They ftated as the bill empowers feven out of the thirteen judges to act, the Couft must be always fluctuating, and therefore the man, who hears the evidence of one day, may not hear that to be produced the next, and those who determine at the conclufion, may not have been prefent at the coinmencement. The petitioners objected to the judge and jury being the fame perfons, and confidered themselves in the prefent bill deprived of the bleffings of the British laws, and the liberties of that kingdom, of which they are fubjects. The petitions were ordered to lie on the table.

Upon the motion (by Lord Scarfdale) that the bill be read à fecond time.

Lord Ferrers moved, "that the day on which it was to be Lord "read fhould be that day month."

Ferrers.

The Dudley and
Ward.

Viscount Dudley and Ward oppofed the length of time, as viscount likely to put both parties to a confiderable expence. bill undoubtedly was of great national confequence, and had many friends and fome enemies. It involved the It involved the property of a confiderable number of people, and fhould, no doubt, have a fair difcuffion; but as the parties were ready with their evidence on both fides, and the witneffes had travelled many miles, and were detained at a heavy expence, he should move that the bill be read a fecond time on the enfuing Monday.

Earl Ferrers preffed for a lefs early day, as he could not Earl with convenience attend upon the Monday; and he knew Ferrers. other noble Lords who were in a fimilar fituation.

Viscount Dudley expreffed his fears left a defign fhould have Viscount been conceived of putting a final ftop to the progrefs of the Dudley. bill, and as he heard no reasons but inconvenience of attending, for deferring the confideration; and as the lofs of time and the expences of witneffes were great, he fhould beg the motion to be put for Monday.

Earl Mansfield put the question, and the House divided on Earl MansViscount Dudley's motion.

Contents, 12; Non contents, 1. Majority, 11.

Tuesday, 2d May.

Great numbers of the Lords attended in confequence of the fummons, on a notion of Lord Sydney; Earl Bathurst acted as Speaker in the abfence of Lord Thurlow.

field,

The Marquis of Lanfdown obferved that he should not The Marhave taken the liberty of moving for certain papers, relative quis of Lanfdown. to the ftate of the finance of this country, but as he found that a noble Duke, to whofe arguments he meant to allude, was not in his place, he fhould defer his motion until the day following.

Lord Sydney remarked that he should not have taken the Lord liberty of fummoning the Houle, had it not been for the ne- Sydney.

ecffary

The Marquia of Lanfdown.

ceffary purpose of paffing an act to explain a doubt in the late bill, which had a few days fince received their Lordfhips' concurrence. The doubt appeared to arife from the neceffity of the approbation of the Crown, by fign manual to the appointment of a Commander in Chief in India, and the prefent bill was for the purpose of clearing up that point. The matter being a momentary neceffity, he trufted that the fame difpatch would be useful in the House of Peers, as was in the Houfe of Commons, and that the bill would be gone through on the present day.

The ufual motions of a firft, fecond, and third reading be ing made and feconded, and the bill having paffed the usual forms, it was ordered back to the Commons, without any amendment.

The House adjourned.

Wednesday, 3d May.

The Marquis of Lansdown obferved that, doubtless it could not have escaped the recollection of the Houfe that when the Minifters applied to Parliament for a fum of money to defray a debt incurred upon the civil-lift expenditure, fome noble Lords had referred to that part of His Majesty's speech from the throne, when he had the honour to fit at the head of the Treasury Board, in which His Majefty ftated that his expences were reduced within the bounds of his income, and a doubt had been expreffed whether that affertion was founded. Their Lordships would recollect that he had ftood up in fupport of the speech, and had referred to an authentic Treasury plan, and minute, the authenticity of which had been dif puted, and arguments had been raised to controvert them, on the foundation of a paper which he had contended to be a paper of no authority whatever. When any Minifter put words into the royal mouth, he ought to take great care that he did not abuse a channel which it behoved him perpetually to hold facred. The Minifter was not only refponfible for those words at the immediate moment, but in all future time. So he ever had confidered, and ever should confider himself refponfible. He had read over that speech only two days ago, and there was not a principle contained in it which he was not ready to avow and to ftand by. Feeling in this manner, he held it incumbent on himself to prove to the fatisfaction of their Lordships, and the Public at large, that he had been right in his argument in the late debates on the civil lift, and that the affertion relative to His Majefty's having at the time fo regulated his establishments, that his expence did not exceed his income, was an affertion founded in fact, and capable of being proved by incontro

I

vertible

DEBATE S.

Eftimated Surplus per Annum

VOL. XX.

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57

vertible evidence. With this view, he fhould move for a copy of the minute to which he had referred, that their Lordships might judge for themfelves who had been in the right, and who in the wrong. His Lordfhip concluded with moving, "That an humble addrefs be prefented to His Ma jefty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions, "that there be laid before this Houfe a copy of the minute "of His Majefty's Board of Treafury, of March 14, 1783, as regards His Majefty's civil-lift expences, together with "an eftimate of His Majefty's civil-lift expences referred to "therein."

Viscount Stormont contended in favour of his former ar- Viscount gument, and in the full confidence that before he fat down Stormont. he fhould not only fatisfy their Lordships, but the noble Marquis himself, that he had not lighty taken up the subject, that he had not hazarded an idle and vague fpeculation, but that he was juftified in what he had faid, by as good an authority as was generally expected as a ground of parliamentary affertion and argument. He would paufe a moment, in order to give their Lordships an opportunity of confidering what was in their estimation good parliamentary authority for any thing afferted in debate, and when they had wrought their expectations as high as they could, he had the fulleft confidence that he fhould be able to meet thofe expectations and to fatisfy them. It was now in his power to state, that the paper from which he had reafoned in a former debate, was a paper of authority, a paper of a grave and folemn nature. The paper in question was no other than an authentic official record, repofed on the table of the House of Commons in compliance with the pofitive directions of an exprefs act of Parliament, and the paper was actually at that time upon the table of their Lordships. Upon a reference to that paper it would be found, that what he had formerly ftated, with regard to the feveral fums to which he had al-, luded, was correct, excepting only a trifling inaccuracy which, however, as he had ftated it originally, rather made against his argument than for it. The fum to which he alluded as having been inaccurately stated by him, was the fum of 300l. which, upon looking to the paper on the table, would be found to be, not 300l. but 2471. 10s. 5d. 1-half. His Lordship having explained this, proceeded to reafon upon the other fums for prefents to Ambaffadors, &c. &c. and reminded the Houfe, that the paper then upon the table was the very paper, which had been called a fcrap of paper, a paper picked up no perfon knew where, and treated with every poffible expreffion of contempt.

The Marquis of Lanfdown remarked that if the noble The Mar Viscount had before ftated that the paper from which he quis of VOL. XX.

I'

spoke

Lanfdown