was sustained by what was termed the alarming minority of ninety-three against one hundred and forty-four. The address, of course, was carried, and the message was ordered to be taken into consideration on the following evening. On the following evening, however, contrary to all precedent on such occasions, the proceedings were postponed till Wednesday! In a very warm conversation which took place on the subject, Tierney stated it to be the intention of ministers to propose an annual addition of nineteen thousand pounds or twenty thousand pounds to the income of the duke of Clarence, and of twelve thousand pounds respectively to the dukes of Kent, Cumberland, and Cambridge, with an outfit to each to the amount of the additional income. On Wednesday, the fifteenth, lord Castlereagh, admitting Tierney's statement to have been substantially correct, informed the house that the intended proposition had been modified; but that nothing less, in addition to the duke of Clarence's income, than ten thousand pounds could possibly enable him to support the dignity of his rank in the married state. His lordship moved a resolution accordingly. An amendment, however, making the additional sum six thousand pounds instead of ten thousand pounds was carried against the ministers! On the Tuesday evening following, having announced that the duke of Clarence could not accept of the six thousand pounds, lord Castlereagh moved a resolution for a similar grant to the duke of Cam bridge. This motion was strongly opposed by Brougham, but ultimately carried.

A few days previously to these discussions the princess Elizabeth had been united to the prince of Hesse Homberg; but, as she was in the enjoyment of nine thousand pounds a year settled on her by the state, no proposal was made for a marriage dowry. For a time the duke of Clarence, in consequence of the pecuniary disappointment to which he had been subjected, relinquished, or professed to have relinquished, his intended marriage. At a subsequent period, however, the union took place. In the ensuing month an announcement of the intended marriage of the duke of Kent with the dow. ager princess of Leiningen, sister of prince Leopold of Saxe Cobourg, produced a grant to the royal pair to the same amount as in the cases of the dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge.

The supplies of this year were estimated at the sum of twenty million nine hundred and fifty-two thousand four hundred pounds; to meet which, in addition to the produce of ways and means, a three and a half per cent. stock was created to the amount of fourteen million pounds. By this expe dient no new taxes were levied, nor were any additions made to the old ones.

The alien act was continued for two years, on the ground that it was necessary to keep out, as well as to send out, of Great Britain, those persons who should avail themselves of the vicinity of France, to foster a spirit menacing to the security of this and the other governments of Europe. On the motion of the lord-chancellor, a clause was introduced, by which all persons who might have been naturalized since the twenty-eighth of April by the purchase of shares in the bank of Scotland, or who might claim to be naturalized by becoming partners in that bank, after the passing of this act, should be deemed and taken to be aliens, notwithstanding any exist ing act of the parliament of Scotland, so long as the provisions of this law respecting aliens should remain in force.

EDUCATION OF THE POOR.

A COMMITTEE was formed in the house of commons early in the year, to consider of a bill, proposed by Brougham, respecting the education of the poor; and an inquiry was instituted into the state and management of charitable funds. For this inquiry fourteen commissioners were to be appointed by the crown, six of whom were to have no salaries. The bill, in its passage through the house of lords, underwent various changes. The commissioners were limited to those charities con

nected with education; they were precluded, by circumstances over which they could not have control, from investigating the state of the education of the poor generally; they were directed to traverse the country, and to call witnesses before them, but were to possess no authority for enforcing attendance, or for demanding the production of any one document. Brougham observed that the bill, as it

now stood, left every thing to the good will of those who had an interest at variance with the inquiry, yet much good might still result from the exercise of the powers possessed by the house. The means to be used were, that the commissioners should proceed and call witnesses; that they should report occasionally to the house, and make returns of the names of all persons refusing to give information, or to produce documents, without alleging any just cause of refusal; and the committee, which would be re-appointed next session, might be empowered to call those persons before them. Brougham then proposed an address to the prince regent, praying for the appointment of a commission to inquire into the state of education of the poor throughout England and Wales, and to report thereupon. On this address the previous question was moved and carried; and the same fate attended another proposal, that the commissioners should inquire into the abuses of charities not connected with educa tion.

Parliament was dissolved by the prince regent in person, on the tenth of June. Having stated his intention to give directions for calling a new parliament, his royal highness thus proceeded :1 cannot refrain from adverting to the important change which has occurred in the situation of this country and of all Europe, since I first met you in this place. At that period, the dominion of the common enemy had been so widely extended over the continent, that resistance to his power was, by many, deemed to be hopeless; and in the extremities of Europe alone was such resistance effectually maintained. By the unexampled exertions which you enabled me to make, in aid of countries nobly contending for independence, and by the spirit which was kindled in so many nations, the continent was at length delivered from the most galling and oppressive tyranny under which it had ever laboured; and I had the happiness, by the blessing of Divine Providence, to terminate, in conjunction with his majesty's allies, the most eventful and sanguinary contest in which Europe had for centuries been engaged, with unparalleled success and glory. The prosecution of such a contest for so many years, and more particularly the efforts which marked the close of it, have been followed within our own country, as well as throughout the rest of Europe, by considerable internal difficulties and distress. But, deeply as I felt for the immediate pressure upon his majesty's people, nevertheless I looked forward without dismay, having always the fullest confidence in the solidity of the resources of the British empire, and in the relief which might be expected from a continuance of peace, and from the patience, public spirit, and energy of the nation. These expectations have not been disappointed. The improvement in the internal circumstances of the country is happily manifest, and promises to be steadily progressive; and I feel a perfect assurance that the continued loyalty and exertions of all classes of his majesty's subjects will confirm these growing indications of national prosperity, by promoting obedience to the laws, and attachment to the constitution, from which all our blessings have been derived.” ALLIED ARMY WITHDRAWN FROM FRANCE -DISTURBANCES AT MANCHESTER, &c.

ON the fourth of November a notification was addressed to the duke of Richelieu, the prime minister of France, by the plenipotentiaries of the courts of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, stating that their august masters, being called upon by the twentieth article of the treaty of Paris to examine, in concert with the king of France, whether the military occupation o. a part of the French territory, stipulated by that treaty, ought to cease at the termination of the third year, or be prolonged to that of the fifth, had recoguised, with satisfaction, that the order of things established by the restoration of the legiti. mate and constitutional monarchy of that country gave assurance of the consolidation of that state of tranquillity in France necessary for the repose of Europe; and that, in consequence, they had commanded the immediate discontinuance of such military occupation:-a measure which they regarded as the completion of the general peace. This information was received with delight by the French people; and, although some slight ebullitions of seditious feeling have since occasionally presented

themselves, the event has happily proved that the presence of foreign troops was no longer neces

sary.

Throughout the summer the cotton-spinners, and other labouring classes of manufacturers at Man chester, and in the neighbouring parts of the country, remained in a state of organized opposition to their masters on the subject of wages. From this cause several partial disturbances arose; one in particular at Burnley, and another at Stockport. Fortunately, through the prompt exertions of the Manchester yeomanry, these irruptions were put down, without bloodshed or actual violence. It is too probable, however, that much hostility and bitterness of feeling were thus mutually excited between the lower classes and the yeomanry, the effects of which burst forth with calamitous fury at a subsequent period.

DEATH OF QUEEN CHARLOTTE.

IN consequence of the queen's declining health, two amendments had been made in the regency bill during the last session of parliament; the first empowering her majesty to add six new members, resident at Windsor, to her council, in the event of her absence from that residence; and the second repealing the clause which rendered necessary the immediate assembling of a new parliament in the event of the queen's death. These amendments were very opportunely made; as, after a lingering illness of six months, which was sustained with great fortitude and resignation, her majesty expired at Kew palace, on the seventeenth of November, in the seventy-fifth year of her age. She had been blest by nature with a sound and vigorous frame, having, until within two years of her decease, enjoyed an almost uninterrupted state of health. Her remains were interred at Windsor on the second of December.

Queen Charlotte possessed a strong and sound judgment, and used her influence with great discretion. Though she could boast no claim to beauty, she was not deficient in those accomplishments which add grace and dignity to an exalted station. As a wife and a mother she was a pattern to her sex, performing all the tender and maternal offices of a nurse to her royal offspring, fifteen in number-an example but too seldom followed. During the long period in which her majesty may be said to have presided over the English court, it was remarkable for the steady countenance uniformly extended to virtue, and as uniformly withdrawn from its opposite. Married at an early period of

life, it required a more than ordinary effort of intel lect to resist the false glare which surrounded her; yet at a time when there was hardly a court in Europe that was not marked by its licentiousness, she protected hers from the contaminating influence of splendid vice. The vices of the French court led to the revolution which deluged that country with blood; and the same cause occasioned, in a great measure, the horrors with which Spain and Naples were subsequently visited. During that time Eag land presented on the throne the example of those virtues that form the great and binding links of the social chain; and this example was the more salutary, as our sudden and rapid prosperity was calculated to produce the greatest moral relaxation. In public her majesty never tolerated any person in her presence, however high their rank, who had been guilty of any gross breach of those laws which refinement has introduced among men, for the preservation of society.

In her attendance on divine worship her majesty was very regular and exemplary. She was popu lar when lord Bute's administration had rendered the king very much the reverse, and was consi dered with general regard as a domestic woman: so much so, that colonel Barré, then a violent opposition speaker, delivered a splendid eulogium on her "mild, tender, and unassuming virtues." When the king first betrayed symptoms of insanity, the ministry, in appointing a regency, proposed restrictions on the regent, which raised a strong spirit of opposition. At this critical and delicate juncture, her majesty's affections were divided between her consort and her son; but, with this exception, we do not know of any intermixture on her part with the politics of the day. Even Junias, who attacked the court with so much rancour, and who was not likely to have spared any branch of the royal family, is wholly silent as to her majesty, except where he severely rebukes the duke of Grafton, the prime minister at that time, for having led his mistress through the Opera-house, in the presence of the queen. This rebuke is an addi tional proof of the high sense which that popular writer entertained of the purity of her majesty's character, and of the decorum which ought to have been observed in her presence. It has been said that she was penurious, if not avaricious: to her pecuniary affairs she was certainly very attentive, and it is not a little creditable to her that she was scrupulously so to the payment of her own tradesmen; but there are also many proofs of her dispo sition to assist distress, and to patronise merit.

PARLIAMENT CONVOKED-ROYAL Speech.

1819.

THE

new parliament met on the 14th of January, 1819, when, in the upper house, chief baron Richards took his seat on the woolsack, pro tempore, in consequence of the lord-chancellor's indisposition. In the house of commons Mr. Man ners Sutton was unanimously re-elected speaker. Of the royal speech the main topics were, the king's health-the demise of the queen-the evacu tion of France by the allied troops-the probability of a durable peace-the favourable state of the revenue the approved aspect of trade, manufactures, and commerce-the favourable result of the war in India-and the conclusion of a treaty with the United States of America, for extending, to a further term of years, the existing commercial convention. In both houses the usual addresses were agreed to without a division.

The death of the queen having rendered necessary the appointment of a new guardian of the king's person, the earl of Liverpool, on the twenty. fifth of January, introduced a motion for the purpose of nominating the duke of York to that office; and, after some discussion as to the patronage to be enjoyed by his royal highness, the bill was passed. Several debates subsequently took place respecting the royal establishment at Windsor; and on a motion for granting ten thousand pounds a year to the duke of York, as custos of the royal person, from the public instead of from the privy purse, which was carried by a small majority. The subject also excited much freedom of remark, both in and out of parliament.

CRIMINAL CODE.

THE state of the criminal code, a topic deeply interesting to the best friends of humanity, occupied the attention of parliament at an early part of the session. The astonishing variety and appalling multitude of offences, more than two hundred in number, against which capital punishment was denounced by the statute-book, had long been reprobated by philanthropists, both foreign and native, as a national disgrace, and stigmatized, by philosophical lawyers, as a fruitful source of mischief. It was the certainty, they remarked, rather than the severity of punishment, which tended to deter offenders; and those penalties which the general feeling of society condemned as incommen surate with offences were the most uncertain of being carried into effect. Principles such as these had repeatedly been brought before the house of commons by Sir Samuel Romilly, who had proposed several bills founded upon them, one of which had passed into a law; but the death of that distinguished and estimable individual, had thrown the cause into other hands. A petition from the corporation of London, complaining of the increase of crime, and pointing out the commutation of capital punishment, was referred to a committee for the examination of the discipline and police of the difSerent prisons throughout the country, the appoint

ment of which was moved by lord Castlereagh on the first of March. It was the opinion, however, of those who were well informed, and who felt deeply interested in the business, that, for the due consideration of so extensive and important a subject as the penal code, a distinct committee should be appointed; and to that effect Sir James Mackintosh made a motion on the following day. After adducing a variety of observations and facts, illustrating the system of subterfuge which the dreadful severity of the law in many cases had produced amongst prosecutors, witnesses, and jurors, and the consequent impunity and increase of crime, he observed that it was by no means his wish or intention to form a new criminal code: to abolish a system, admirable in its principles, interwoven with the habits of the people, and under which they had long and happily lived, was indeed very remote from his ideas of legislation. He did not even propose to abolish capital punishment: on the contrary, he held it to be a part of that right of selfdefence with which societies were endowed: he considered it, like all other punishments, as an evil, when unnecessary; but capable, like them, of producing, when sparingly and judiciously inflicted, a preponderance of good. He aimed not at the establishment of any universal principle: his sole object was, that the execution of the law should constitute the majority, and the remission the minority, of cases. Sir James subsequently divided capital felonies into three classes: those on which the punishment of death was always, those on which it was frequently, and those on which it was never, put in force. He proposed to leave, for the present, the first and second divisions untouched: the third, consisting of no fewer than one hundred and fifty different crimes, ought, he conceived, to be entirely expunged from the list, as so many relics of barbarous times, disgraceful to the character of a free, a thinking, and an enlightened nation. Lord Castlereagh complimented the candid and moderate spirit in which Sir James Mackintosh had brought forward his motion; notwithstanding which, he persisted in opposing, as unnecessary, the appoint. ment of a separate committee. Other members, however, warmly supported the proposal, which was ultimately carried by one hundred and fortyseven voices against one hundred and twenty eight; and, before the close of the session, Sir James had the satisfaction of reporting progress as chairman.

The first report was brought up by Peel on the fifth of April: it represented that the bank, having been induced to pay in specie all notes issued prior to 1817, had been drained of cash to the amount of upwards of five million pounds, most of which had found its way to the continent, and been there recoined into foreign money; and that, to prevent a continuance of this drain, and to enable the bank to accumulate a greater quantity of bullion, with a view to the final resumption of cash payments, it was expedient to restrain the further payment of the notes alluded to in specie. A bill was accordingly brought in, and, the standing orders of the house having been suspended, was passed through all its stages the same evening. In the course of the discussion Manning, a bank director, attributed the drain upon the bank, and the passage of our specie to the continent, to the French loan, and a deficient harvest, corn having been imported into this country to the amount of ten million pounds. In the upper house, lord Harrowby moved the suspension of the standing orders, that the bill might be passed through all its stages at one sitting, which earl Grey and others opposed at considerable length, contending that, if necessary, it would have been better for ministers to issue an order of council for suspending the bank payments on their own responsibility: on the following day, however, the bill was read three times, and passed. A similar measure was also carried for the protection of the bank of Ireland. The second report was present. ed on the fifth of May, when two bills were passed, founded on a plan, recommended by the committee, for the gradual return to cash payments, and of which the principal provisions were, that a definite period should be fixed for the termination of the restriction, and that preparatory measures should be taken, with a view to facilitate and insure, on the arrival of that period, the payment of the promissory notes of the bank of England in the legal coin of the realm; that provision ought to be made for the gradual repayment of the sum of ten million pounds, being part of the sum due to the bank on account of advances for the public service; that, "from the first of February, 1820, the bank shall be liable to deliver on demand, gold of standard fineness, having been assayed and stamped at the mint, a quantity of not less than sixty ounces being required, in exchange for notes at the rate of four pounds one shilling per ounce; that, from the first of October 1820, the bank shall be liable to deliver gold at the rate of three pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence per ounce, and from the first of May 1821, three pounds seventeen shillings and tenpence half-penny; that the bank may, at any period between the first of February and the first of October, 1820, undertake to deliver gold, as before mentioned, at any rate between the sums of four pounds one shilling, and three pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence per ounce; and, at any pe. riod between the first of October 1820, and the first of May 1821, at any rate between the sums of three pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, and three pounds seventeen shillings aud ten-pence half penny per ounce; but that, such intermediate rate having been once fixed, that rate shall not be subsequently increased; that, from the first of May 1823, the bank shall pay its notes, on demand, in the legal coin of the realin; and that it is expedient to repeal the laws prohibiting the melting and the exportation of the coin.

NATIONAL INCOME AND EXPENDITURE. ANOTHER select committee was appointed, on the motion of lord Castlereagh, to inquire into the income and expenditure of the country, from which he anticipated a most favourable result. The receipts for the year ending the fifth of January 1818, were fifty-one million six hundred and sixty-five thousand four hundred and fifty-eight pounds; while those for the following year were fity-four million sixty-two thousand pounds, showing an increase upon the latter of two million three hundred and ninety-seven thousand pounds: but there were certain arrears of war duties on malt and property, which reduced the income of 1818 to forty-nine million three hundred and thirty-four thousand nine hundred and twenty-seven pounds, while the arrears to January, 1819, amounted only to five hundred and sixty-six thousand six hundred and thirty-nine pounds. The expenditure was also less

by about six hundred and fifty thousand pounde than was expected; and the result was, his lordship said, a total surplus of three million five busdred and fifty eight thousand pounds, applicable to the reduction of the national debt. Allowing one million for the interest on the loan, there remained two millions and a half of surplus revenue. Tierney observed that an old debt upon the sinking fund of eight million three hundred thousand pounds, which must be liquidated before one farthing of the surplus in question could be made available for the expenses of the current year, had been altogether thrown out of view. The various taxes, taken together, exceeded seven millions; but this was the extreme of the amount applicable to the army, the navy, the ordnance, and miscellaneous services: how, then, could it be possible, he asked, that with an income of only seven millions, and an expendi ture of twenty millions, both ends should be made to meet, and a surplus be left? and would it not be a gross delusion to speak of the sinking fund as applicable to the public service, while government were obliged to borrow thirteen millions a year to support it? The chancellor of the exchequer observed, that this statement included certain particulars which could not be admitted in making a fair comparison. By taking the whole charge of the consolidated fund and the sinking fund, it had been shown that our expenditure considerably exceeded our receipts. This must necessarily be the case, since so great a part of the war taxes had been abolished. Parliament had thonght fit to relieve the country from fifteen millions of taxes, and thus they unavoidably prevented the effect which would have been produced in the redemp tion of the debt by these fifteen millions annually. With respect to any plans of finance for the present year, he should reserve to himself the power of adopting that which the situation of public affairs rendered most expedient.

On the third of June the chancellor of the exchequer submitted a series of financial resolutions, which stated that, by the removal of certain taxes, the revenue of Great Britain was reduced by eighteen million pounds; that the interest and charge of the funded and unfunded debt of Ireland exceeded the whole revenue of that country by one million eight hundred thousand pounds; that it was necessary to provide, by a loan or other means, for the service of the present year, the sum of thirteen million pounds, which, deducted from the sinking fund of fifteen million pounds, reduced it to only two million pounds; and that, for the purpose of raising this sinking fund to five million pounds, it was absolutely necessary to impose new taxes to the amount of three million pounds annu ally. This sum parliament ultimately agreed to raise by a considerable duty on foreign wool, and by smaller duties on various other articles, such as tobacco, tea, coffee, and cocoa-nuts. Two loans of twelve million pounds each were also made; one of them supplied by the money market, the other derived from the sinking fund. Out of these sums there was to be a surplus, of which five million pounds were to go towards the repayment to the bank recommended by parliament previously to the resumption of cash payments, and five million five hundred and ninety-seven thousand pounds to the reduction of the unfunded debt. " In adopting this course," observed the speaker, in his address to the prince regent, at the close of the session, "his majesty's faithful commons did not conceal from themselves that they were calling upon the nation for a great exertion; but, well knowing that honour, and character, and independence, have at all times been the first and dearest objects of the hearts of Englishmen, we felt assured that there was no difficulty that the country would not encounter, and no pressure to which she would not cheerfully submit, to enable her to maintain, pure and unimpaired, that which has never yet been shaken or sullied,-her public credit and her national good faith.

CATHOLIC QUESTION.

NUMEROUS petitions having been presented to parliament, both for and against the catholic claims, this great question of internal policy was again brought before the house of commons by Grattan on the third of May. The causes of disqualification, he observed, were of three kinds; 1. the combination of the catholics, 2. the danger of a Pre