well as detail. should be put on the expenditure of the money already granted for that purpose, until parliament should be satisfied from the report of persons in the first ranks of the several military departments, how far the object in view was worthy of the expense; for he observed, that if the fortifications were found to be necessary towards the preservation and safety of our navy, it would be impolitic to hesitate at almost any expense that could possibly be afforded towards the promotion of the security of that great and only national bulwark. And here he observed, that, for the preservation of the British character, he should be heartily sorry ever to see an idea become prevalent in this country in favour of defence by fortification. He said, that he had felt pain at the reflections thrown out in the course of the debate against the noble duke at the head of the ordnance. It had been asked, had he ever commanded in chief? Had he ever led an army to victory? In short, had he any practical experience? Yes, he was bold to say, the noble duke had practical experience; for though he had never commanded an army, nor led one on to victory, yet he had served under and lived in habits of intimacy and confidence with many of the first military characters of the present age; and besides, had not only spent a considerable time in the army, in actual service, but had also travelled through countries, whose situation had peculiarly attached them to this mode of defence, where the noble duke had made the principles and practice of it his particular study; and nothing appeared to him more certain than this, that if a late war, in which we were engaged, had not been of such a nature as precluded the noble duke from taking any command in it, consistent with the political principles he professed, that he would before now have commanded armies, and more than probably have led them to great and glorious victories. He animadverted on what had fallen from colonel Barré with severity, and concluded with declaring, that he placed the utmost confidence in the duke's abilities as well as integrity, and was sensible that the public would never suffer under his administration of the ordnance. Mr. Pitt desired the House to recollect, that the mode proposed by the motion, was not that which would lead to the object in view. The referring the present report to the committee would give no opportunity for the discussion of the subject, which was in the contemplation of those gentlemen who had spoken to it, because such reference to the committee could only bring on a question, with regard to the estimates for the present year, contained in that report, which were by no means objected to. He said, that there had been 50,000l. granted last year, for the purpose of the fortifications, which had not yet been touched, and he should be extremely willing that that sum should lay by until parliament should have full time to come to an opinion with regard to the expending of it in the manner it was first intended. He should be sorry to see a question of this nature take the turn which had been attempted to be given to it, some gentlemen having endeavoured to shew in what places and by what means our ports and dock-yards were most vulnerable; and he hoped it would serve as a caution to gentlemen how they pressed a subject of this confidential nature too far, as they might see from that night's debate, that a species of information might be delivered, which, at the same time that it could give the House no useful light, might yet in another place effectually open the eyes of those who ought to be kept in ignorance. He observed, that the doubt suggested was such as involved the two most important interests of this country; the one related to our ability in point of finance, and certainly, considering the depressed state of our revenue, it ought well to be considered how far any expense which we might incur was consistent with our situation and ability to afford; and the second regarded our marine, a part of our policy, if possible, as essential as that of our Treasury. He apprehended there would be two necessary considerations on the subject; one, whether the proposed system of fortification was absolutely necessary or not; the other, whether it could be done in a cheaper manner than that which it had been estimated at. He by all means approved of the idea which had been thrown out, that a more solemn and more general opinion should be taken on Mr. Bastard said, that nothing could be more fair than the proposal to examine general officers on the business; and said, that if Mr. Pitt would agree that such inquiry might take place, he would withdraw his motion. Mr. Pitt agreed, and the motion was withdrawn. of Hell were there open night and day to receive the victims of the law; but not those victims which either the letter, or the spirit of the law, had doomed to a punishment, attended with certain death. This demanded the attention of the legislature. They should in their punishments remember, that the consequences of trans of life: and yet in Gambia it might truly be said, that there "all life dies, and all death lives." He should wish, as a preliminary to something being done on the subject, that the state of the prisons, so far as respected persons under sentence of transportation, were laid before the House; and this he thought would come best by several motions, which, if agreeable to the House, he should propose. Before he did this, he wished to know whether any contract had yet been entered into for sending these convicts to the coast of Africa. [He was answered, No.] The Speaker remarked, that this motion came at somewhat too short a notice;-whereupon Mr. Burke withdrew it for the present. State of Convicts sentenced to Transportation. March 16. Mr. Burke called the attention of the House to the melan-portation were not meant to be deprivation choly situation under which those unfortunate people laboured who were sentenced to transportation. In a country which prided itself on the mild and indulgent principles of its laws, it should not be suffered that the situation of particular delinquents, instead of being meliorated by provisions dictated by clemency, should become infinitely more severe than could be inflicted in the utmost rigour and severity of the laws. The number of convicts under this description was at present estimated at not less than 100,000. Every principle of justice and humanity required, that punishment should not be inflicted beyond those prescribed and defined to particular kinds of delinquency. But that principle received additional force, when it was considered that these extraordinary severities were exercised under the appearance of mercy; that is to say, they were remitted certain punishments by the mild spirit and principles of the English laws; and received, in commutation, others, infinitely more severe than the most rigid construction of the laws had, in the worst of cases, designed for them. There was, in the mode of punishing by transportation, no distinction made between trivial crimes, and those of greater enormity, ali indiscriminately suffered the same miserable fate, however unequal their transgressions, or different their circumstances. Besides these considerations, some regard should, in these times of difficulty and distress, be paid to frugality and economy. The business of transporting convicts, among other inconveniencies, was attended with a very considerable expense. Instances of profuse expenditure were sometimes justifiable, when they had humanity and clemency for their object; but could never derive any sanction from cruelty and inhumanity. He wished to know what was to be done with these unhappy wretches; and to what part of the world it was intended, by the minister, they should be sent. He hoped it was not to Gambia, which though represented as a wholesome place, was the capital seat of plague, pestilence, and famine. The gates Debate in the Commons on the Bill for the further Regulation of the Trials of Controverted Elections.] April 7. Mr. W. W. Grenville rose, in conformity to the notice which he had formerly given, to move for leave to bring in a Bill to explain and amend the Act for trying controverted elections. His intention, he said, was not what he had in contemplation when he last year signified his design to propose some alterations in the Act alluded to; the Bill had been thought by many persons to require some alteration, but he did not intend to go into a comprehensive and extensive discussion of such alterations as were of a general and important nature then, because he should not propose any Bill of the kind that session, but would reserve it to the next, holding it to be much more likely to be discussed with that degree of temper, moderation, and coolness, that the subject required, when considered in the abstract, than when election cases were existing untried, to which it might be in some degree or other applied, and thence impressions arise by no means favourable to a fair agitation of the Bill. What he had then in his intention was merely to propose some alterations in the mechanical part of the proceeding to ballot for a committee, about the necessity of amending which, there was little danger of any great difference of opinion. It might, perhaps, be unnecessary for him to declare, that in what he had to propose he had no view whatever to cast any imputation on the form in which the Bill had been originally brought in, or upon the Bill itself. The House would, he trusted, acquit him of any such design. As little was the House to be suspected of readiness on their part, to listen to any imputations on the Bill. The partiality they had on so many occasions shewn to the Bill, was the best proof of its merit. Indeed, when it was considered, that to turn business of great magnitude into a new channel was a matter, at all times, particularly difficult, and more especially so when the business in question was that, about which gentlemen were most peculiarly jealous, namely, the mode of trial of their rights to their seats in that House, it was to be wondered that the first Bill that had been brought in for that purpose was, upon experiment, found to be liable to so very few objections. Having thus removed every ground of suspicion that he either meant, by implication, to cast imputation on the Bill, or that the Bill merited such imputation, Mr. Grenville said, he would shortly state to the House the leading points, that were of a general nature, and which might possibly be fit to be made the subject of a Bill the next session, when the matter might be more fully discussed and deliberated upon than it could be at present. The first point he would call their attention to was, a circumstance that must have struck every gentleman as extremely vexatious, expensive, and inconvenient. It was the objection against the Bill that had appeared to his mind to be one of the most founded of any that had been ever mentioned, and that was, that since the existence of the Bill there had been a greater number of frivolous petitions presented than were ever before known, by which means the sitting members were frequently harassed, kept in suspense, and put to much cost and charge unnecessarily. It must, therefore, be the wish of every gentleman that some means were resorted to, in order to put a stop to the continuance of the evil, and perhaps this might be done effectually, by obliging the parties petitioning to enter into recognizances to abide by their petition, and to try the merits, and, in case of failure, to pay the costs. To secure the latter effectually was a matter of considerable difficulty, because it might be extremely inconvenient, when the probable expense, as in the cases of county elections, was likely to amount to a large sum, for the parties to lodge that sum during the whole time the case was pending; but perhaps it might be remedied by allowing the costs to be recovered by action afterwards in the courts below. Another point that called for remedy was, the want of a power to punish the returning officer for abuse of his office. As the matter stood at present, it lay with the House to proceed to punishment, the committee not being able to do any thing more than report to the House. The consequence was, that, for the most part, the returning officer, who abused his authority, escaped with impunity. There having been but very few instances of the committee reporting, and those only where the returning officer's conduct had been extremely gross and flagrant, it was his intention to provide powers to punish that officer, and to vest them in the committee. A third point was of great importance, and that was, to provide some mode or other of determining the rights of election. At present the only criterion was, when a committée reported what the rights were, the precedent was entered on the Journals, and that was binding. But as committees, for particular and obvious reasons, very rarely reported, the public might be said to have lost, under the Bill, what they formerly enjoyed under the old proceedings in the trial of controverted elections, viz. a certainty of decision upon the rights of elections. How to give them this again was, Mr. Grenville admitted, a matter of peculiar difficulty, and a matter to which he had not yet made up his mind; but it certainly was a matter greatly to be desired. Whether, by referring the rights of election to the same committee, who were chosen to try the right to the seat, or whether it would be best to appoint a separate and special committee for the purpose, were objects of future delibera tion. These several points which he had stated were, he declared, the principal considerations that weighed with him as fit to be attended to in the next session, when the subject should be brought fully under discussion, and when the House should be prepared to go into a general investigation of it. He threw them out, therefore, that gentlemen might turn them in their minds, perfectly conscious of his own inability to suggest any bill that would not require the assistance of the House, and of gentlemen of more experience than himself. What he had to propose in the Bill, for leave to bring in which he should that day move, were, as he had before said, alterations merely in the mechanical part of the proceeding to choose a ballot, and by no means affecting the principle of the Bill itself. They all knew the difficulties that had of late occurred in consequence of the ballot being obliged to be chosen under all its presently great. He recollected that the Glouforms; his intention, therefore, was, to propose some few alterations, but they should be as close to the meaning of the present Bill, and as little deviating from the form of it, as possible. The first he should propose would be, to provide a clause to admit committees, who had finished their business, and who were ready to make their report, to make that report previous to the House proceeding to lock the door and make a ballot. This, he observed, was but a trifling infringement on the Bill as it stood, and would be attended with this good consequence; it would, where the sitting members were declared duly elected, add two members qualified to serve to the number of the House, as well as put it in the power of fifteen more to serve on the committee to be the object of the ballot of the day, if they chose it. To shew the advantage of this alteration still farther, Mr. Grenville reminded the House, that there had been two committees who had finished their business, and were ready to have made their reports in the course of the last fortnight's adjournment, but were incapable of making them on account of the Act, ordering, that no public business whatever should be proceeded upon till a ballot had been made. The next alteration he should propose, was, in like manner, calculated to facilitate the making of a ballot. He meant not to alter the proviso that renders it necessary that 100 members should be present before they proceeded to ballot, because he not only thought, that in a matter of so much importance, so many ought to be present, but because he believed the difficulty had but very seldom arisen from that circumstance. The cause of adjournment had chiefly happened from the number to be drawn being 49; it might therefore be worthy of consideration, whether reducing it in certain cases to 39 would not give facility to the ballots; in which case either the first or last drawn might be struck off at the table. Another matter to which he had turned his attention, was, the inconvenience arising from that clause which ordered committees to adjourn in case more than two of the members of such committees were necessarily absent by death or illness. The House had that day heard of the absence of one member of the Bedfordshire committee through illness; and where county elections were to be tried, and the committee were likely to sit long, the inconvenience was extreme cestershire committee, after having sat six or seven weeks, had like to have been lost through this very circumstance. He meant, therefore, to propose, that in certain cases, such as those of committees on county elections, and where committees had sat six weeks or two months, a committee should still sit, although reduced to eleven, or even nine members. Lower he should not think of going, because undoubtedly it would not be wise to facilitate members excusing themselves from attending. A farther alteration, proposed by Mr. Grenville, was, when there were a certain number of committees sitting, three or more for instance, that in such case, if a ballot should fail, public business should nevertheless be gone on with; this alteration he founded on the extreme difficulty that generally occurred in getting a sufficient number of qualified members to make up the number 49, while three or more committees were actually sitting. Another point had been a good deal talked of as matter of complaint, and that was, the mode of choosing nominees, who, it had been said, had been influenced, though by an honourable bias, and in consequence of it, had rather acted as advocates than judges; upon that account it had been urged, that it would be better if they were not chosen as at present, viz. one nominated by the petitioner, and the other by the sitting member, but that they should be chosen by the committee. When the Bill was originally introduced, the mode of appointing nominees had been a good deal discussed, and the argument for them had been this:-It might happen that a committee might be chosen, consisting entirely of young and inexperienced members; it was necessary, therefore, to take care that there should be two persons at least added to the number chosen, in whom the parties could confide for their knowledge of parliamentary law, and their experience as men of business. Now, if the nomination was taken out of the hands of the parties, and put into those of the committee, the latter might select persons as inexperienced as themselves. Another mode, indeed, had been talked of, and that was, to let the House name them; but if this mode were adopted, the House would naturally point their nomination uniformly to those members who were known to be the fittest to instruct younger committee-men, and thus the tribunal would no longer be what it was designed to be, a fluctuating tribunal, and a particular description of members would bear more than an equal share of the onus of serving upon committees. Upon the whole, therefore, it might perhaps be better to let the appointment of nominees remain as it did, if gentlemen in general would but understand that the House held that a nominee was to act merely as any other member of the committee was empowered to act. image of the author of the Bill, and who, he was happy to find, was actuated by the same zeal for the purity of election, the same regard for the honour and dignity of that House, and the same love and reverence for equal and impartial justice. He perfectly agreed in opinion with the right hon. gentleman, that it was much wiser to defer the consideration of the more general and important points to the next session than to bring them under discussion in the present. But what the right hon. gentleman had suggested as the subject of a future Bill, was certainly extremely interesting. If means could be found of putting a stop to frivolous and vexatious petitions, it would be a great advantage. If a power also for the punishing of returning officers could be vested in the committees, it would undoubtedly be attended with beneficial consequences; but it was most desirable of all, to have the rights of election determined. With regard to the matters stated by the right hon. gentleman as the grounds of the Bill that was immediately to come under consideration, he agreed with him in the propriety of most of them. The only point about which he entertained much doubt was, that of suffering business to proceed in case a ballot should fail when there were three committees sitting. That, however, was a matter more proper to discuss when they should come into the committee on the Bill, and therefore he would reserve what he had to say upon the subject till that occasion should arrive. Another circumstance seemed to call for alteration; but it was of so personal a nature, that it was scarcely proper for him, or indeed any member but one, who was at this time actually serving on a committee, to propose it. What he alluded to was, the enacting that election committees should continue sitting notwithstanding prorogations of parliament. When the Bill passed, no provision of this nature had been made; whence it was generally understood, that as a prorogation put an end to all other committees, it did the same to election committees. Mr. Grenville shewed, that by this operation of an order to prorogue, a committee that might perhaps have sat six weeks or two months, and might be within a week or two of coming to a conclusion, was liable to be put an end to, and the parties would have to go through the same trouble and expense the next session; a matter that certainly call-mittees were sitting, was cutting up the ed for some provision, and yet, he repeated it, it was hardly fair for any person not actually serving on a committee, to propose such a provision. These were the principal points which he meant to provide for by the Bill he was about to move for leave to bring in. He concluded with moving, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill for the further regulation of the trials of controverted elections, or returns of members to serve in parliament." Mr. Montagu rose to second the motion, and to express his particular satisfaction that the subject should have been brought forward by a gentleman, the Lord Mahon said, it always gave him extreme pain to differ in opinion from his right hon. friend; but, as a sincere friend to Mr. Grenville's Bill, he must declare, that one of the propositions, viz. that of suffering the public business to proceed in case a ballot should fail when three com principle of Mr. Grenville's Bill root and branch. That it went to that extent, and would be productive of all the ill consequences that Bill was meant to prevent, he would shew to the House in the clearest manner, by considering it in two or three points of view. In the first place, nothing could be more plain than that the compulsion of the Bill, by putting a stop to all public business till ballots were made, was one of the most essential principles of Mr. Grenville's Bill: it was that principle upon which the author of the Bill rested as the best security for its operation and effect. To suffer the public business to |