fhould be fubject to be tried by a court martial who had no connection with the army and was a Peer of Parliament ? Every noble Lord had a right to his trial for any crime per pares, in full parliament. Why was he, a Peer, and in civil life, to be deprived of his birthright? Courts martial could try for murder and for killing, he believed for high treason alfo. Should it ever happen, which he hoped would never be the cafe, that he was to be accufed of high treason, was he to forfeit his right to trial per pares, and to be turned over to a court martial? Such doctrine teemed with the most glaring oppreffion; nor could its advocates produce even one juftifiable reafon in its favour. Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor faid, that as filence on his part and The Lord that of noble Lords near him had been imputed to want of argument or want of refpect for the noble Lords who had fpoken, he now felt it his duty again to declare his fentiments. His Lordship then went over his arguments of the preceding day in fupport of the general expediency of the alteration, and referred to the cafe of General Rofs, just mentioned, as the particular matter which fuggefted the neneffity of the alteration propofed. Having obferved that he confulted the gentleman from whom the alteration originated (the Judge Advocate) he ftated to their Lordships various obfervations, all tending to prove that the King's forces, however conftituted, ought to be all fubject to the fame laws, and that the diftinction between an officer by brevet out of service, and an officer in actual fervice was an unfair diftinction with refpect to the latter. If gentlemen chofe to have the advantage of military rank, they ought to hold it on the condition of being fubject to military law; and if they difliked that condition, they might ease themselves of the grievance by refigning their commiffions. The noble Earl near him, if he really felt fo much hardship in his cafe, might take the cockade out of his hat, and lay down the rank and the unpleasantnefs of being liable to be tried by the court martial together. The Duke of Manchefter fupported the amendment, and re- The Duke probated the innovation. of Man chefter. Lord Portchefter afked, if the vulgar opinion, that a man Lord Port once a foldier was always a foldier, was to be credited. He chefter. thought not. The conftitution of the country forbade fuch an idea. He rejoiced, therefore, if he rightly understood the noble and learned Lord, that every officer might throw up his commiffion when he pleased, but he had never before understood this to be the cafe. Lord Loughborough explained, that no officer could quit the Ld.Longh fervice without the King's previous confent. He might borough. tender The Lord tender a refignation of his commiffion, but it lay with his Majefty to permit the refignation. The Lord Chancellor faid, that he certainly meant that an Chancellor officer might refign, fubject to his Majesty's acceptance of his commiffion; but, he was perfuaded, that no Minifters, under the circumftances described, would advise his Majefty not to accept the commiffions fo offered to be refigned. Lord Portchefer. The Earl of Carlife. Lord Sydrrey. Lord Portchester condoled with his country in what he had heard, and declared, that if fuch was the cafe, the man who had been once a foldier was condemned to flavery for life. The Earl of Carlile begged leave to call to the recollection of the Houfe the manner in which Judge Blackstone treated of the martial law, which he termed a fevere fyftem, and a Syftem which ought to receive relaxation in time of profound peace. So far from this having been the cafe, we had gone on from time to time increafing and extending its rigour, intead of adminiftering the fmalleft relaxation. Why would not the noble Lord (Sydney) rife, and afford fome fatisfaction to the Houfe, as well relative to the cafe of General Stuart, that he had refted his argument of Monday upon, as in proof of fome real exifting neceffity, for fo impolitic and injurious an innovation. Lord Sydney anfwered, that he had, in his fecond fpeech of Monday, mentioned General Stuart's cafe as a collateral circumftance, but had not refted the chief of his argument upon it. He was in the recollection of their Lordships, whether he had not ftated the cafe of governors, deputy governors, and other officers, actually in fervice and pay, not ainenable to a court martial for their conduct. If there were any perfons in the predicanent defcribed by a noble Earl (of Sandwich) who really felt uneafy at the alteration being likely to affect them, he would venture to fay, they might, in four and twenty hours, get rid of the caufe of their uneafinefs. The words in India being in General Stuart's commiffion were accidentally inferted, and the General's commiffion was nothing more than a common brevet commission. Viscount Stormont produced the real words of General Stormont. Stuart's commiffion, which proved that it was a fpecial, though a brevet commiffion. The Earl of The Earl of Effingham put the cafe, that a brevet officer Ettingham. fhould chance to vifit a garrifon during a fiege, and fhould offer his fervices to the governor, the latter would naturally be glad to avail himself of the offer, aad would accept the proffered fervices. In that inftance, the brevet officer, if his brevet gave him higher rank than that of the officer who held the military command, would fuperfede that officer, and take the command on himself. His Lordship adverted to the words of Major General Stuart's commiffion, and faid, they were the identical words of all brevet commiffions, and he read an extract from fuch a commiffion, in order to illuftrate his affertion. He reminded the Houfe alfo of the diftinction which he had, the preceding day, laid down, as marking the difference between officers on half-pay, and officers by brevet. It was not, furely, neceffary to affure the Houfe, that the former were entirely out of the army, and, of courfe, in no fenfe whatever objects of the bill which now engroffed fo much of the attention of their Lordships. Lord Rawdon begged permiffion to rectify the mistakes of Lord Rawthe noble Earl, and to affure him, that with regard to the don. cafe which he had put relative to an officer by brevet coming into a garrifon, and offering his fervices to the governor, the noble Earl did not fee that by that very offer, and by the governor's acceptance of it, it was implied that the brevet officer held the governor his fuperior, as to the specific command of the garrifon, and was willing to act under him. In fact, there was no fuch practice in the military profeffion as an officer by brevet, let his brevet rank be what it might, taking upon himself to fuperfede an officer in command, and arrogate it to himself, unless he was fpecially appointed and authorized fo to act by virtue of a letter of fervice, the order of his Majefty, or fome competent authority to call his brevet commiffion into activity. He had himself experienced this to be the cafe in the courfe of the last war. He had, at a particular period of the conteft with America, been appointed to protect the frents of Maryland, and, while employed in that command, three regiments, under a Colonel Gould, his fenior and fuperior, which were fent to recruit the army from Ireland, arrived. He defired to have an interview with the Colonel, and told him, that he must not interfere with him, as he had been fpecially appointed to the command in that fervice. In this the Colonel acquiefced, and when he went to Carolina, fent to him as the officer holding the command, to request his permiffion to quit the province. Another inftance mentioned by his Lordship, tending, in like manner, to establish the doctrine which he had laid down, in refpect to no officer's having a right, from his fuperior rank, to fuperfede a command, unless he was Specially appointed fo to do, was this: when he had arrived with the troops under him at Charlestown, he fent to the governor or commandant, who was junior to him in rank, to receive his orders how he should proceed. In conclufion, Lord Rawdon obferved, that he had voted for the last amendment, because he had thought the extention of the mutiny bill highly improper, without a more precife definition of the meaning of the extention. The ftanding army, though uncongenial with our conftitution, had, of late years, become D 2 a part a part of our police, and in proportion to the numbers of men of great landed and monied property, ferving in the army, would prove the vigor and the efficacy of the means of maintaining unviolated the rights and freedom of the people. The queftion was here called for, and the Committee divided, Ayes (for the original word or) 42. Noes 20.Majority 22. Viscount Townshend then moved his amendment, on which the Committee alfo divided, Ayes 19. Noes 33.-Majority 14. The reft of the bill was afterwards gone through, and reported to the Houfe by Lord Scarfdale. The Houfe adjourned. Wednesday, 22d March. The motion having been made for the reading of the Vifcount fhop-tax bill, Vifcount Stormont obferved, that, although Stormont. he did not mean to give any oppofition by dividing the Houfe, he muft beg leave to point out the impolicy of the modification with which that tax was now to be im pofed. Minifters had departed from their promifed fyftem, and they had departed in a manner which did their judgement very little honour indeed. They proposed a tax which they were told was impolitic-they perfifted in impofing it, contrary to all advice, contrary to all reafon: but when they came to the teft of collecting, they were afhamed of their conduct, and fo terrified at the public in'dignation, that they did not dare to demand it. They then changed their ground, and propofed that all fhops under thirty pounds a year fhould be exempted, or at least should pay fo fmall a portion of the tax as to amount to an exemption. This was departing from the very ground on which the policy of the tax itself ftood. The payment was to be by the confumer, and not by the fhopkeeper; it was to fall on the public at large, and not on the individual. To this fact the Minifter pledged his reputation as a statesman and as a financier; but how did the proof verify his affertions, and how did his own conduct give the direct contradiction to himself? The tax, inftead of being general, was now made partial, and more partially oppreffive than it was in the firft inftance. The modification put it on this footing, that the fhopkeeper who paid only thirty pounds a year, and who lived next door to the fhopkeeper who paid fifty pounds a year, should by this exemption from the tax, be enabled to underfell his neighbour, and to draw his whole custom from him: because, if the tax was to be laid on the article, article, as Ministers stated, then the partiality of enabling one man to fell cheaper than another, plainly proved that the fhopkeeper, and not the purchafer, was the real object of taxation. The remedy which Minifters had applied, was, in this cafe, much worse than the disease, and in the application of that remedy, Minifters held themselves out to the public in a very ridiculous point of view-Ridiculous it was for this reafon-that they had forfeited their word, proved their total want of fyftem, and plainly evinced that they caught at every fluctuating idea, without having a regard to that ftability which could alone give confequence to an administration. Here was another point in the modification of the bill, which was equally strong in evidence against the promise, and against the found policy of the MinitterIt was, that the argument on which was founded the tax upon pedlers, became now totally annihilated. The reafon urged for oppreffing that induftrious body of men was, that they fhould not underfell the great fhopkeepers, and prevent the tax from being laid on the commodity. How had this promife been adhered to? The petty fhopkeeper was placed in the fituation of the hawker, antecedent to the tax, and was permitted to do the very thing for which it was found neceffary to impofe a duty on that hawker. Here was a manifeftation that the individual was never concerned in the idea of the Minifter, and that equalization or justice to the public were never in contemplation. The fyftem feemed to be that of raifing money at all events, without any regard either to found policy or common understanding. If these hints and thefe facts were not conformable to the events that had happened, and if Miniftry could make any reply which might excufe their conduct, they had now an opportunity to enter upon their own juftification. By filence they would stand condemned. The bill was read and reported. The Houfe adjourned. Friday, 31st March. The order of the day being read, That a bill entitled an act to explain and amend certain provifions of an act made in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of His prefent Majefty, refpecting the better regulation and management of the officers of the Eaft-India Company, be read a fecond time. Earl Fitzwilliam requested the attention of the House to Earl Fitafome remarks concerning the explanatory bill which he held wil. in his hand. Explanatory he called it, from the title it bore, and not from the matter it contained. Confidering it to be rather |