Mr. Robert Thornton said, he could not on either side. He would endeavour to express his private sentiments upon the question, in as few words as possible. When the noble marquis went to India, as governor-general, the yearly revenue amounted to 7,000,000l. when he left it, the revenue amounted to 15,000,000l. This was doubling the revenue certainly, but it was necessary also to look to the increase of debt during the time of his governorship. When he went to India, the debt owing by the company amounted to 10,000,000l. when he left it the debt amounted to 30,000,000l. This was, he must say, a vast encrease of debt in a few years. As to cession of territory in the form of subsidy, this he thought justifiable, or otherwise, according to the manner in which the cession was made. But he thought cession of territory most unjustifiable, if contrary to the sacredness of treaty. The noble marquis could not, he was sorry to say, be complimented on his having followed the example of our most gracious sovereign, in imitating him in noble generosity and moderation towards weaker powers; and, however he might approve of the war with Tippoo, he could not but condemn the conduct of the noble marquis in violating the treaty of Oude. It had been asserted, that the vizier was frequently drunk, and was incapable of taking any proper management; but he would assert that the noble marquis also had been drunk with ambition, and ought to be checked, however much he might admire the extraordinary talents of the marquis on many occasions, in which he deserved commendation. pletely independent of this country. But, I this was not the fact. He was a protect-in all points in this question, join speakers ed prince, living under the protection of G. Britain. By the treaty concluded by sir John Shore, G. Britain had a right to interfere with the internal concerns of Oude; and in all the proceedings of marquis Wellesley, there was nothing contrary to existing stipulations, which had been said respecting encreasing the subsidy paid to this country: but he found nothing in this particularly applicable to the noble marquis. Since the year 1773, to the year 1798, alterations had been made seven times in the amount of subsidy paid by the nabob of Oude. In the year 1773, he paid yearly the sum of 300,000l. and in the year 1798, he paid the increased yearly sum of 900,000l. But gentlemen would observe, that the expence incurred by the company in defence of the province, had also of late years greatly increased. He considered the defence of Oude, and of our East India possessions, as one and the same thing. When marquis Wellesley arrived in India,he wrote the court of directors the plan of the conduct he meant to follow. This letter lay upon their table; and if the court had disapproved of his intentions, would it not have been but justice both to themselves and to the noble marquis, immediately to have sent him notice. The miseries which have existed in our East India settlements, he considered to have sprung in a great measure from pecuniary subsidies, of which he completely disapproved. Territorial subsidies he considered much less oppressive in their effect. The company had at the present time, 69,000 men for the defence of Bengal, and 40,000 in the Doab, or on the banks of the Ganges, for the defence of Oude. Objections had been stated to our introducing troops into Oude, as if contrary to treaty; however, the papers before the house shewed that it was not so. He maintained that the nabob of Oude was in a better situation now than before the late arrangements. His dominion was fixed, and the subsidy payable to the company was not liable to be increased by contingencies. He concluded, by saying, he thought some of the resolutions moved for by the noble lord so much like to truth, and some of so frivolous a nature, he should wish to get rid of them, not by a negative, but by moving the previous question. The last resolution, however, he considered extremely objectionable, and would give it his negative. On a cry of question, Mr. Biddulph moved the adjournment of the debate till Friday. Several observations were then made by different members, and Mr. Whitbread remarked, that he was sorry to see the temper of the house so inimical to listening to his hon. friend who had just sat down, as he would have thrown great light on the transactions of India; but he was determined to oppose the adjournment. The Speaker then put the motion; on the division, there were 37 for and 196 against the motion. On entering the house we found Mr. Sheridan on his legs, stating, that he understood, that instead of the original debate, a very extraordinary motion of thanks was to be proposed by an hon. friend to the marquis Wellesley. The whole he had heard in defence of the noble marquis, did not appear to him to justify such a measure; and more particularly so at this period of the night, as it would occasion the whole grounds of the debate to be again gone over. Lord Milton said the house ought to be cautious how it gave its censure or thanks; it was to be remarked, that it was considered to be the policy of our government, and also that of the East India Company to look to commerce, and not to the acquisition of territory; on this ground he would give his vote. Mr. Whitbread said, he was astonished at the conduct of the friends of lord Wellesley, who had rested their defence upon the policy of the noble marquis, and not upon the treaty. The injustice was too strong to forego examination. For what was the case? Lord Cornwallis had left our possessions in India in a flourishing state. The noble marquis had, by his conduct, destroyed what lord Cornwallis had effected, and had left the country in the greatest distress. So much so, that had some bullion not arrived at the same time with his lordship, when he went again to resume the command, there would have been no funds for the exigencies of the state, nor money to pay the troops. He contended that we had violated the treaty of Oude, as by that treaty we had acknowledged the independence of that country, and could not, without injustice, seize upon the territory. He would go the full length of the Resolution, and the motion upon it. Earl Temple defended marquis Wellesley from the unfounded calumnies circulated against him. He compared his administration with that of marquis Cornwallis and lord Teignmouth, in order to show that they all interfered alike, and considered Oude as dependent upon the company. He would not only vote against the Resolution, but for the motion of sir J. Anstruther. Mr. Morris acknowledged that the treaty was violated, but asserted it was owing to the failure of the nabob to pay his kists; he would therefore vote against the Resolutions. Lord Folkestone denied that ever the nabob failed in his payment, and replied to the arguments on that side at consideable length. The house then divided, 31 182 -151 ORDERS IN COUNCIL BILL.] The order of the day was read for resuming the adjourned debate on the motion of lord Grenville, for rejecting the Orders in Council bill. Lord Grenville, having on a former evening stated his reasons for moving the rejection of this bill, declined again urging them, but trusted to the indulgence of their lordships to allow him to reply to any arguments that might be urged in the course of the debate. Lord Hawkesbury objected to the strictness of construction given to the Standing Order by the noble lord, on a former evening, and contended, that the practice of the house was in direct opposition to the principles urged by the noble lord in support of his motion. His lordship quoted several precedents in support of this proposition, some of them in the reign of queen Anne, soon after the passing of the Order; some in the beginning of the reign of his present majesty, and others of recent date, consisting of Bills of Aid and Supply, which contained clauses either not necessary to the object of the bill, or foreign to and differing from the purpose of the bill, and which were, notwithstanding, agreed to in that house. One instance he quoted was, the Act for carrying into effect the commercial treaty with France, on which a question of rejection on the Standing Order was moved in that house, and negatived. In the Annual Malt Bill, and in the Irish Stamp act passed in 1803, clauses were contained foreign to their purpose. His lordship entered into a detail of these precedents, for the purpose of proving the practice of the house to be in opposition to the noble lord's construction of the Order; and then went through those clauses of the Bill to which objections had been taken, contending, that in no instance could they be considered as bringing the bill within the meaning of the Order. Most of the clauses objected to were, in his opinion, evidently growing out of the bill, as a bill of Aid and Supply; and with respect to the limitation of action, on which most stress had been laid, he denied, that it at all contained an indemnity for issuing the Orders in Council; and that the question of legality might still be tried, although this clause was agreed to. He urged, that it would be unjust to apply the Order to this bill, after a continued practice of a contrary tendency so clearly proved, that the intention of the Order was to apply it in cases where there was an evident intention on the part of the commons to better the discretion of that house, by annexing clauses to Money Bills foreign to their purpose; that a general application of the Order would defeat the object of it; and that it could not, in any fair or just view of the case, be applied to the present bill. | Either it ought to be applied according to the terms of it, as distinctly stated, or else it ought to be repealed. The precedents quoted by the noble lord were either not in point, as proving only that clauses inserted in bills contrary to this order, had been unnoticed by the house, or else they proved too much; for if they were to be taken as declaring the sense of the house upon this subject, then there was an end of this Standing Order. There were however two instances of recent date in which the house had acted upon this Order, the one in 1789, when lord Thurlow was chancellor, when a bill of Aid and Supply was rejected as containing clauses foreign to its object; and the other in Jan. 1807, when he had the honour of sitting on the woolsack, and of pointing out to the house the necessity of enforcing their Standing Order. As to there being no indemnity contained in the bill, he thought, on the contrary, that if it passed, and supposing the case of ministers being impeached for issuing the Orders in Council, that that house could not, after passing this act as it now stood, find them guilty. His lordship went through those clauses of the bill which were adverted to on Monday evening by lord Grenville, and contended that they were foreign to and different from the object of the bill, as a bill of Aid and Supply, and therefore that the bill, in conformity with the express words and meaning of the Order, ought to be rejected. Lord Mulgrave insisted that a rule of the house, like a law, in courts of justice, might be explained by long practice. He perfectly concurred with the argumentative speech of his noble friend, the secretary of state; and trusted that their lordships, always regardful of their own privileges, would not, from any mistaken notions in point of form, delay a bill of the highest importance to the welfare of the British empire. Lord Erskine contended, that whatever the practice of the house might have been, it could not set aside the written Orders of the house; practice might decide with respect to unwritten law, because, in that case, the decisions upon the subject deLord Holland animadverted on the clared the law, but where there was a speech of the noble lord who spoke last, written statute, no practice could set it who, he said, had repeated more feebly aside; the written law remained to be re- the arguments of the noble secretary of ferred to, and to shew the course to be state. He said the instances adduced in pursued. Thus it was with the Standing explanation of the order were not conOrder; and he could not conceive what temporaneous with it, that they were eight the noble lord meant in arguing that the or ten years posterior, and that the examgeneral application of the order would de-ple of the 9th of queen Anne, on which feat its object. Was it to be argued, that an order general in its nature, and clearly stating its object, was only to be applied to particular instances, or was it to shew what instances it ought to be applied to? so much stress had been laid, was after lords Somers and Cowper had left the woolsack, and the seals were in commission; so that it could not be supposed the house could receive the able assistance to which it had been accustomed, for the preservation of the respect due to the Standing Orders. Lord Harrowby contended for the interpretation of the Order as evinced in the practice of the house, immediately subsequent to passing it, as well as in bills of more recent date. and Supply, and in his conscience he believed there were no such clauses. The Earl of Lauderdale contended, that no argument had been advanced by the noble lord, to shew that the last clause in the bill, that of indemnity, was a natural part of the bill of Aid and Supply. The noble lord had advanced no reason that could convince any man; he had made it a matter between himself and his conscience and his conscience was satisfied; but he had not satisfied the understanding of noble lords who heard him.-The noble earl went over the other regulations of the Bill, to shew that they were now totally unconnected with the Supply; and appealed to the noble and learned lord on the woolsack, whose peculiar duty it was to watch over the Orders of the house, to say whether this important Order of 1702 would not be totally violated if they entertained this Bill? Lord Grenville began by expressing his surprise, that upon a question of this nature, the house had not yet heard the opinion of the person whose duty it more peculiarly was to study, to explain, and to enforce those Standing Orders which were enacted for the regulation of its proceedings, and which were as binding upon it as the laws of the land were upon the courts below. That a Standing Order of the utmost importance was, in the instance under consideration, attempted to be violated, the noble lord endeavoured to prove, by shewing, that several of the clauses were foreign to, and different from the matter of a bill for Aids and Supplies. For this purpose, he referred particularly to those clauses which prescribed commercial re Lord Sidmouth said, that it was necessary to say a word or two upon the origin of the Standing Order which had been read. During the reigns of Charles II. and William III. in the progress of half a century, numerous attempts had been made by the house of commons to introduce into the house of lords objectionable measures, by connecting them with Money Bills; so that unless their lordships condescended to such measures, the aids for the service of the state were refused. Urged by this endeavour, the house of lords, for the preservation of its own independence, entered on the Journals this Standing Order, and when so adopted it must either be obeyed or repealed. The order itself might require some explanation. The Money Bills therein referred to were easily distinguished: they always originated in a committee of ways and means, as did the Bill now under consideration: they had the preamble, in which the name of the lords' house was excluded, as in this Bill; and when the royal assent was given, it was not le roi le veut,' but le roi remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veut;' and so it would be given to this Bill, if it proceeded to that state of maturity. The instances adduced ought to be Money Bills of this description; and if they were not, the Standing Order had no reference to them whatever. Trying, then, the ex-gulations. Upon the merits of the bill itamples or precedents stated by this test, he found that out of eight submitted to the attention of the house, only two or three in the course of a century were applicable to the purpose to which they were referred. If their lordships regarded their own consistency, independence, and dignity, he thought they could not dispense with the Standing Order on the present occasion, and that the Bill must be rejected. Lord Melville contended, that the practice of the house ought to be taken as the interpretation of the Order, and that therefore, even upon this ground, the bill ought not to be rejected. He had, how-cileable with the freedom of commerce. ever, examined the bill, and had put the question to himself, whether there were any clauses in it which were foreign to, or different from its object as a Bill of Aid self the noble lord animadverted with his usual ingenuity and force. Under the terms of the clause which related to the East India Company, he contended that they could not dispose of any goods whatever for home consumption. But the most objectionable feature in the measure was that provision by which ministers were enabled to exempt any merchant from all its operations upon such conditions as they might think proper to settle. The idea of investing any ministers with such an extraordinary discretion, appeared to his mind utterly irrecon It would indeed go to arm them with such a degree of power over the mercantile body, as never was assumed or possessed by the most despotic government upon the subject of commerce. He could not, in | every bill of that nature upon the Statute fact, conceive how the character of com- Book. merce could consist with such an arrangement. From this point, the noble lord proceeded to comment upon the clause, limiting prosecutions against those who acted under the Orders in Council. This limitation was so contrived both as to time and place, that any person who might have cause to complain, or spirit to appeal against any illegality in these orders, or any injustice in their execution, was intirely precluded from the possibility of obtaining redress. The noble lord concluded by declaring his opinion, that the adoption of the bill before the house must lead to inevitable ruin. The Lord Chancellor asserted, that no part of the bill before their lordships was 'inconsistent with the Standing Order alluded to by the noble lord who had just sat down. On the contrary, he maintained, that the whole stream of their lordships' proceeding, for a series of years, was in direct conformity to the practice objected to by the advocates for the motion. This was his opinion at the time the noble lord first stated his objection, but yet he thought | it becoming in him to postpone the declaration of that opinion, until he should have heard all those noble lords who were disposed to speak upon the question. That course, he perceived, had exposed him to some animadversions, in the course of which it had been observed, that where a man who held a judicial situation doubted, he was unfit for that situation. Now, his opinion was directly the reverse of that observation; for he thought the man who entertained doubts in a judicial situation was the most fit for such a situation.The noble lord entered into an enumeration of the several precedents referred to by the advocates of the motion, and contended, none of them in any degree bore on the conclusion which those noble lords would deduce from them. There was not, he maintained, a single provision in the bill upon the table which was not in strict alliance to and in pursuance of its main object. Therefore it could not be held, that it contained any thing foreign to and different from a bill of Aids and Supplies. So thinking he could not of course agree in the notion, that their lordships would in passing such a bill infringe the letter or spirit of the Standing Order alluded to. Indeed clauses directly similar to these, objected to as inconsistent with a bill of Supply, were to be found in almost VOL. X. Earl Grey said, that the cases cited by the noble lord on the woolsack did not seem to him to warrant the opinion his lordship had delivered, and he believed that many cases might be found in the Journals of the house that even justified a contrary opinion, He would therefore propose that a committee of precedents should be appointed to select such cases as might be found applicable to the matter then under their lordships consideration, and then the house could more easily judge from those cases than from the partial ones produced during the debate. Their lordships then divided on lord Grenville's motion, for rejecting the bill, Contents..... 25...Proxies...34-52 Non contents. 66...Proxies... 63—120 Majority..... -70 [PROTEST AGAINST THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL BILL.] The order of the day being read, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion to reject the Bill entituled "An Act for granting to his majesty until the end of the next session of parliament, Duties of Customs on the Goods, Wares, and Merchandize herein enumerated, in furtherance of the provisions of certain Orders in Council." The Standing Order No. 25. was read after long debate.-The question was put, whether the said Bill shall be rejected; it was resolved in the negative. DISSENTIENT: Because the annexing any clause or clauses to a Bill of Aid or Supply, the matter of which is foreign to, and different from the matter of the said Bill of Aid or Supply, is unparliamentary, and tends to the destruction of the constitution of this government.-Grenville, Vassal Holland, Cawdor, Lauderdale, Auckland, Ponsonby, Grey, Carysfort, Erskine, Jersey, Spencer, Nugent, (Buckinghamshire,) Cholmondeley, Crewe, Clifton, Stafford, Ponsonby, (Imohilly,) Albemarle, Cowper, Essex." "DISSENTIENT: 1st, Because, such has been the anxiety to maintain inviolate the true spirit of the Standing Order of this house, No. 25, declaring The annexing any clause or clauses to a Bill of Aid or Supply, the matter of which is foreign to or different from the matter of the said Bill of Aid or Supply, is unparliamentary, and tends to the destruction of the constitution of this government:' that Bills not of Aid or Supply, if they contained a clause imposing a duty upon his majesty's 4 E |