first Resident, decided the question, and
set aside what might be called "the civil
list" of the Rajah, which was for his own
private use, and had been sanctioned by
Government, and it was out of that very
civil list that he had saved the lacs of ru-
pees which had been referred to.
If any
prince ever deserved the thanks of the
British Government it was the Rajah of
Sattara; and it was unjust that his savings
during his reign should be withheld from
him while living, and from his family when
dead. It had been said, that if the Rajah
was guilty, he had no right to adopt a
successor to the throne. That word "if"
involved the whole question; for he con-
tended the Rajah had never been proved
guilty, since he had not been permitted
to be heard in his own defence he had
never had a hearing. It had been said
that this subject had been frequently be-
fore the Directors; but that body had al-
ways been judges in their own cause, and
he could not forget that the truth once
leaked out in a despatch sent home to
Sir James Carnac, who said, that should
the Rajah Appa Sahib die without issue,
the territory would revert to the Company,
and they would thus gain a revenue of
180,000l. or 200,000l. a year. The right
hon. Gentleman had said he would, with-
out hesitation, see justice done. He would
take him at his word, and wait to see him
fulfil his pledge. After repeating his
anxiety to see the question fairly and
equitably decided, the hon. Gentleman re-
sumed his seat.

right hon. Baronet who had just sat down, | private property of the late Rajah; but he in the eulogium which he had pronounced had forgotten that Captain Grant Duff, the on the gallant and successful achievements of Lieutenant Edwardes, and deeply regretted that the existing regulations prevented that officer from receiving the honours and rewards he so eminently merited. As that officer was only a subaltern in the service, he could not even receive the title of C.B. He hoped that some alteration would be made that would enable the right hon. Baronet to do justice to the claims of that gallant officer. [Sir JOHN HOBHOUSE: It is already done.] He was extremely glad to hear it. He would now briefly refer to the question before the House. He agreed in the desirableness, as a general rule, of not introducing Indian questions into that House; but when acts of oppression and cruelty were committed, and appeals for redress were rejected elsewhere, it was then right that the matter should be brought before Parliament, and the present was a case of that description. As for the numerous decisions at the India House which had been referred to them, they were merely decisions not to reopen the case, or to correct the original error-they were not decisions on the merits of the case. In fact, for the most part they had been votes of adjournment, and had no reference to the specific questions which had been debated. There was much which might be urged in excuse for those who had in the first instance come to a hasty decision upon the subject. They were utterly unacquainted with the merits of the question when they so decided. Although the right hon. Baronet had expressed his opinion of the guilt of the Rajah, he (Mr. Hume) begged to express his own honest conviction that Pertaub Sing was ruined by as foul a conspiracy as ever disgraced the annals of this empire. The right hon. Baronet had spoken of persons advocating the cause of the Rajah for hire; but he and others who had taken up that question could never be accused of any such motive; they had only taken up the cause from a conviction that the Rajah had been so ruined by conspiracy. With regard to the question of the Rajah's private property, the right hon. Baronet was altogether under a mistake. He had lately seen copies of a letter containing a list of the private property delivered to Colonel Ovans, to which private property the Rajah's heir was actually entitled. The right hon. Gentleman had said, that it was not determined which was, or was not, the

SIR H. WILLOUGHBY vindicated the character and motives of Sir James Carnac, who on his return to England had explained and justified his conduct. He contended that the Rajah had broken the second and fifth articles of the treaty, which, whether right or wrong, he was bound to observe. The Rajah, as a sovereign prince, could not have a formal judicial trial. The question was one of treaty, and a violation of the treaty carried with it a forfeiture of the sovereignty. respect to the private property, he trustthe Government would treat it in the most handsome and liberal manner. The Rajah, according to the statements of the hon. Memfor the Tower Hamlets, had received during his exile 100,000l., which was onethird of the private property. He agreed that it was inexpedient that Vakeels should come to this country; and he thought

With

the gentleman who sat under the gallery | it. I will put this case to the Presi(Runjoo Bapogee) had broken a pledge to dent of the India Board. Suppose the return to India, when money was advanced Rajah had taken advantage of the five for the purpose. He concluded by repeating the expression of his hope that the East India Company and the local government would take care that there should be a just settlement of the question of private property, and would see that those whom the Rajah had left behind him were treated in a liberal and generous manner. He would not discuss the question of the succession, but leave it to be considered hereafter if it was considered worth while to raise it.

days which intervened between the receipts of the written pledge of the Governor, and the hour of his deposal, and had employed them in bringing together all his moveable property in treasure, jewels, and other things, and had made them ready to accompany him on his departure from the capital, would not the letter of the Governor have fully authorised the Resident to consent to their removal, and would not the Rajah thus have had the benefit of the engagement which had been voluntarily given? The Rajah, however, had unlimited confidence in the word of the Governor, and the honour and good faith of the Brit

deprived of everything which he had intrusted to the care of the Bombay Government. I was curious to know the views of the right hon. Baronet in reference to the opinion I ventured to express of the legal character of the act of deposal. Conversant, as he must be, with the statutes framed to regulate the affairs of India, he cannot have overlooked the Act of 1793, to which I so particularly referred, and which, according to my view, rendered it incompetent to the Indian authorities to depose the Rajah, or enter into any treaty with his brother. On this subject the Minister of the Crown has been profoundly silent, although it is one of vital impor

MR. GEORGE THOMPSON: I have but little to say in reply to the right hon. Baronet, who, I must say, has not grappled with the two main branches of the ques-ish Government, and his reward was to be tion before the House, namely, the confiscation of the private property, and the illegality of the dethronement. He has said nothing of the violation of the solemn pledge of the British Governor, nor even condescended to notice the official documents which I placed before the House to prove the engagement which was entered into, and the actual existence of the property of which the Rajah was deprived. I have now a letter before me, written by Colonel Ovans, describing his property, and the manner in which it had been accumulated, and stating that there would be no difficulty in discriminating between what was public and state property, and what was private and personal. All this pro-tance, and has nothing to do with the guilt perty was acquired by thrifty management of that part of his revenue which the Rajah had, from the commencement of his reign, set aside for his personal expenses. If I wanted further proof, I would quote the admission of the right hon. Baronet, that a large amount of treasure was left by the Rajah, which was applied by his brother to certain purposes which he has described. In fact, there had been no defence of this act of spoliation. The existence of the property was proved by the Governor's letter and pledge, by his despatch to the supreme authorities, by the letters of Colonel Ovans, by the detailed inventory of the property which had been made out, and by the admissions of the right hon. Baronet himself. All that had been advanced went to prove the violation of as distinct a pledge as had ever been given by any British Governor in any part of the world; and unless justice was at length done, the transaction would bring indelible disgrace upon all parties concerned in

or innocence of the Rajah. I commend the matter to his serious consideration, both as relating to past proceedings and as bearing upon the future acts of the Government of India. I am sorry that so many irrelevant topics have been introduced into this debate, and especially that it should have been deemed necessary to revert to what I formerly said respecting Sir James Carnac. Sir, should I discover that I have been led to make any statement detrimental to the character of any living person, and above all to the memory of any one dead, upon false information, I can assure the House, there is not a person living who would be more ready than myself to offer the most ample reparation. The right hon. Gentleman will allow me to refer to the condition on which I undertook to make good my charges against certain persons, namely, that there should be a Committee before whom I might produce the witnesses required to substantiate my allegations. I have never been able to obtain

such an inquiry either here or at the India | manner, they would cease to be longer a House. I thank the right hon. Baronet deliberative assembly; and if they did not for the counsel he has so kindly given me mark their sense of such treatment, their to-night regarding my future course in this independence would be gone. He also obHouse. I receive his advice in the spirit injected to the measure itself on account of which it was conveyed, and shall follow it. Motion withdrawn.

EARL GRANVILLE moved the First exposed for years to the severest dangerReading of the Bill.

driven to other countries; and he trusted to by a small majority, and that at a pethe House would not adopt the extraordi- riod of the Session when nine-tenths of nary course recommended by the noble the Members had left town. The noble Lord, which was a most unheard-of proceeding, and the avowed object of which was to defeat the Bill altogether. The Bill had been passed in the other House by a large majority; and if their Lordships refused it a first reading, they would mark it not merely with discourtesy, but contempt.

LORD REDESDALE explained that he had no wish to treat the House of Commons with discourtesy, provided it treated this House with courtesy; but he had stated, and no answer had been given to him, that to send up to that House on the 1st of September a Bill which was brought in in the Commons as early as May was an act of discourtesy. He objected to the measure on its first reading, on account of the late period at which it had been sent up; and he must say that it constituted good ground for this House resenting the treatment which it had experienced at the hands of the House of Commons during the present Session.

Earl then called attention to the apprehensions existing of a deficiency of food in Cornwall by a failure of the potato crop and the wheat harvest, through the continuance of wet weather; and contended that this evil would be much aggravated by the want of employment that would follow the enactment of the present Bill. If there was a body of manufacturers in the country, who were in a flourishing state, it was the copper smelters; and, in addition to the injury which the Bill would inflict on the Cornish miner, it would also have the effect of creating a monopoly in copper smelting.

The EARL of DESART said, that from the observations of the noble President of the Council, it would almost appear that the copper-smelting trade was on its last legs, and had nearly left this country; whereas he believed that the smelters were about the most flourishing interest which existed at the present moment in the whole of Great Britain, and that if they were not so powerful and so well represented in the other House of Parliament their Lordships would have heard nothing of the measure now before them. As the Bill had not been sent up to their Lordships' House until within two or three days of the prorogation, he trusted that they would adopt the Amendment of his noble Friend.

LORD MONTEAGLE, whilst supporting the Bill, agreed with Lord Redesdale in his censure of the practice that had grown up of sending important Bills to their Lordships' House at a period so late in the Session. He thought this House was called upon in some way or other, not merely to mark its sense of this mode of proceeding, but to guard against that mode of proceed- LORD WYNFORD considered that the ing hereafter; and he hoped it would be House had not been treated with respect proposed in the next Session of Parlia- as regarded this Bill. They ought to rement to take some step that would pre-member that it was a Bill which, if it clude their Lordships, except where special passed into law, would confer a benefit on cause was shown, from entertaining any slaveholders. Bill whatsoever that came up to them after a certain date. Their Lordships had it in their power to mark their sense of this mode of transacting the business of Parliament; and he wished the Bill on the table was such as, without any public inconvenience and sacrifice of the rights of third parties, he could, by rejecting it, mark his own sense, individually, of the manner in which the House had been treated; but as he believed that this Bill would be considered most beneficial to the manufacturing interests of this country, he would therefore support the first reading.

The EARL of FALMOUTH supported the Amendment, and argued that the Bill had not been sufficiently considered in the House of Commons, where it was agreed

EARL GRANVILLE replied.
The House divided:- Contents 17;
Not-Contents 13: Majority 4.
Bill read 1a.
House adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS,

Friday, September 1, 1848.
MINUTES.] PUBLIC BILLS-30 and passed :-Copper and
Lead Duties; Poor Law Auditors Proceedings Restriction.

PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Viscount Morpeth, from the

Parish of Halifax, in the County of York, for a Better Observance of the Lord's Day.-From Members of the Gisburn District of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, for an Extension of the Benefit Societies Act to that Order. By Mr. Anstey, from William Cobbett, a Prisoner in the Queen's Bench Prison, praying for the Production of certain Papers, relative to his Case.-By Sir R. H. Inglis, from several Clergymen of the United Church of England and Ireland, against the Diplomatic Relations, Court of Rome, Bill,-By Mr. George Hamil

ton, from the Minister and Congregation of the Episcopal | tion from one of the judges that I was expected to Chapel, Upper Bagot Street, Parish of St. Peter's, attend chambers during that vacation. I disclaimDublin, for Encouragement to Schools in Connexioned being subject to any such duty, and declined to with the Church Education Society (Ireland).-By Mr. attend. Since that time no communication on Pearson, from Inhabitants of the Parish of St. Mary, the subject has been made to me by any of the Lambeth, for Inquiry into the Present State of the Law in reference to Grand Juries. By Viscount Morpeth, judges; but upon my return from the circuit last from Clergymen of the Church of England, residing in week, I heard from my clerk that it was reported the several Parishes of the Town of Southampton, in that I was about to attend chambers. I immefavour of the Health of Towns Bill.-- From Members of diately stated that such report was not authorised Waterford Sanitary Association, in favour of Measures by me, and that I did not propose to attend; and for the Prevention of the Indian Cholera in Ireland. By the notices referred to in the petition have none Mr. Anstey, from Daniel Keane, of 36, Lincoln's-Inn- of them been issued by my direction, or had my Fields, in the County of Middlesex, respecting the Ab- sanction. I learn from the Lord Chief Baron that, sence of Judges from Chambers.-From Ratepayers of upon his appointment, Lord Denman and the late the Township of Rotherham, Yorkshire, for an AlterLord Chief Justice Tindal, both intimated to him ation of the Law respecting Mendicants.-By Viscount Morpeth, from Officers employed in the Keighley Union, that it was no part of his duty to attend chambers, Yorkshire, in favour of a Superannuation Fund for Poor pursuant to the resolution of 1838; and the Lord Law Officers; also for an Alteration of the Poor Law Chancellor has given me permission to authorise Union Charges Bill.-From the Grand Jury of the City you to state to the House, that he considers that of Limerick, respecting the Impediments in the River it is not my duty to attend upon the present occaShannon. By Mr. Aglionby, from Henry Chawner, sion. I received your letter and the petition last Esq., Lord of the Manor of Greatham, in the County of night, and also letters from two solicitors; and, Southampton, against the Proposed Inclosure of the learning from them that there were some matters calling for an early judicial interference, I did not think it right to stand upon a question of strict obligation, but came to town this morning and

Waste Lands.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE WILDE.

In answer to a question from Mr. AN-directed immediate notices to be sent to the par

STEY,

ties that I would attend at chambers to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and I shall attend accordingly, for The ATTORNEY GENERAL said, a few days, in order that the public may not be that hon. Members who were acquainted inconvenienced while the judges make their arwith the Lord Chief Justice of the Com-rangements for future attendance during the vacation." mon Pleas would be satisfied, without any statement from him, that that learned individual would not be neglectful of any duty attached to his high office. He had, however, communicated with the learned Judge on the subject, and received from him the following statement, dated August 30, which he would read to the House. The Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in a letter addressed to him (the Attorney General) stated—

He was sure that the House would acknowledge that the Lord Chief Justice had acted most praiseworthily in taking care that the public should not be put to an inconvenience; though that act of kindness on his part must not be construed into any admission that his attendance was obligatory.

SWEEPS.

MR. ANSTEY said, that some time ago "I am much obliged to you for your note and he had put a question to the right hon. the copy of the petition about to be presented by Secretary for the Home Department as to Mr. Anstey. The only observation which I have to make upon its contents is, that so far as they the illegal "sweeps" advertisements; and refer to me, they are founded in error. I am not as to the intention of the Government to on the rota for attendance at chambers, nor is it prosecute the parties who offended in that any part of my duty as a Chief Justice to attend. respect. The answer he received was, In the arrangement of the judicial duties, that of that the matter would be referred to the the routine attendance at chambers has always been performed by the puisne judges; and neither the proper authorities; and he now asked the Chief Justices nor the Lord Chief Baron are in the hon. and learned Attorney General, whehabit of attending, although, under special circum- ther any decision had been come to on the stances, and as an accommodation to their brother subject? He asked the question in the injudges, they may have attended on particular occasions. Previously to the appointment of the terest of certain newspapers, which had three additional judges, in 1832, there was no re-hitherto refused to insert such advertisegular attendance at chambers during the long va- ments. cation. In 1838 a resolution was adopted by the judges, that the last newly-appointed judge who had not before performed the duty should be that there had been a misconception of the the attending judge in the long vacation. The intention of the Act of Parliament introChief Justices and the Chief Baron have consid-duced by the noble Lord opposite with reered that resolution to refer to the judges charged spect to the authority or duty of the Attorordinarily with the duty of attending to chamber

The ATTORNEY GENERAL believed

business, and have never held it to refer to them-ney General to prosecute in cases of this sort. He believed that that duty of the selves, or acted upon it. In the long vacation of 1846, following my appointment, I had an intima- Attorney General existed only in respect