this particular case the prisoner was dis charged. pursuant to the ambassador's requisition. Copies of the depositions on which the original warrant was issued, duly certified as true copies. are to be received as evidence. But no justice is to issue a warrant for the apprehension of any French fugitive unless the party applying is the bearer of a warrant or document, issued by a judge or competent authority in France, authenticated in such a manner as would justify the arrest of the supposed offender in France upon the same charge. The secretary of state will order the person committed to be delivered up to the person or persons authorized to receive him. If the prisoner committed shall not be conveyed out of her majesty's dominions within two months from the time of his committal, any of her majesty's judges, on application made to them, and after notice of such application has been sent to the secretary of state (or to the acting governor in a colony), may order such person to be discharged, unless good cause shall be shown to the contrary. The act is to extend to all her majesty's present or future possessions, and to continue in force during the continuance of the convention. The act relating to America (c. 76) is similar in its nature and purposes to the one relating to France; but the crimes specified include, in addition, piracy, arson, and robbery, and do not include fraudulent bankruptcy. In 1844 a case occurred of a fraudulent French bankrupt who had escaped to England, and the French government demanded that he should be given up under the Convention Treaty. He was arrested and taken to prison; but before the surrender could take place he applied for a writ of habeas corpus, on the ground that fraudulent bankruptcy was an offence unknown to the law of England, and that therefore it was contrary to law to arrest him or keep him in custody on such a charge. The warrant of commitment did not specify that the prisoner should be given up on requisition duly made according to the act, but the words were, "until he shall be delivered by due course of law." In consequence of the defective application of the Convention Treaty in At the close of 1843, seven persons a cused of murder, robbery, and piracy fled for security from Florida, in the United States, to Nassau, one of the Ba hama Islands. They were followed by a marshal of the United States, who was authorized by his government to demand that the fugitives should be given up under the Convention Act. The governor, bir Francis Cockburn, issued his warrant accordingly to the chief justice of the colony, authorizing and directing him to take measures for the fulfilment of the act. In anticipation of the application of the marshal, the chief justice had a warrant prepared for apprehending the fug tives, expecting that the evidence tendered would be such as could be judicially received. The only evidence offered was documentary, consisting of indictments without the evidence upon which they were framed. The act requires that copies of the depositions upon which the original warrant was granted, certified, &c., must be adduced in order to render the provisions of the act available. The chief justice, with his associate judges were under the necessity of refusing the warrant applied for, chiefly on the fol lowing grounds:-" An indictment per se can never be received as evidence: it is not enough for us to know that the Ame rican jury thought the parties guilty: we ought to know the grounds upon which they thought them guilty. What may constitute the crime of murder is Florida may be very far from doing so according to the British laws, or even the laws of the Northern States of America. By issuing a warrant, then, to ap prehend the parties in virtue of these indictments, we might be doing so o evidence which would not justify their apprehension by the British law, and should thereby be proceeding in direct violation of the act." (Parl. Paper, No. 64, sess. 1844.) CONVICT. [TRANSPORTATION.] CONVOCATION, the assembly of the Clergy of England and Wales, under the authority of the king's writ, which takes place at the commencement of every new parliament. The convocation writs me from the Crown Office, and are dressed to the two primates of Canbury and York. The tendency of the western states modern Europe in political relations become thrown into the form of which pgs, lords, and commons is no inapt pe, is apparent in the ecclesiastical nstitution of almost every country in hich Christianity has been received ad professed. The archbishop has had is suffragan bishops, and the bishops ich his canons, who formed his council, some of whom have been vested pecuar functions, as dean, archdeacon, and e like; while the great body of the lergy have had their meetings under he form of diocesan synods or provincial ssemblies, in which they have been acustomed to discuss matters pertaining to he common interest and benefit of themelves or of the whole church. These meetings, resembling as they do in some points the convocation of the English clergy in later times, might easily be supposed to be that assembly in its primordial state. But writers on this subject trace the origin of the Convocation to something more special than this. It is supposed that originally the clergy were thus called together by the king's authority for the purpose of assessing themselves in levies of taxes at a time when they contended for exemption from the general taxation of the country imposed by the authority of parliament. Like many other questions in our early constitutional history (we mean by "early" when we ascend beyond the reign of King Edward the First), this is perhaps one of presumption and probability, rather than of evidence and certainty. It is said that the convocation which was summoned in 1295, in the reign of King Edward the First, was for the purpose of obtaining a supply of money from the clergy by means of their representatives. Edward had taxed the clergy very heavily in 1294, and, instead of repeating the experiment, he thought it better to get some money out of them with their own con sent. The clergy were not willing to obey the king's writ which summoned them to convocation, upon which the king issued his writ to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, who, in obedience to it, summoned the clergy in their respective provinces to grant the king a subsidy. Thus there were two convocations, one for the province of Canterbury and the other for the province of York. The convocation of Canterbury contained two houses, the Upper House of Bishops and Archbishops, and the Lower House of Deans, Archdeacons, and Proctors of the clergy. In the convocation at York, all the members composed (or at present compose) only one house. From this time to the year 1663, the clergy were taxed in convocation in respect of their benefices and lands; and the grants of subsidies by the clergy in convocation required no confirmation except the assent of the king, who wanted the money. From the time of Henry VIII. the grants were always confirmed by act of parliament. Thus it appears that the origin of the convocation was like the origin of the House of Commons: the first object of the convocation was to grant money. By the 8 Hen. VI. c. 1, all the clergy called to convocation by the king's writ, their servants and familiars, shall enjoy the liberty, in coming, tarrying, and returning, as the commonalty called to parliament enjoy. The two convocations of Canterbury and York were quite independent of one another, and they did not always grant the same or a proportionate amount. In the twenty-second year of Henry VIII. the convocation of Canterbury granted the king 100,000l., in consideration of which an act of parliament was passed which gave the clergy a free pardon for all spiritual offences, with a proviso that the pardon should not extend to the province of York, unless the clergy would show themselves equally liberal. When such an assembly was called together under the direct authority of the crown, it was natural that ecclesiastical subjects should be introduced, discussed, and in some instances determined by it. The old doctrine was that the convocation had only authority in spiritual matters, and that they had no power to bind the temporalty, but only the spiritualty. (Comyns' Digest, 'Convocation.') The crown, however, had always in its hands the power of controlling this assembly, by possessing the prerogative of proroguing and dissolving. But at the Reformation an act was passed (25 Henry VIII. c. 19), which expressly deprived the convocation of the power of performing any act whatever without the king's licence. The act declares that the "clergy, nor any of them, from henceforth shall presume to attempt, allege, claim, or put in use any constitutions or ordinances, provincial or synodal, or any other canons, nor shall enact, promulge, or exercise any such canons, constitutions, or ordinances provincial, by whatever name or names they may be called in their convocations in time coming, which always shall be assembled by authority of the king's writ, unless the same clergy may have the king's most royal licence." By an act passed in 1665 (16 & 17 Chas. II. c. 1), the clergy were bound by the act, which was for the raising of a tax, just like the laity, and they were discharged from the payment of the subsidies hitherto granted in convocation. Though this act reserves to the clergy the right of taxing themselves in convocation if they think fit, it has never been attempted, and the clergy and the laity are now precisely on the same footing as to taxation. The clergy, instead of being represented by the lower house of convocation, are now represented in parliament in the House of Commons, not however as an ecclesiastical body, but simply as citizens; they can vote for a member in respect of their ecclesiastical freeholds, or in respect of any other qualification which they may have in common with the laity. The decisions of the convocation of the province of Canterbury have always had great authority in that of York; and sometimes the two convocations have acted as one, either by jointly consenting, or by the attendance of deputies from the province of York at the convocation of Canterbury. One of the most important of the convocations, that in which the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical were established in 1603 [CONSTITUTIONS and CANONS ECCLESIASTICAL], appears to have been only attended by deputies of the Canterbury convocation; but the king's confirmation of the canons then made extends them to the province of York. No business beyond matters of form has been done in convocation since 1741. The practical annihilation of the convocation was a considerable change. It may be viewed as completing the vic tory obtained in England by the civil power over the ecclesiastical. The clergy can now make no canons which shall bind even their own body without the consent of the crown, that is, of the ministers of the crown; and it is certain that what ever canons they might make, even with the licence of the crown, would not bind the laity. In fact, the British parlia ment now makes canons for the clergy, as we see in the Church Discipline Act. [CLERGY.] The Anglican Church is now completely in the power of parliament, with no other weight there than the bench of bishops in the House of Lords, who may be considered as in some way represent ing the ecclesiastical estate. But though the convocation has become a nullity, the practice has been continued, and continues to the present day, of summoning the clergy to meet in convocation whenever a new parliament is called; and the forms of election are gone through in the dioceses, and the meeting for the province of Canterbury is held, usually in St. Paul's Church, when the form is also gone through of electing a prolo cutor or speaker. The king's writ, as already stated, is directed to the archbishops, commanding them to summon the bishops and the inferior clergy. The archbishops, in compliance with this writ, summon the bishops, and command them to summon the archdeacons and deans in their respective dioceses, and to command the chapters to elect one proctor each, and the great body of the clergy in each die cese two proctors, to represent them in the convocation. When assembled, they form two houses in the province of Canterbury, but, as stated above, only one house in the province of York. In the upper house of the convocation of Canterbury sit the bishops; in the lower, the other clergy, in all 143; viz. 22 deans, 53 archdeacons, 24 canons, and 44 proctors of the inferior clergy. It is the usual actice for the king to prorogue the eeting when it is about to proceed to y business. There is no convocation for Ireland. The history of the English convocation ay be collected from Gibson's Codex, id Atterbury's Rights, Powers, and Prileges of the English Convocation stated id vindicated, London, 1700; and from Charge, delivered at a visitation of the rchdeaconry of Oxford, 1841, by Archacon Clarke. The sketch of the history of convocaon here given may be tolerably correct far as it goes, and it pretends to be othing more. The complicated and inxtricable difficulties which beset every ttempt to restore the convocation, or to et it to work again, are fully stated in an rticle in the Quarterly Review,' No. 150. This article makes us acquainted with the strange fact (strange enough it seems to us, who have thus heard of it for the first time), that a parliamentary writ issues from the Petty-Bag Office [CHANCERY, p. 486] concurrently with the convocation writs from the Crown Office. The parliamentary writs are addressed to the archbishops and bishops of England and Wales, who are commanded to attend the parliament to be holden at Westminster. The same writ also commands the attendance of the dean of the bishop's church of Canterbury, Exeter, and so forth, and the archdeacons to appear also at Westminster in their proper persons; and each chapter by one, and the clergy of each diocese by two meet proctors. A similar notice is sent to the Irish archbishops and bishops. These ecclesiastics are summoned to Westminster at the day appointed, to consent to what shall be advanced by the common counsel of the United Kingdom. According to the summons, the clergy ought to appear at Westminster as a component part of the Imperial Parliament; and the English clergy are required at the same time to appear in convocation at St. Paul's, London, for the province of Canterbury, and at St. Peter's, York, for the province of York. The parliamentary writ was no doubt the original one; and it is suggested by the writer in the 'Quarterly Review,' that the concurrent con vocation writ was probably introduced to enable the clergy to save their privileges at the expense of their money. Since the conovcation writs have been issued, the practice has been for the clergy to obey the writ of convocation. CONVOY, in the military service, is a detachment of troops appointed to guard supplies of money, ammunition, provisions, &c., while being conveyed to a distant town, or to an army in the field, through a country in which such supplies might be carried off by the peasantry or by parties of the enemy. In the navy, the name is applied to oue or more ships of war which are ordered to protect a fleet of merchant vessels on their voyage. COPPER, STATISTICS OF. Copper was at first obtained in this country in small quantities in working the tin-mines in Cornwall; but about the close of the seventeenth century mines were set at work purposely for copper. The first application of the steam-engine in drawing water from copper-mines was in 1710, and the quantity of ore raised has increased with each successive improvement in the steam-engine. In 1837 the number of steam-engines employed in the coppermines in Cornwall was 58. The produce of the Cornish mines is known with tolerable accuracy as far back as 1771, and there are accounts of the produce of other copper-mines since 1821. Improve ments in the art of smelting have greatly increased the products of the mines, and ores which produce only three or four per cent. of metal are now smelted. The number of persons employed in the copper-mines in England and Wales, in 1841, was 15,407; and the number employed in copper manufactures was 2126. The average annual produce of the Cornish mines at different periods between 1771 and 1837, was as follows: 1771-75, 1776-80, 1781-85, 3450 tons. 3310 3990 In 1837 the value of the ore was 908,613., and the quantity of copper was 10,823 tons. The value of the produce of all the British copper-mines is in good years about 1,500,000l. Four-fifths of the whole quantity is raised from the Cornish mines. The produce of the mines in Devonshire and Staffordshire was 871 tons in 1821, but it has not much exceeded 500 tons since 1827. In 1831 the mines in Anglesey produced 915 tons, which was above the average quantity. In 1843, 176 tons of ore were received from the Isle of Man. The total quantity of copper from all British mines in the following years has been as under: 7,459 1828 6,206 1839 7,687 1830 13,260 9,157 CORNWALL. 159,214 tons 792,750l. 11,056 tons Years. Cwts. £ 1838 265,204 1,221,737 1839 272,141 1,280,506 SWANSEA. 1840 311,153 1,450,464 56,285 tons 1842 674,0127. 1,644,248 15 1,735,528 Metallic copper produced The copper yielded by the British mines being more than sufficient for the use of the kingdom, a considerable quantity is exported every year, both in its unwrought and in a manufactured state. The quantity of British copper retained yearly for use, on an annual average of East India Company's Holland States of Belgium |