what reforms are necessary in the proceedings of those courts, and to report thereon to the house." The motion being seconded, The honourable W. Herbert observed, that the statement of his noble friend pointed out many radical objections to the state of the law, but not to the administration of it as practised in the court over which a learned judge, whom he had now in his view, presided. He agreed that it would be desirable that the law should not continue as it was, but he thought a committee could be of no service to remedy the evil. Sir W. Scott said he could hard ly believe that the noble lord (Folkestone) was himself aware of the nature and effect of the motion he had submitted to the house. He trusted, however, that the house would pause before it agreed to go into an inquiry such as that propos ed by his lordship. Let the house consider what might be the consequences to others of their agreeing to such an inquiry; let them consider the number of persons who must be brought up from different parts of the country to be examined before the committee, at an expense which their paltry emoluments would but ill enable them to discharge and he was satisfied they would require further proof of the necessity, and also of the utility, of sach a committee before they concurred in the motion of the noble lord for the appointment of it. The house, however, must also feel itself called on in justice to consider that this was a principle which at tached to every court, high and low. -that every court, however inferior its jurisdiction might be, was entitled to be held in a decent state of respect, till it was proved to have done something to forfeit its charac. ter. When this should be proved,

1812.

it would be time enough to hold out such jurisdiction to public odium; but till then he could not agree to any such measure as that proposed by the noble lord. He should not follow the noble lord into those legends of antiquity to which he had had recourse. Many of the cases figured by the noble lord, now no longer existed; and the expenses of the proceedings in ecclesiastical courts were not such as he supposed. The points which ecclesiastical courts were called on to decide, however, were not so limited as the noble lord supposed. It was their duty to decide on the matrimonial and testamentary law, and on many other of the civil rights of mankind. It was said, however, that our inferior ecclesiastical jurisdictions had acted improperly in many respects, and for those improper acts they were now, on the complaint of the noble lord, called on to hold up their hand before the bar of the country. The noble lord, continued sir William Scott, had evidently been assisted in drawing up the cases which he had submitted to the house, and he was sorry to say that the information that he appear ed to have received was extremely defective. Out of the multitude of courts that possessed an ecclesiasti cal jurisdiction, and from the whole extent of its exercise, the noble lord had been able to select only seven instances of what he called abuse or oppression. He had also greatly. erred in terming those causes; they were in point of fact merely suits, the ordinary and regular process appointed for all those who claimed legal redress for an illegal wrong. The exchequer court no more than the ecclesiastical courts could get rid of the duty of granting this process, or shut their doors against any individual who sought F

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his remedy in the usual forms. Two of the cases adduced by the noble mover respected church rates, but the obligation was the same on the subject in this point, as in the instance of poor-rates. It was equally a just and legal debt in both cases. If, on issuing a citation, the person supposed to be the wrong. doer did not choose to appear, he certainly aggravated his offence; and if, appearing to the citation, he should make a dishonest defence, he again added to the causes of his own hardship and suffering. As to the subject of defamation, this was, he felt it right to intimate to the noble lord, the only part of ecclesiastical jurisdiction which he had adverted to, that was connected with the doctrine de salute anima. The noble lord, indeed, seemed to have been instructed very imperfectly, and he believed he was right in saying that his instructor had been a proctor of no great eminence or practice, and whese talents and acquirements, perhaps, did not entitle him to more than he enjoyed. He entertained no doubt of the noble ford's fair intention, but he certainly on this occasion had undertaken to sail under inauspicious convoy. The peculiar circumstances of this case had been asserted to be extremely severe; but was it not an important consideration, whether or no the characters and reputation of wo men should be insulted and reviled with impurity, and no protection be afforded by the law? Could any man of ordinary feelings endure that his mother, wife or sister, should Be publicly and indecently branded with terms of opprobrium? It was do sufficient justification, on any principle of legal analogy, that the offender happened to be a minor. Minors were held responsible for all thusgressions against the criminal

law. He would state to the houst the usual process of the ecclesiasti cal courts: a citation was first issued, and in the event of non-appearance, or of inadequate defence, penance was enjoined, and if not complied with, payment of costs was then adjudged. But this penance was nothing like the vulgar conception of it; there was no such thing as standing in white sheets, such a practice had for many years fallen into disuse. The sole punishment now consisted in the offender's attendance at the vestry before the minister of the parish and the complainant, and in asking pardon of the latter, promising at the same time to observe a more guarded conduct in future. Could any means, or any recourse to a court of merely civil jurisdiction, be pointed out or imagined to afford a simpler mode of relief, or a punishment of more lenient operation? The noble lord would give him credit for some experience in his profession, and he could assure him, that he had often known the peace of families disturbed, and the conjugal state rendered miserable, by unprovoked slander and unfounded aspersions. Was it not then proper that some remedy should be provided, and could a more gentle one be devised? With respect to costs, the highest sunithat could be levied was twenty shillings. If afterwards the party should be obstinate or contu macious, and himself create the necessity of summoning witnessesthen indeed his expenses might be greatly increased. When a case this sort occurred, an outcry was raised, and the defendant's hardship was attributed not to his own folly or misconduct, but to the oppression and severity or partiality of the courts. If the persons mentioned by the noble lord would appear to

of

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the jurisdiction appealed to, all would end with little suffering and little dissatisfaction to any party. The ordinary forms of the court must be observed; they were, in fact, all founded on the same principle as those of the forms and protess of civil tribunals. The writ of excommunication could only be provoked by the obstinacy of the offending individual. The writ certainly, from its circuitous progress and attendant penalties, greatly aggravated the sufferings and hardships incidental to such prosecutions. This was first issued from the court of chancery; it then passed through the king's bench, and was executed by the sheriffs. The whole proceed ing was carried on with the aid and instrumentality of the civil courts: and although the expenses thus incurred were great, and necessarily greater at present from the necessites of the state, yet to whose conduct but the offender's were all the evil consequences to be attributed? His conviction was, that the noble lord had not laid a sufficient ground for his motion, aided as he had been, not by his own, but by the malig nant industry of others. No proof whatever had been adduced of direct or unequivocal oppression. One of the necessary effects of all law, was to press more heavily on the lower classes of society; the remedies of the law were to them least accessible, and its penalties and fines more severe. But nobody could for this reason deny that the law ought to be maintained, and its equality of application preserved. On the whole he conceived the house would act anwisely to saddle itself with this inquiry, which, without any apparent necessity, would in its effects undoubtedly prove invidious to the persons concerned.-At the same time he was willing to express his

opinion that the constitution of the lower courts was susceptible of very great melioration. He thought it would be a great improvement merely to lessen their number. The process of excommunication, too, might perhaps easily find a better substitute, one that should be more effectual, while it was productive of less expense and oppression.

Sir Samuel Romilly declared that the arguments which he had just heard from the right honoura ble gentleman, entitled as they were to all that weight which never failed to be attached to whatever fell from him, had not satisfied him that it was not the duty of the house to go into the proposed inquiry. It did not appear to him that this inquiry was of that extensive nature which it was considered to be by the right honourable gentleman. The motion of the noble lord imputed misconduct to no one, it merely stared that a cause of extreme suffering, as every person in the house must ac knowledge it to be, liad appeared; and the question was, whether this hardship sprung from the law, or from the mode in which it was administered. His own belief certainly was, that the evil arose from the defects of the law, and this opi nion he felt more strongly, because he was countenanced by an authori ty so high as the right honourable gentleman who had spoken before him. That right honourable gentleman, in the conclusion of his speech, had distinctly expressed himself in favour of an alteration of the existing law. He hoped the house would not forgo the oppor tunity now presented. This subject had long worn a suspicious aspect. He believed he was correct in stating that no alteration or legislative provision whatever had been enacted with respect to the spiritual F 2

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courts, since the period of the Reformation. What was this sentence of excommunication? It disqualified the party from taking the communion, it deprived him of the rights of christianity, and incapacitated him either to give evidence or commence a suit in any court of justice. The wretched woman whose case had been detailed, although not yet an adult, had been confined in gaol two years among malefactors, and, labouring under all her other misfortunes, was rendered incapable, in the case of violence offered to her person, from prosecuting the violator. Had a murder been committed in her sight, her evidence must have been rejected, and the crime have thrus remained unpunished. In the earlier periods of our history, this punishment had been reserved for heinous sins, it was now applied to the non-payment of costs. He perfectly agreed that a woman's reputation was a fair and proper ob ject of legal protection; but was it just that, while calumny and slander were permitted to circulate unpunished among the higher orders of society, a coarse word or a hasty expression should draw down upon the poor and the defenceless the heaviest vengeance of the law? To him it appeared, that when it was recollected what was the habitual language of such persons, prosecutions of this nature were strong proofs of the malignant spirit resid. ing with the prosecutor. The right honourable gentleman had very eloquently inquired, ought the reputation of women to be wantonly sported with? He thought certain ly not; but he could not help feel ing some surprise at the select expression and delicate colours which the right honourable gentleman had used in this instance, when it was in evidence that the abusive words

used were strictly applicable in fact, the prosecutrix in that case being notoriously the keeper of a house of ill-fame. The question was, therefore, whether these facts called for inquiry? and the probable result of such an inquiry would be some improvement, aided as the committee might be with the talents and experience of the right honourable gentleman.

Sir William Scott replied, and the debate was carried on to some length by several other members; after which the question was put, and negatived without a division.

House of lords, Jan. 31. — Earl Fitzwilliam rose to call their lordships' attention to the state of Ireland. Little did he think when he gave notice of his motion, founding his intention, as he then did, upon circumstances which had then alrea dy taken place, and which had excited the most alarming discontents in Ireland-little did he think that at the time his motion would be discussed, he should have had to lament the existence of still further and aggravated circumstances, which could not fail to add most alarmingly to the discontents alrea dy existing--which could not fail to be pregnant with danger to the best interests and hopes of the country. Little did he think that he should have had to notice a line of conduct on the part of the government of Ireland, as developed by the mail that arrived yesterday, which he believed had no example during the whole of the last century, and to pa rallel which he believed he must go back to the arbitrary reign of James the second. Where could the people look for protection or safety, if the great bulwark of personal safety and personal liberty, the trial by jury, was vitiated and corrupted? Yet he found, by the account which

had

had reached London, of the proceedings in the Irish court of king's bench, that the jury pannel ummoned to try one of the cati olic delegates had been tampered with, and that the crown solicitor had been numbering and marking and altering the list in a manner that proved the exercise of the undue influence of government-nay, that sir Charles Saxton, whom in the absence from Ireland of Mr. Pole he must consider as the chief civil officer of the government, had been modelling the list in a manner that must excite the strongest feelings of alarm for the purity of the adminis tration of justice in Ireland. It was true that the whole of the proceedings had not yet arrived it was true hey did not know precisely the result, but enough had been developed to excite the greatest alarm; enough had been discovered to add strongly to the discontents already so unhappily existing. Take away, by undue means, the security the subject enjoyed from a fair trial by jury, and what remained to him of protection or safety? He hoped that the persons whose names had been implicated in this transaction would be able to clear themselves from the charge which thus, according to report, appeared against them; but he lamented to say, that, from what was already known, enough had been discovered to render the people of Ireland justly dissatisfied. Enough also had been discovered to show, in the strongest point of view, the necessity of the motion with which he intended to conclude, for a committee to take into its consideration the situation of affairs in Ireland. If, however, their lordships should consider these circumstances in the perhaps imperfect state in which they were known to be, not a sufficient ground

at the present moment for such a motion, still there were amply suf ficient grounds previously existing for agreeing to such a proposition. That the discontents in Ireland chiefly arose from the denial to the catholic body of the same rights which were enjoyed by their fellowcitizens, there could be no doubt. This topic had been often pressed upon their lordships' consideration, and must be again and again, until the evil was redressed; for it was an evil which sorely pressed upon a large portion of his majesty's subjects, and tranquillity could not be expected until those disabilities were removed. Why such disabilities should continue to exist, he was utterly at a loss to discover. No ground on reason remained to support them. It was idle to sup. pose that there was a single particle of religion in the opposition made to the catholic claims. Whether a man did or did not worship the virgin Mary - whether he conceived he took the real body and blood of Christ, in the eucharist, or whether he merely received the sacrament in commemoration of the sufferings of our saviour, was a matter so wholly indifferent to all considerations of state, that it were ridiculous to suppose such differences of opinion in mere matters of religion, could influence the minds of men in mere consi derations of policy; some other reasons must therefore be sought for continuing the exclusion of the catholics, but none now remained. Whatever might have been the justice of the policy which formerly excluded them from the pale of the constitution, the consideration which dictated that exclusion had long ceased to operate. The policy which dictated the enactment of disabilities upon the catholics must