ought certainly not to be carried beyond the absolute necessity of the case. Among the various objects to which the Committee of last session had turned their attention, the state of the Navigation Laws was one of the most prominent. Aware of the important discussion which was about to be renewed, he was anxious not to intrude long upon the House, and therefore, he would merely say, that he proposed bringing in bills for carrying into effect the recommendations of the Committee in that respect. Another recommendation of the Committee, which was of the utmost importance, related to the simplification and the consolidation of the commercial laws of the country. A third related to the burdens to which foreign ships were subject in our ports, and which led to a severe retaliation on English ships in other countries. It was undoubtedly a matter of great importance carefully to watch over our shipping interests. This and other subjects required immediate and persevering attention; in order, that the trade of the country might reap the full advantage to which it would be entitled from any opening that might be made for its extension. This, he was persuaded, could be effected only by a recurrence, as far as was practicable, to the true principles of the commercial system. Without some effort of that kind, it would be impossible to maintain the trade of the country, on the support, if not on the extension of which our strength and resources so principally depended. The right hon. gentleman concluded by moving, "That a Committee be appointed to consider of the means of maintaining and improving the Foreign Trade of the country.

Mr. Curwen was convinced, that any improvement in the condition of the commerce and manufactures of the country must proceed from an improvement in the condition of our agriculture, now in a state of such severe depression.

Mr. Baring observed, that it was unquestionably most desirable to examine how it happened, that in the sixth year of peace not any amendment had evinced itself in the condition of the country. Our agriculturists, our manufacturers, and our commercial men, all expressed to the House the uneasy state in which they felt themselves, and the distress which they suffered. To enter into the causes and the most advisable remedies for that distress, would be, to go into a question of

great length. At present, therefore, 'he would content himself with declaring his satisfaction at the right hon. gentleman's proposition, and his persuasion, that the inquiry would derive great advantage not only from the right hon. gentleman's official situation, but from his personal talents and experience. He could not help flattering himself, therefore, that benefit must be derived from the labours of the committee.

Sir John Newport thought it desirable, that both Houses should act together in the mode of inquiry, and decide as promptly as possible upon one common course. Nothing was more fatal to any branch of trade than to be kept lingering in a state of uncertainty.

The motion was agreed to, and a committee appointed.

SLAVE TRADE.] Mr. W. Smith said, it was now nearly fourteen years since this country had declared the crime, disgrace, and shame which attached to the African Slave Trade. No sooner had that desirable object been attained, than we turned to the other powers of Europe, and endeavoured to procure from them the same determination. In the peace of 1815, the exertions of the noble lord opposite, procured the abolition by the united voices of almost all nations. He was happy to say, that the noble lord, in employing his able exertions in the cause, had been supported by one of the greatest sovereigns in Europe, the emperor of Russia. He also had to mention a noble duke, to whom the country was so 'deeply indebted, as being among the most strenuous in accomplishing this great object. And for that alone, besides his other high services in the field, the country owed him everlasting gratitude. At the period to which he had alluded, every power in Europe was assembled at the congress of Vienna; and there they agreed in declaring, that the Slave Trade was contrary to all the principles of humanity and of morality. How, then, came it to pass that a period of five years had elapsed, and these powers had afforded no cooperation for carrying their declaration into effect? It therefore appeared, that we had only prevailed upon them to agree to the abolition in word, and that they were not disposed actively to co-operate with us in deed. Denmark had indeed done so, and America had done so. America had not only done that, but by an

Act of Congress she had declared, that Missouri should not be admitted among the federal states, until every kind of slavery was abolished in that country. But by, France, Spain, and Portugal, upon the southern coast of Africa North of the Line, called the Gold and Ivory Coast, the trade was still carried on in a mauner more disgraceful than had been witnessed even in the worst times of the British trading. He concluded by moving for copies or extracts of all communications received by the Lords of the Admiralty from the officers of the navy employed on the coast of Africa, relative to the Slave Trade, from the 1st of January, 1819; with copies of Instructions issued by the Lords of the Admiralty to those officers; and copies of various other papers and communications relative to the present state of the Slave Trade.

Mr. Wilberforce acquiesced in every thing which his hon. friend had stated.

Lord Castlereagh assured the hon. meniber, that every effort of the government had been directed to the subject of the present motion. It was most satisfactory to him, that parliament should, from time to time, take up the consideration of this important question.

66

66

The motion was agreed to.

CONDUCT OF MINISTERS RELATIVE TO THE PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE QUEEN.] The Debate on the motion, "That it appears to this House, that his "majesty's ministers, in advising the measures which have led to the late proceedings againgst her majesty the "Queen, were not justified by any "political expediency or necessity, and "that their conduct throughout the whole "of those proceedings has been productive "of consequences derogatory from the "honour of the Crown, and injurious to "the best interests of the country," being resumed,

Sir Robert Wilson rose. He said, he could assure the House, that it was not his intention to detain them by any lengthened arguments; but he felt it to be his duty to communicate some important information which he possessed, relative to the discussion before the House. As far as he understood the arguments of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Bathurst) who had spoken first in opposition to the motion, he had not attempted to justify the conduct of ministers, but had rather expressed a wish,

In

that the House should overlook errors that might have arisen from the complicated course which they were obliged to follow. The hon. member for Corfe Castle had, in the exercise of his rigid impartiality, taken a different course: he had condemned the beginning, the middle, and the end of the proceedings adopted by ministers; and he (sir R. Wilson) had been particularly struck with the word end, because he saw no termination of these proceedings. The member for Oxford had admitted, that ministers had committed three errors-not indeed of great intrinsic demerit in themselves; but important on account of their prejudicial influence in a public point of view. every other part the right hon. gentleman approved of the conduct of ministers, and thought they could not have acted otherwise, consistently with that purity of motive by which he believed them to have been actuated. It was, however, a maxim founded on the experience of all human transactions, that men's motives were to be judged of by their actions; and while it remained for ministers to explain any motive that appeared of a doubtful character, it was for him (sir Robert) to show, that they had committed great errors in the discharge of their duty. One thing, he thought, was clear; namely, that errors of ignorance or of incapacity on the part of public officers must be visited in the same manner as if they proceeded from impurity of motive, because their consequence to the public was equally detrimental. That was a principle applicable to the conduct of generals, admirals, and all military and naval officers, and was uniformly recognised in every court-martial; and he could see no reason why it should be excepted, or, indeed, why it should not be more rigorously enforced, in the case of a minister of the Crown. There was one circumstance, at least, that justified a suspicion of the motives of ministers, and that must continue to do so until they gave a satisfactory explanation-he meant the time chosen by them for instituting the Milan commission. It was immediately after the princess Charlotte had been removed from her parent by her premature death; and he must contend, that the selection of such a time for instituting such a commission was a circumstauce of a notoriously suspicious character. He did not accuse ministers of having purposely selected that moment;

He called it persecution; because, what peace, what repose could the Queen enjoy, while ministers refused to do an act so necessary to her honour and character an act at once just, politic, and gracious? Had any person in any situation of life drunk deeper of the cup of affliction than her majesty? Did not the very wretches who came forward to depose against her, admit her constant benevolence and her generous magnanimity? She had not refused to visit the sick when afflicted with the most pestilential disease. Like the good Bishop of Marseilles, she

had

"drawn her breath

"Where nature sickened and each gale was death."

The plague itself had no terrors for her, when her presence could be either a comfort or a utility. Should not conduct like this excite some sympathy, some kindred feeling? It was said, that some publications, in the name of her majesty, contained violent and indiscreet passages: but those who made the accusation ought to recollect the situation in which her majesty had been placed; they ought to recollect, that the Queen had forborne to wield the formidable weapon of recrimination, and which the noble lord well knew, she could have wielded with a power so destructive. The right hon member for Oxford had asked-" What! shall we let adultery triumph on the throne of England ?"—and he had asserted, that it was the same thing, whether committed on the shores of Britain, or on the waves of the Mediterranean. If that were true, then it was the same thing, whether ministers afforded adultery the means of triumph in Italy or in England. Yet, had they not offered to recognise it with the grant of sovereign power, and to aid it by an income that would have secured to it every means of indulgence and impunity? He was one, however reluctant some might be to give credit to the assertion, who deeply lamented that the prayer for peace out of doors had met with no corresponding echo within the walls of parliament. Glad indeed should he have been at this moment, if ministers would have allowed him to convert a resolution of censure into a vote of thanks-to construct, out of prevailing confusion, a temple of concord, by a concession on their part, that would at once entitle them to the love and gratitude of their country. Such an expectation, however, was vain. Ministers

were determined. to keep alive the irritation of the country. It was idle in them to charge others as the disturbers of the public peace; they were the great leviathans of anarchy, and their cabinet was the great revolutionary engine which menaced the country with more danger than had ever yet been threatened by any subversive power. He had only to state, that being himself an advocate of reform, he had always thought more strongly in its favour than was calculated to promote his personal interests. Upon two contingencies, he was both ready and willing to retire from public life. He should solicit his constituents to substitute some other representative in his place, whenever the House of Commons had proceeded to such an extremity of disregard to the wishes of the people as to deprive it of all confidence in its measures. He should no less be willing to withdraw into privacy, without recompense for any poor services it might have been his good fortune to render, whenever it appeared that his presence offered obstacles in the way of any arrangement essential to the welfare of his country.

Mr. Huskisson, after stating his reason for now breaking through the practice of a long parliamentary life, by troubling the House on a general question like the present, proceeded to advert to some of the topics already introduced in the course of the debate. In the first place, he must observe, that what had fallen from the hon. member for Corfe-castle, had been grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted; his hon. friend had not disapproved of the beginning, middle, and end of the proceedings against the Queen; he had only gone to the extent of saying, that he was not completely satisfied on the subject, adding, that if the matter were to be commenced again, he did not know, if he had been a minister, how he could act otherwise. Next, with regard to what the same hon. gentleman had remarked on the subject of the peace of 1815, that peace did answer the description he had given of it. At least, some valuable acquisitions were made by this country, and an exalted notion had been raised among the nations of the world as to her character, vigour, and resources. Such was his (Mr. H.'s) opinion; and it was not to be altered by an incident occurring in the sixth year of peace, which no wisdom could have foreseen or prevented, and by which, he trusted, the tranquillity of Europe could