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used all the while as a job, and were totally unfit for service when we came to want them; that they were rotten, and consumed in the ports by worms.

Sir George Savile said, that if the guard-ships were now allowed to be a job, and to have answered no purpose, what security could we have that they would not again be a job, only with the difference of being a much more expensive job?

In the Sea Service, favourite as it is, there may be Extravagance. IN a debate in the House of Commons, on the Navy Estimates, December, 1772, Mr. Pulteney said :-Mr. Speaker; Extravagance in the building of new ships is a charge which may, I understand, be justly brought against the Admiralty. And let me tell you, that in the sea service, favourite as it is, there may be extravagance. What think you of having so many new ships at once upon the stocks, that before a sufficient number of condemned ships return to furnish a sufficiency of men to navigate them, they rot and decay in the dock or harbour? I have reason to believe that there are great abuses in this department.

How Sir Samuel Romilly lost the Opportunity of stating the great
Injustice and the mischievous Effects of imposing any Taxes on
Judicial Proceedings.

THE ensuing are extracts from Sir Samuel Romilly's Diary of his
Parliamentary Life.-16th June, 1808. Tax on Law Proceedings.
The House went into a committee on the Bill for imposing new
Stamp Duties. The Act imposes new duties on law proceedings;
particularly on warrants for attendances in the offices of Masters in
Chancery. I intended fully to have resisted this, and to have stated
the great injustice and the mischievous effects of imposing any taxes
on judicial proceedings; but I lost the opportunity of doing it. Not
imagining it possible that the Bill could pass through the committee
in one night, I left the house about one o'clock in the morning. A
very few of the clauses had then been gone through, and almost
every clause had given rise to a good deal of discussion; a great
many clauses remained; and the tax on law proceedings, being only
in the schedule, was last to be considered. The next morning, how-
ever, I found that Perceval, whose object it is to hurry through

T

business as much as possible, had resisted the postponement of the further consideration of the Bill, and had insisted on its going through the committee, which was done at three in the morning, when very few members remained in the house.

I should afterwards have objected to this tax, upon the third reading, but the Bill was read a third time on a subsequent day, in a very thin house, at two o'clock in the morning, when no one expected that it would come on; though it is true that it stood, with a great many other bills, as an order of the day. Many persons had clauses which they meant to propose; but not having the least intimation that, at such an hour, this Bill would be selected from among the other orders of the day to be hurried through, they were prevented from doing so.

Why many important Laws are not proposed, and why many Acts are passed full of objectionable Provisions.

THE ensuing is an Extract from the Diary of Sir Samuel Romilly's Parliamentary Life.-Saturday, 9th June, 1810. Hurry and multiplicity of business in Parliament towards the close of a session. The Bill for repealing the Act of Geo. II., which makes stealing on navigable rivers a capital felony, stood as one of the orders of the day. But it being impossible to bring it on because there were not forty members present, (and, if I had attempted to go on with it, the house would have been counted out,) I put off the third reading to next Wednesday, though without any hope of being able to bring it on then, or indeed on any other day during the short remainder of the present session, which it is understood is to close in a week or ten days from this time. For the last three weeks I have endeavoured every day to bring on the third reading of the Bill: but this has been impossible; the other business, the notices, and the orders of the day for business taken up by government having always precedence, and lasting till two or three o'clock in the morning. The truth is, that the ministers do not suffer Parliament to sit half the time which is necessary to do the business which comes before it, or which ought to come before it. Many important laws are not proposed, or cannot receive any discussion, because there is not time for them; and many Acts are passed full of objectionable provisions, because the persons who would oppose them, after having waited night after night in expectation of them, find, at last, their patience exhausted. And thus the bills pass through their different stages

at one or two o'clock in the morning, or later, just after the close of a debate on some interesting subject, when it is supposed that nothing of importance is likely to be brought forward. There have been, for many days successively, above thirty orders of the day; and, on one day, forty-two orders of the day and six notices of

motions.

Religious Ascendancy.

CATHOLIC, Protestant, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian, has each had ascendancy in his turn, and each been intolerant.-Short notes from various writers.

Mass with a good Dinner better than the Church Service
without one.

IN a debate in the House of Commons, Nov. 1753, Admiral Vernon said that there lately lived in his county a great and a rich Popish lady who by connivance had publicly a chapel in her own house, where mass was celebrated every Sunday and holiday. This lady, out of zeal for her religion, had every such day a great number of buttocks and sirloins of beef roasted or boiled, with plenty of roots and greens from her own garden, and every poor person who came to hear mass at her chapel was sure of a good dinner. What was the consequence? The neighbouring parish churches were all deserted, and this lady's chapel was crowded; for as the common people have not learning enough, no more than some of their betters, to understand or judge of abstruse speculative points of divinity, they thought that mass with a good dinner was better than the church service without one.

The Bishop of Peterborough's Speech on the Roman Catholic
Relief Bill, A.D. 1778.

MAY, 1778. House of Lords. Debate on the Bill for the Relief of the Roman Catholics.-The Bishop of Peterborough [Dr. John Hinchliffe] said: As a friend to civil and religious liberty, I am free, my Lords, to own that I think there ought to be neither penalty nor restraint on the intercourse between God and a man's own conscience. I cannot therefore but disapprove of all laws which are calculated to oppress men for their religious persuasion; and to

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tempt any one with views of interest to trespass on his duty and natural affection, by depriving his father of his estate, or supplanting his brethren, is a policy, in my opinion, inconsistent with reason, justice, and humanity. At the same time, my Lords, permit me to say, I am not so ignorant of the genius of Popery, as not to know it is a very difficult matter to consider its religious principles altogether distinct from that political superstructure which has been raised upon them and to the support of which, I cannot but fear, that should occasion offer, they might still be made too subservient. Any alteration, therefore, in those laws which the wisdom of Parliament has thought necessary, from time to time, for the preservation of our church and state, ought not to be made without due deliberation; and although I profess myself to be a friend to the principle of this Bill, yet I wish it had been brought in sooner in the session, that it might not have appeared to be hurried through both houses; and that we might not only have had time to consider it ourselves, but to know the general disposition of the nation ere it passed into law, for I hold it to be worthy your Lordships' attention, not only to look into the real security of the constitution, but to prevent alarms of imaginary danger, with which ignorance and malice have heretofore, and may again, kindle such a flame as the authority of law will find it difficult to extinguish.

A Turnspit in the King's Kitchen a Member of the House
of Commons, A.D. 1777.

IN a debate in the House of Lords, April 1777, Earl Talbot, after
observing that regulations intending to contract the expenses of the
household within reasonable bounds were found to press upon some
persons whose voices were loud enough to make themselves heard,
added:—I can better explain my meaning by adverting to a single
circumstance, which will show how difficult it is to reform the menial
servants of his Majesty's household, when the profits are enjoyed by
persons of a certain rank, and services performed by another. The
fact I allude to, is that one of the turnspits in his Majesty's kitchen
was, and I believe still is, a member of the other house.
The poor
man who performed the duty had £5 a year for his trouble. Many
similar instances might be mentioned. I have selected this one.

What King James thought of his Lawyers.

THE Great Seal being brought to King James after the downfal of Lord Chancellor Bacon, his Majesty exclaimed, "Now, by my soule, I am pained at the heart where to bestow this; for, as to my lawyers, I thinke they be all knaves!" The King bestowed the seal on Bishop Williams.

King Henry VIII., compassionating the Cares and Fatigues which Lord Chancellor Wolsey underwent, and lest his Fortitude of Mind and Body should be too much impaired, appoints John Taylor the Master of the Rolls, some Judges of the Common Law Courts, and others, to hear all the Causes in the Chauncerie.

THE King to his beloved and faithful John Taylor, Clerk, Master and Keeper of the Rolls of our Chauncerie; Richard Lyster, Chief Baron of our Exchequer; Anthony Fitzherbert, one of the Justices of our Common Bench; Thomas Englefeld, another of the Justices of our Common Bench; John Scott, one of the Barons of our Exchequer; Richard Wolman, Clerk; Roger Lupton, Clerk; William Throkmarton, Clerk; Edward Hygons, Clerk; Roland Lee, Clerk; Thomas Newman, Clerk, [and others,] &c.-Know ye, that whereas the most reverend Father in Christ, Thomas, by divine permission, Cardinal, Legate, Archbishop of York, and our Chancellor, has been employed for the sake of the peace and tranquillity of our kingdom and subjects of England, and for the interest, profit, and utility of the public, in which post he constantly exists; and considering and piously compassionating the insupportable cares, labours, and fatigues, which he on that account undergoes and suffers, and lest such singular fortitude of mind and body should be too much impaired, which God avert, through such fatigues, and he not able to attend in good health as usual to our most necessary affairs with his chiefest care: Being therefore willing, that justice should be administered to all and every of our subjects, and fully relying in your fidelity and circumspection, we have appointed you the aforesaid John Taylor, &c., by virtue of these presents, granting unto you power and authority to hear all and every the causes, disputes, and complaints whatever of our subjects depending before us in our Chauncerie, or already moved or to be moved therein, and by the said Lord Chancellor committed to you, or any of you (but not to less than four however, of whom you the aforesaid

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