to England. She has the more cause to be proud of it, that it is the legitimate fruit of her free constitution. Where tyrants bear sway palaces may arise to lodge the poor, and hospitals may be the most magnificent ornaments of the seat of power. But though fair to the eye, and useful to some classes, their foundations are laid in the sufferings of others. They are supported, not by private beneficence, which renders a pleasure to the giver as well as a comfort to him who receives; but by the hard-won earnings of the poor, wrung from their wants, and frequently by the preposterous imposts levied upon their vices. While the rulers of any people withhold from them the enjoyment of their most sacred rights-a voice in the management of their own affairs-they must continue strangers to those noble sentiments-that honest elevation of purpose, which distinguishes freemen, teaches them to look beyond the sphere of personal interest, makes their hearts beat high, and stretches out their arms for the glory and the advantage of their country. There is no more degrading effect of despotism than that it blunts the charitable feelings of our nature, rendering men suspicious and selfish, and forgetful that they have a country. Happily for England, she has still a people capable of higher things; but I have been led away from my purpose, which was only to express my admiration of those humane individuals, whose conduct I have so long witnessed-of whom if I have spoken very warmly, it is because I feel much more for them than I can describe-and whose deserts are indeed far, far above any praise that language can bestow.

Lord Castlereagh said, that after the speech, so interesting and so full of information, which the House had heard from the hon. and learned gentleman, he should not long occupy its attention. His speech had been, in the first place, directed to national education, and secondly, to what was the particular object of the bill. The latter subject was that to which attention was drawn, because it was rather their business at present to consider the state of charitable funds, than to enter on any other part of the question. Notwithstanding the statute of Elizabeth, there had been greater abuses in former times than at present; but the natural tendency of all institutions towards abuse required specific remedies to be applied from time to time. The hon. and learned gentleman

had insinuated, that much injury arose from the delay of decisions in the court of chancery. In that court it was well known that decisions were founded upon the spirit of equity as well as upon the precedents in similar cases; and a power of deciding quickly, and a power of deciding at the same time equitably, were two great desiderata that seemed hitherto undiscovered. All that the hon. and learned gentleman had proposed was a commission of inquiry, and a report upon the management of institutions for education. He protested, therefore, against the introduction, in making such a motion, of invidious complaints against the court of chancery; for, after all that parliament could do, recourse must be had to the court of chancery. The hon. and learned gentleman could not propose that the commissioners should of themselves decide in all cases of abuse. He went along with the hon. and learned gentleman in thinking that a commission would do great good. They would do good, in the first place, by calling the attention of parliament to the management of funds for education. Individuals who were interested must be impelled to diligent inquiry and active vigilance, by the knowledge that the disposal of the charities which they superintended was under the consideration of parliament. The nature and the amount of the funds would thus be ascertained and directed to their proper object. He went along with the hon. and learned gentleman in thinking that those funds were in some respects public property; at least they were public property so far as that the laws ought to attend to the management; but as they must have been appropriated to specific objects by the original donors, they ought not to be diverted from those objects. If the proposed commission should not be modified differently from its original intention, as he had understood it, he could not give it his support. It was not in any view similar to the naval inquiry instituted by lord St. Vincent. He thought it was much more similar to the inquiry into the administration of education in Ireland, and ought to be similarly conducted. In 1806, a commission had been appointed to inquire into this subject. Of those, six had been named by the lord lieutenant, and five by the corporation of charitable donations. Those commissioners had taken a long time to bring their investigations to a conclusion; for it was not till 1813 that a bill

had been introduced into the House to regulate the charities which they had been appointed to inquire into. He believed great good could not have been done in a shorter period. That, therefore, was a valuable precedent. When the House should have an account of the funds appropriated to education, they could then legislate for the application of them, better than if they instituted an inquiry and a remedy at the same time. Notwithstanding the enactments of the statute of Elizabeth, those inquiries were not to be rashly taken up; for, as they could not be concluded in a short period, they could not be conducted without considerable expense. He should suggest, too, that, according to the precedent which he had mentioned, men of rank and consideration ought to be named of the commission. The six named by the lord-lieutenant of Ireland had been persons of considerable consideration in the country, and the five named by the corporation of charitable donations had been distinguished as men of eminence. But, much more ought this to be the case in a country where the charities were more numerous, where the funds were much richer, and where the difficulties of every kind to be encountered were much greater. A certain proportion of the commission ought, therefore, to be persons of great station, who, although they should not go into the laborious part of the investigation, could yet be aiding and assisting by their counsel and authority. If the commission were formed of persons not known to the public, it could not be expected that their investigations could be successful, or their report satisfactory. They should, therefore, be partly persons of rank and station, such as he had described, and partly persons who could give the ministerial labours required. He wished the hon. and learned gentleman had mentioned those who were to receive remuneration. He begged leave to say on this point, that it were better that they should come to parliament and receive pay during their labour, as the remuneration could, in that case, be proportioned to their labours. The hon. and learned gentleman had named 1,000l.; but as they would have to go into various parts of the country, their expenses must be added to any allowance of this kind. Upon these views of the subject, he should feel great gratification in supporting the bill. The better mode of proceeding, he thought, was, to have

the bill printed, and to refer all farther proceedings till after the holydays. He had only farther to say, that as the universities and great schools, which were always in the eye of the public, had been excepted from the operation of this bill, the charter-house ought also to be excepted. No individual in that House could be supposed to have any wish to protect abuses. The hon. and learned gentleman had himself borne testimony to the good management of the charterhouse. It ought, therefore, to be excepted, on the same principle on which Winchester and every other great school were excepted.

Mr. Brougham said, he intended no insinuation against the court of chancery, but had only expressed his wish, that as much delay would necessarily occur, a receiver should be appointed upon the filing of a bill, in order to prevent farther dilapidation in the funds. A second point on which he had been misapprehended, was that of giving a power to the commissioners to file a bill. It did not require any act of parliament to empower a person to file a bill; but, without such a power, they would be exposed to expenses. willingly acceded to the proposal to print the bill, and defer farther proceedings till after the holydays.

He

Mr. Leslie Foster stated, that great advantages had been found to result in Ireland from the commission having the power to carry on chancery suits to their conclusion. He apprehended much of the delay in chancery with regard to charitable foundations, had arisen from the circumstance, that there was often no person interested to carry on the suits. The commissioners would supply the want of an actor in these suits.

Mr. Robinson thought the school of Harrow should also be excepted, as a few years ago a bill had been filed against the trustees of that school for a misapplication of the funds, but it had been decided by the late master of the rolls, that the present administration of those funds was unexceptionable.

Mr. Brougham observed, that if such exceptions were to take place, there was not a charitable fund in the kingdom to which some objection might not be made, and thus the bill would be rendered ineffectual.

Mr. Peel confessed he saw much force

in the reason given by his right hon. friend for the exemption of Harrow school.

The suit mentioned by his right hon. friend had been instituted from a notion that the school was founded for the benefit of the lower orders. But the late master of the rolls entirely approved of the proceedings of the governors of that school, as being in strict conformity with the will and intention of Mr. Lyon, the founder of it. Surely, therefore, this was a good ground of exemption.

Mr. Abercromby said, that if Harrow school ought to be excepted, every school that happened to have been in chancery ought to be excepted. It was no proof that no inquiry ought now to be instituted into the management of a school, that it had been well managed eight, ten, or twenty years ago. It was not becoming in any school to claim exemption; because, if there was nothing wrong, inquiry could do them no injury. On the same principle every school ought to be exempted, unless there should be a specific ground of suspicion. The commissioners ought to inquire into all charities, otherwise the object of their appointment could not be effected. The noble lord had divided the subject into two parts-the inquiry, and the remedy. He must express his hope, that the only remedy was not to be found in the court of chancery. His hon. and learned friend had not represented those charities as public property, any farther than they were intended by their founders. If the commission consisted of persons who were not to take an active part in the investigation, it required no spirit of prophesy to foresee the result. On the contrary, they ought to be persons who would be most persevering in the discharge of a difficult duty. They ought to anticipate every opposition from those who knew every branch of the subject, who were interested in the present system, and who would naturally resist any improvement. They ought to be persons of integrity, activity, and of no other occupation. The noble lord, by some of his observations, seemed to hint that they ought to be gentlemen at the bar. Those gentlemen were, in his apprehension, the most unfit of any; they had the duties of their profession to occupy them, and compared with which they must consider any other employment as secondary. Another class recommended by the noble lord were persons of the greatest respectability, and of high rank. The propriety of appointing an ornamental class of this description he could not perceive. Let them be persons

of character, talents, and reputation; but he could not conceive the good of appointing men of high rank; nay, he be lieved it would be detrimental, because those ornamental commissioners, if not active in the inquiry, must retard the purposes of the commission. They must be persons who will go into the country, and investigate the wills or deeds by which charities were founded, as well as the manner in which they were managed. High rank could be of no advantage then; and if legal advice were necessary, the learned attorney-general would be the proper person. But, above all, he hoped provincial barristers would be excepted. The House and the country were much indebted to his hon. and learned friend for having applied his great talents to this subject, and for the lucid statement he had given this night.

The House then resolved itself into the committee, in which Mr. Robinson proposed the exemption of Harrow from the operation of this Bill. Mr. Brougham opposed this proposition, observing, that if there were in the House any gentlemen who had been educated at Rugby, the exemption of that school also would be proposed, and so on with respect to other schools, until the exemptions would be so numerous as to defeat the object of the bill. Mr. Mills said, that if the proposi tion for exempting Harrow was adopted, he should feel himself justified in proposing the exemption of Rugby. Mr. Bennet said, that in case Harrow was exempted, he should also propose the exemption of the free school of Shrewsbury. Mr. C. Harvey thought himself warranted, upon the same ground, to propose the exemption of the free schools of Norwich. Sir M. W. Ridley expressed his opinion, that, upon the ground stated, he was entitled to propose the exemption of the free school of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, at which the lord chancellor and his brother, with other dis tinguished individuals, had been educated. The committee divided:

For the exemption of Harrow ... 30
Against it
53

Majority

The House being resumed, on the motion of Mr. Brougham, instructions were ordered to be given to the committee, to inquire into the state of the education of the poor in Scotland.

The Royal Burghs of Scotland bill was ordered to be read a second time on this day three months.

of the court of Great Session on their retiring from office, as in England. He saw no reason why this should not be the case with the Welsh judges as with the judges of the courts in England. There were other evils attendant upon the present practice of the court of Great Session, to which he would wish to apply some remedy; but he felt that could not be done without an alteration of the whole system of Welsh jurisdiction. He, however, conceived that if such a measure were carried into effect, it would be much for the advantage of the principality. The hon. member concluded by moving for leave to bring in his bill, which was agreed to.

BREACH OF PRIVILEGE-MOTION FOR THE REMOVAL OF THOMAS FERGUSON FROM HIS OFFICE.] Mr. Wynn rose, in pursuance of the notice he had given, to move that an humble Address be presented to his royal highness the Prince Regent, praying that he would be graciously pleased to order that Thomas Ferguson, who was declared to have been guilty of a corrupt attempt to violate the freedom of election and the independence of parliament, and also of a high breach of the privileges of the House of Commons, be removed from his present situation of surveyor of taxes, The hon. member observed, that he should not, on the present occasion, feel it necessary to trouble the House at any length. By a resolution which was unanimously carried on a former evening, the House had declared that Thomas Ferguson had been guilty of corruption, and of a high breach of the privileges of the House, and they had already inflicted a punishment upon him. It appeared that this man was a surveyor of taxes, who, by a particular act, was as such rendered incapable not only of voting at an election, but of interfering directly or indirectly with the election of any member to serve in parliament. The House, he conceived, could not, without extreme danger to its own privileges, pass over such an act as that of which Ferguson had been declared guilty, without resorting to that punishment which had been inflicted by parliament on similar occasions. It appeared from the prisoner's own account before the committee, that he had, without any authority, used the name of another, in order to influence a voter at an expected election. The inducement which he held out was at least plausible, Ferguson being then in such a

situation where he might be supposed, at first sight to have acted from authority. It appeared, however, that he had no authority for his conduct. The constant practice of the House had been to mark its sense of such conduct, not only by ordering the person so offending to be taken into custody, but also by moving an address for his dismissal from any situa tion which he held under the Crown. The hon. member then cited a variety of cases, where individuals, interfering improperly in the election of a member of parliament, were removed from the offices which they then held in consequence of addresses from the House. By the 5th of William and Mary, he observed, all officers of excise were not only declared to be liable to dismissal for interference in an election for a member of parliament, but also to a fine of 100%. This was by an act (the 12th of William and Mary) extended to officers of the customs, and by statute (9th Anne) it was declared that no persons belonging to the post or stamp office could interfere in such election except at his own peril. Other acts of later date enforced the former acts in a stronger manner. With these examples and the acts of the legislature before them, he did not see how the House could refrain from following up their former resolution on the present occasion. He was aware that it must be painful to the feelings of members to inflict an additional punishment upon an individual who was already suffering one punishment for his misconduct; but the House should look to the circumstances of the case, to former precedents, and to their own dignity. He begged to call to their recollection, the case of an hon. member of the House, who had three years ago been found guilty of being con. cerned in the fraud upon the stock exchange. He was not only sentenced to an immediate punishment for that offence, but was afterwards deprived of all his honours. This was not with the view of inflicting an additional punishment for the same offence, but to show, that a person who could be guilty of such an action was rendered by it unworthy of a continuance in his former situations of rank and confidence. The case which had occurred in 1809, could not be a precedent for the present, for there the House did not think fit to go into the question, and of course gave no decision upon it. But here they had decided, that a gross attempt at corruption, and a violation of the privileges