and the Roman Catholics. But does it follow, that if the House shall go into a committee, it must necessarily adopt all that has been proposed by my honourable friend? For myself, I am prepared to support my honourable friend's views to their full extent. If, however, the House should go into the committee, and a proviso be introduced, not to allow the Jews the privilege of admis sion into Parliament, however undesirable, and uncalled for, that proviso might, in my opinion, be, yet still I am not one of those who would think that the bill ought not to be persevered in, on account of such an objection. Honourable gentlemen may ask, why should I agree to this? But I would ask them, do they recollect the year 1812, when a bill was brought in to grant the Roman Catholics all that they have since obtained? That bill was read a first and a second time. It went to a committee, and an amendment was then agreed to, to exclude them from sitting in Parliament, and on that amendment having been carried, the bill was, as I thought, very unwisely withdrawn. The better course would have been, for the friends of the measure, to have taken what they could have obtained. If a proviso to the same effect should be now introduced, I should deprecate it, and think it unwise; but, considering this bill as a measure of justice, and of relief to all the parties who are suffering from having their rights withheld, I would still proceed to pass it.

I therefore trust, Sir, that the bill will be allowed to be read a second time. It is most certain, that it has attracted considerable notice; and honourable gentlemen have been told, that they will rue the support they are giving it, when they return to their constituents; but I will, nevertheless, support it, as I did the measure of Catholic emancipation, without any other consideration than that which guided my decision upon that question. Again, then, I will express a hope that the bill will pass, and form the consummation of that course of liberality, which will immortalize the present Parliament.

The house divided: For the second reading, 165. Against it, 228.

MONUMENT TO MR. WATT.

MR. HUSKISSON'S SPEECH AT THE PUBLIC MEETING, HELD AT FREEMASON'S HALL, ON THE 18th JUNE, 1824, FOR ERECTING A MONUMENT TO THE LATE JAMES WATT; THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL IN THE CHAIR.

Mr. HUSKISSON said :

My Lord-A task has been assigned to me at this meeting, which, I am fully aware, would have been far more ably and successfully executed by some one of those who have done me the honour to put into my hands the resolution with which I shall conclude. Several of those gentlemen had an advantage, which I cannot boast, that of having been personally acquainted with the late Mr. Watt, of having enjoyed his confidence and friendship, and of having observed, more nearly than myself, the application and progress of those great discoveries, and scientific inventions, by which he has so much benefited his country and the world.

But, Gentlemen, however ill qualified I may be fully to appreciate the merits of Mr. Watt-however inadequate I feel myself to do justice to my own sentiments in this respect-I cannot but be gratified that I have a public opportunity to bear my humble acknowledgment of gratitude for his services, and of respect for his memory.

Gentlemen:-whether, abstracting ourselves for a moment from all considerations of country, we look as men to the benefits which Mr. Watt's inventions have imparted, and are still imparting, to the whole race of man; or whether, as members of that great and powerful community of which he was a member, we confine ourselves to contemplate the special benefits which he conferred upon this country, his great discoveries must stand equally entitled to our highest admiration. As Englishmen, we cannot behold the results produced by his genius, without a lively sense of joy that we belong to the same country to which he belonged, and without an individual feeling of gratitude that he lived at a time which allows us all to participate in the benefits which he was the selected instrument, under Providence, of introducing among mankind.

If, Gentlemen, there be any individual who can doubt whether Mr. Watt be entitled to rank in the first class of the benefactors of mankind, that individual, let him belong to what station of society he may, has, I think, not justly estimated the influence of improvements in physical and chemical science upon the moral condition of society. I apprehend no man can doubt the benefi

cial effect of that influence, more or less, in all civilized countries But, in my view of the subject, there is no portion of the globe, however remote, where the name and flag of England are known, where commerce has carried her sails, and begun to introduce the arts of civilization, which does not derive some advantage from Mr. Watt's discoveries. The economy and abridgment of labour, the perfection and rapidity of manufacture, the cheap and almost indefinite multiplication of every article which suits the luxury, the convenience, or the wants of mankind, are all so many means of creating, in men even but little advanced from the savage state, a taste for improvement; of raising in their bosoms a feeling of new wants and new desires; of showing them the possibility of satisfying those wants and those desires; and thereby of calling into action the most powerful stimulant, and steady motive, to advancement in the scale of the civilized world. Are not the remote islands of the Pacific Ocean become a happy proof of the truth of this position? The same race which, less than half a century ago, murdered and devoured our intrepid but unfortunate navigator, Captain Cook, have, within that short period, become acquainted with many of the comforts of life, and made a greater progress, perhaps, towards improvement, than remains for them to make, in order to entitle themselves to be admitted into the rank of civilized nations. Much of this happy change may, I grant, be ascribed to the benevolent and indefatigable exertions of the ministers of Christianity; but if these islanders be now clothed in the productions of English industry,-if they have adopted our woollens and our linens, instead of their own rude dress, or rather no dress,-if in their habitations are to be found many useful articles of English manufacture, instead of their own barbarous utensils,-let it not be supposed that the increased facility of supplying their wants has not been one powerful means of exciting their desire to procure these enjoyments. If the Steam Engine be the most powerful instrument in the hands of man, to alter the face of the physical world, it operates, at the same time, as a powerful moral lever in forwarding the great cause of civilization. We cannot, therefore, recall to our recollection the invention of the Steam Engine, and follow that invention through all its consequences, without feeling the beneficial influence of this discovery upon all nations, from those most advanced, to those which have made the least progress, in the arts and refinements of life.

The benefits which this discovery has conferred upon our own country, as they are more extensive, are also more obvious. If this were the proper place, and if I were not afraid of trespassing too long upon your time, I could trace those benefits in their detailed progress and operation. I could show how much they

have contributed not only to advance personal comfort and public wealth, by affording to industrious millions the facility of providing for their individual wants, by means which directly conduce to the general power and greatness of the state, but also to the general diffusion of a spirit of improvement, a thirst for instruction, and an emulation to apply it to purposes of practical utility, even in the humblest classes of the community. But it cannot be necessary to enter upon so wide a range with the enlightened meeting which I have now the honour of addressing. Looking back, however, to the demands which were made upon the resources of this country during the late war, perhaps it is not too much to say, at least it is my opinion, that those resources might have failed us, before that war was brought to a safe and glorious conclusion, but for the creations of Mr. Watt, and of others moving in the same career, by whose discoveries those resources were so greatly multiplied and increased. It is, perhaps, not too much to say, that, but for the vast accession thus imperceptibly made to the general wealth of this empire, we might have been driven to sue for peace, before, in the march and progress of events, Nelson had put forth the last energies of his naval genius at Trafalgar, or, at any rate, before Wellington had put the final seal to the security of Europe at Waterloo. If, therefore, we are now met to consider of placing a monument to the memory of Mr. Watt beside the monuments of those who fell in the splendid victories of the last war, let it not be said that there is no connexion between the services of this modest and unobtrusive benefactor of his country, and the triumphs of the heroes which those monuments are destined to commemorate.

I own that the monument about to be proposed to Mr. Watt appears to me to be one of those acts of public duty, to which every Englishman of a cultivated mind, following the munificent example of the sovereign, should be anxious to contribute. In doing so, he will indulge not only a feeling of gratitude, but the cheering hope of exciting a spirit of emulation in others; and an honest pride, in reflecting that he belongs to the same community of which this highly-gifted genius was a member, and to the age in which he lived.

Long as I have already detained the meeting, I cannot sit down without adding one or two short remarks. It has been often said, that many of the great discoveries in science are due to accident; but it was well remarked by the President of the Royal Society, that this cannot be the case with the principal discovery of Mr. Watt. Long and scientific research and application alone could have enabled him to create his Steam Engine. Again, it has frequently happened that those philosophers, who have made brilliant and useful discoveries, by watching the phe