dry and sordid gain; and sell it to utter strangers, of whose qualities they can have no other estimate than the weight of their purses; this does indeed appear to me to be a great political evil, and a great public grievance. It degrades and debases the habits of the higher ranks of life, who confess their own sense of the nature of these transactions, by the concealment with which they seek to cover them; it taints also and contaminates the general character of parliament; and it furnishes the most formidable weapons to those who are professing, and I am willing to believe sincerely professing, to reform, but as I fear, are, in truth and in fact, by the tendency of their endeavours, labouring to subvert the entire system of our parliamentary representation.

With respect, Sir, to the next question, whether these practices are any parliamentary offence. That it is a high parliamentary offence, every page of our history, statutes, and journals, appears to me to bear evidence.

It is essential to the very idea of elections that they should be free. Such is the ancient language of the statute of Westminster in the reign of Edward the First, speaking of elections in general: such also is the modern language of the Bill of Rights, with reference specifically to the election of members to serve in parliament; and we have a memorable instance in the year immediately following the Revolution, of the sense in which this fundamental principle was understood, in the case of the Cinque Ports; for by a statute in the second of William and Mary, it is not enacted only, but declared, that for the lord warden to nominate or recommend any member to serve in any port or place within his jurisdiction, was a

violation of the freedom of parliaments, and contrary to the ancient laws and constitution of the realm.

In the description of these offences, which constitute a violation of our privileges, there is nothing technically narrow, but the rule is to be tried by its substantial effects. Force, fraud, corrupt practices, and undue influence of any sort, by which the freedom of elections is controlled, have been reprobated in all ages.

These offences, if pursued as matter of personal delinquency, were anciently triable before the committee of privileges; if they touched the seat, they were cognizable in the committee of elections. At a later period, when these committees were united, all such offences were of course tried indiscriminately before the joint jurisdiction. And so things continued until happily the functions of the committee of elections were transferred by the Grenville act to a better tribunal. But the general conservation and vindication of our rights and privileges, except so far as divested by special statute, still resides, as we all know, in the house at large, and its committee of privileges.

Whoever, therefore, looks into the proceedings of all these several jurisdictions, according to their different periods, will find abundant traces of the inquiries which have been instituted, and the censures which have followed upon offences of all these descriptions. And from the period of the Revolution, we may see them exemplified in the prosecutions conducted by Sir Edward Seymour against the directors of the new East-India Company in the reign of king William; in the reports of the secret committee upon the last ten years of Sir Robert

Walpole's administration during the last reign; in the charge brought against Lord North upon the Milbourn Port election; and the general character of these offences is evidenced by all the language of similar proceedings in our own time. But, Sir, beyond this:- Practices of this description are not only offences by the law of parliament, they have been long since adjudged to be criminal by the common law of the realm.

The bribery of votes was adjudged by the court of king's bench, in the early part of the present reign, to have been a common-law offence, even though no precedents could be adduced to show it, and to have been punishable as such long before its increased prevalence made parliament deem it necessary to restrain it by special statutes. And in like manner any previous agreement or compact to controul the votes of electors (even although the electors are not themselves bribed) has been adjudged to be illegal upon general grounds of policy and jurisprudence. Such was the case which arose in the burgh of Stirling in the year 1773, where some of the town-council had entered into a corrupt agreement to divide the profits of the burgh, and what they were also pleased to call the parliamentary profits, and to bring no person into the magistracy but such as should vote with them upon all parliamantary elections; under this agreement, elections were had and passed unanimously. But when this agreement was discovered and questioned, although it was manifest that the other electors were neither party nor privy to the agreement, nor had profited thereby, the court of session not only declared the agreement itself to be illegal, unwarrantable, and contra bonos

mores, but also that by reason of the undue influence under which such elections were had, all those elections were void and null. This judgment afterwards came by appeal to the house of lords, and was there, in November, 1775, affirmed.-At a later date, another question of this sort came before an election committee under the Grenville act, from the county of Berwick, in 1781. The petition there stated that two of the candidates had, by themselves and friends, combined to controul the election, by choosing first one of those two candidates, who should sit for a certain number of years or sessions, and then that the other should be elected to succeed him. The election committee before whom that case was tried and proved, reported the agreement to be corrupt and illegal, and voided the election.

What, therefore, it remains for us to do is plain. And as our ancestors, when they found the censures of parliament, and the decisions of the common law, were insufficient to restrain the growing practice of bribery to voters, proceeded to superadd the cumulative penalties of the statute law; so also it is for us, who have before us such flagrant proofs that the traffic in seats has broken through the existing checks, to put it down by a new prohibitory law.

And now, Sir, we are brought to the last consideration-whether we can by any safe and practicable remedy suppress the mischief: and of this I have no doubt, if with sincerity and diligence we apply ourselves to the task.

According to my views of this subject, the committee will perceive that I must naturally desire in the first place that our law should be in itself declaratory, lest we

should

should impair the principle which we are endeavouring to strengthen. The definition or description of the offence should also be marked with such a degree of precision that we may not include in it things or consequences beyond our own intentions. And the prohibitory provisions should be such as are most analogous to the rest of our election laws upon corresponding cases. . Of course the honourable member who has brought in the present bill will not be surprized that I should think he has fallen short of the true point, in not making it declaratory. As to the main part of his enactments, he will also be prepared for my dissenting from the use of such lax and wide modes of expression as he has employed; a defect into which it is no peculiar reproach for him to have fallen, as our modern forms of legislation have too much involved all our provisions in language so cumbrous, that it is generally difficult to discover their sense and substance, through the multitude of words with which they are overcharged. But beyond this, it is quite impossible for me to consent to that part of his proposed enactment which makes the tenure of seats in this house dependent upon judgments to be obtained in the courts below, or in any way puts the trials of our own rights out of our own accustomed jurisdiction.

With regard to the oath proposed by the honourable gentleman, it is such in its present form as I should entirely object to. I do not know that a proper oath for a proper purpose is in itself an exceptionable provision by law. Nor do I think that for solemnity or importance, so long as any oaths are used in election laws, that any occasion for it could be more suitable; agreeing.

as I do very much with Sir William Blackstone in opinion, that the oath, if administered to the elected, would be far more effectual than when given to the elector. Nevertheless, knowing that to many persons any form of oath whatever upon this subject would be highly obnoxious, and not thinking it indispensably necessary to the efficacy of the bill, I should not be disposed to insist upon it.

What I should require would be, that the party who purchased should not reap the profit of his bargain, but should fall under the same disability as that enacted by the act of William the Third, which I think would be improved also, if it excluded him not for that vacancy alone, but for the whole parliament. The party who received the price of his venality should also of course forfeit it, with any further penalty which it might be thought right to superadd.

And, beyond this, I would think it a proper course to declare it by positive law, what is implied by the judgments which I have already cited that by such traffic each party becomes guilty of a misde

meanour.

Upon the whole, Sir, that for which I am most anxious is the establishment of the principle; being firmly persuaded that honourable minds, which may have hitherto deviated from what I think was the straight path of their duty, or may have been made to vacillate by the practices which they saw prevailing around them with impunity will shrink from them with abhorrence when they find them condemned by a specific law and other men, if actuated by motives less honourable, will be restrained by fears not less efficacious.

I shall therefore listen with satisfaction

SWEDEN.

Proclamation by the new King, on

his ascending the Throne. We, Charles XIII. by the grace of God, King of Sweden, &c. to all our faithful subjects, &c. &c. greeting. When, under Divine Providence, we assumed, some time ago, the provisional government of our beloved native country, committed to us by the states of our realm, we immediately called the attention of the Diet to the indispensable and important task of framing a new constitution, calculated to promote the prosperity, tranquillity, and welfare of the country, by an irrevocable union between the mutual rights and duties of the king and people of Sweden. The states having informed us that they have not only performed the important task committed to them by us, and the confidence of their fellow-subjects, but also that they have chosen us king of Sweden, and of the Goths and Vandals, re

questing our approbation of that choice, the cordial and loyal man. ner in which that election was made, did not allow us to decline its acceptance. Relying on the Omnipo tent, who explores the inmost recesses of the human heart, and knows the sincerity and purity of our sentiments, moved by the most fervent love and zeal for our native land, which can only cease with our existence, and trusting we shall be most powerfully supported by the loyal attachment of the noble Swedish nation, we have therefore accepted the crown and sceptre of Sweden.-It is far more gratifying to our feelings, to have been called upon by the free and uncontrouled voice of the people; to become their king, their protecter, and defender, than if we had ascended the ancient Swedish throne merely by right of hereditary succession. We shall govern the kingdom and people of Sweden, as an indulgent parent does his children; with implicit confidence in the honest; with forbearance towards those who err unde liberately; uprightness towards all; and when the day arrives, the near approach of which is announced by our advanced age, which shall put an end to our worldly cares, we will hail our last moments with the pious resignation of the just, and close it by blessing you all.

(Signed) CHARLES, GUST. SUYDSJELKD, Aulic Chancellor.

Council Hall, Stockholm Castle,
June 6, 1809.

PROCLAMATION,

Dated Frankfort, June 18. Frederick-Augustus, by the grace of God, King of Saxony, &c.-Divine Providence has been so beneficent to us, that since we have been called to the government, we have

had

had only the agreeable duty of offering him the homage of the sincerest gratitude; and we have discharged this duty with so much the more ardour, as our heart feels no greater joy than in knowing that they are happy whose felicity is intrusted to us. We had last year especially reason to bless the goodness of God, when a generous conqueror restored to us our estates, which are already lost; and this felicity became more precious, when a personal acquaintance with this great man, added to affection and the sincerest gratitude, our admiration and our veneration of his great qualities, which have never been sufficiently appreciated; and fixed the basis of a genuine esteem, on which our mutual alliance is as firmly established as on treaties, and which renders it doubly indissoluble. Even at the present moment of trouble, it was for me a great consolation to behold our country enjoy an almost perfect tranquillity, while the torch of war was enkindled in other states, and there spread its ravages anew. We believed it necessary to abandon for a time our good city of Dresden, and fix our abode at Leipsic, which is no great distance. We hoped that we could continue there, to apply our labours to the government of our faithful subjects; the more so, as, according to the course the war had taken, an hostile invasion of our country was by no means probable. We were so much the more painfully affected at beholding this hope vanish, and being obliged to remove from Leipsic to a considerable distance, in order to place ourselves out of danger, by avoiding the route in which the troops which were advancing from Bohemia, upon Saxony and Franconia, might seize our person and royal family.-But we live in the entire confidence that Divine Providence will bless our

efforts for the deliverance of our country, and that, supported by the forces of his majesty the king of Westphalia, our faithful neighbour and ally, we shall return.-We believe it to be our duty, faithful and beloved Saxons, to impart this confidence to you, removed as we are from you, in order to tranquillize you. In the mean while we thank you publicly for supporting your situation with tranquillity and dignity, that you have lent no ear to the enemy, and in this given new proof of that love and attachment towards us which are our felicity, and which we feel equally for you.-It is therefore with confidence that we exhort you to attach yourselves more and more to our principles, which, hitherto, thanks to God, have always constituted the happiness of the country, and at the same time to consider and avert the evils which the ill-intentioned might seek to scatter among you, by propagating an erroneous doctrine.-For it cannot be unknown to you, that there are in our dominions, people weak, seduced, or wicked, who not only do not approve of our system, and the principles on which we have only from conviction adopted it, but who dare to avow, and even act in a contrary manner. We seriously enjoin by these presents all the authorities of our kingdom to observe with great attention those who render themselves suspicious by a like mode of thinking, and especially those who disturb peace by rash discourse, or by open acts, as well as those who spread intelligence which may disquiet well-intentioned citizens, and deprive our constant efforts for the permanent tranquillity of our subjects, of a part of their effect; and, in general, we charge them to neg lect nothing in order that our subjec may conduct themselves accor