duced a pamphlet, and read several passages from it, which went to shew, that if the bi passed, it would operate as a punishment of the present magistrates, by the establishment of a concurrent jurisdiction of the county ma gistrates, though it did not destroy their present power. He said he should trouble the House but a minute or two longer, in observ. ing he had no objection to the increase of the number of magistrates, if there was an alteration in the manner of electing them: the present method he could never submit to. Mr. BOND said, that what had been before said on the bill, rendered it unnecessary for him to go at length into its merits; but he could not but express his surprise, that the last Hon. Gent. should have said last right, when the bill was in a committee, that he had no objection to the bill if his amendment was acceded to by the committees and to hear him now, in the most energetic language, repro bate the whole of the bill: he thought the Hon. Gent. a little inconsistent in his conduct. The bill went, in his mind, to prevent future riots in the town and county of Nottingham, which must be the object of every man's wish who was acquainted with the wickedness which had taken place in that town and county. Now the clause which the Hon. Gent. had proposed, went to give power to persons after a riot had taken place; this he thought very inconsistent, and not at all calculated to be of service to the inhabitants of Notting ham. The Hon. Gent. had used many strong words to weaken the bill with the House, but he had to observe, that no threats should pre vent him from doing his duty. He thought it would be extremely wrong to wait for a riot be fore the inhabitants nominated magistrates to put a stop to it, and therefore the Hon. Gent.'s amendment could not be approved of. The Learned Gent. (Sergeant Lens) who addressed the House on the merits of the present bill, had stated that the measure had been conducted in a very lenient way to the mayor and magistrates, and that much blame certainly attached to them: he should therefore give! decided opinion in favour of the bill. ceive the vote of the House. Agreeable to the his Mr. GREY said that the Hon. Gent. had not answered the arguments of his Hon. Friend, but he had ventured to make bold assertions he did not recollect that the Learned Counsel had, in his address to the House, said that the magistrates were guilty of wilful neglect of duty, and he thought it was contrary to the custom of the House to refer to any former de bates. If he was permitted to recur to what had been said on a former debate, he was sure his Hon. Friend had not approved of the prin ciple of the bill, as it had been said; on the contrary, he had reprobated the whole of the bill; but finding that it had the support of the House, it was his wish that an amendment he proposed should be adopted, in order to make it less objectionable: he however would not trespass on the time of the House by repeating his Hon. Friend's arguments; but he thought they had been perverted in a most unjustifiable manner. debate, and some other serious inconveniencies in the discussions of that House. Mr. Fox explained also upon the subject of his having proposed, yesterday, to alter a clause of this bill in a committee of the whole House. He said he thought this a bad measure; and he had therefore endeavoured to alter it, so as to make it less bad; but that did not imply any approbation of any part of it, any more than if a land-tax bill of four shillings in the pound were now proposed, and he were to propose in a committee to have two shillings, instead of four, inserted in the bill: he could not be said to be a friend to the bill itself; he proposed it as a less evil than that of the original bill. As to his having observed, that the town of Nottingham had been commended on account of the tranquillity, which had been approved of by two Learned Judges, the Hon. Gent. who had taken notice of it, had very much misapprehended his meaning. He did not quote it as an extraor The ATTORNEY GENERAL expressed his surprise that the Hon. Gent. (Mr. Fox) should have opposed the bill, after he had proposed an amendment yesterday in the committee. The Hon. Gent. then gave a statement of the facts which took place in the town and county of Nottingham; and observed, that the present bill was brought into the House from a conviction that the magistrates had not done their duty, and he assured the House, that he would not have given his support to the bill if he had not been satisfied the magistrates had not done their duty. It was therefore necessary that some measure should be adopted to keep the peace of the town and county of Nottingham, and ensure the freedom of election. He could not approve of the conduct of the magistrates and returning officer, notwith-dinary case, merely on account of the absence standing all that had been said in favour of of a riot, but he stated it to shew the police them; and it had been pretty clearly proved, and general good government of the town unthat they had not taken any effectual means der its present municipal authority; and he to suppress the riots. If the magistrates had had accompanied it with an observation of a made use of all their civil power, and that general nature, namely, that there were fewer would not do, he had no hesitation in saying, crimes in the town of Nottingham than in many that they ought to have called in the military others of which no complaint had been made: to their assistance; and he was sure the re- this shewed the purity of the general adminiturning officer would not have been censured stration of justice in that town; and the obfor seeing the peace of the town kept during a servations of the Learned Judges, to whom he fair and legal election; and the House of had referred, fairly bore that interpretation; Commons would pause, had the business come and he thought the manner in which that subbefore them, ere they would censure the re-ject was now treated by Gentlemen on the tnrning officer for doing all he could to support the freedom of election, and keep the peace of the inhabitants. An Hon. Member opposite to him had said, that the Judges had bestowed great praise on the order and regularity of the town of Nottingham; but it must be recollected that was upwards of eighteen years ago; and, therefore, the encomiums of the then existing Judges could have no weight with the House now. It was necessary, in order to prevent riot, that the magistrates should be known, that appearance and power should have some effect with a mob. Under all the circumstances of the case he should not trouble the House any longer, as much had been said with respect to the present question; but he thought it highly necessary that the bill should pass the House, in order to support the freedom of election, and the peace of the inhabitants. Mr. GREY explained. He said he did not advert to the Hon. Gent. having quoted the arguments made use of on a former day, but to his having quoted particular words supposed to have been used on a former day; and that he took the liberty of regarding as a practice, which, if followed up in other cases, might be attended with many difficulties in other side of the House, full as hard on the Learned Judges as they could be on him. With regard to certain officers, who had been alluded to in the course of this debate, he did not say one word on them, because there was nothing concerning them in the present bill. As to any accusation that could be made against the magistrates for not bringing in the military, that was best answered by the fact-they did bring in the military. Mr. FRANKLAND said, he should suppose that if a tax was proposed of four shillings in the pound, and two shillings in the pound was proposed instead of it, such an amendment might be made by a person who thought if he could not oppose the bill altogether successfully, yet would wish to render it less objectionable; but he had no conception of that sort of amendment, which, under pretence of lessening a supposed evil, introduced independent matter, that was of itself a greater evil than that which it affected to diminish; and this he considered to be the nature of the amendment recommended yesterday by the Hon. Gent. who had just sat down (Mr. Fox). The general objection to this bill was, that it might become a precedent, which might bs followed up, and made at last to affect every *Na 2 borough in the kingdom; upon which, he confessed, he had no apprehensions whatever: the riots of the town of Nottingham were the foundation of this; they were not like the riots of other places, for they were become habitual riots, and required a remedy like the present. Lord GEORGE CAVENDISH said, he thought that the question now before the House was a very important one; no less than this, whether the freedom of election of the town of Nottingham should be continued? He disapproved of the riots which had taken place in that town, but he thought no ground was laid for so strong a measure as the present, which was that of altering the jurisdiction of the magistracy of the town. He thought there should have been laid before the House much further proofs of the necessity of such a raeasure as this, before it was adopted by the House. He was himself an elector of Nottingham, but he had never exercised his franchise, nor did he oppose this measure from any personal considerations of any kind whatever. He looked upon the right of election as a very serious matter, and not to be altered but upon the most absolute necessity, such as in this case did not appear: he thought innovation in those matters very dangerous. remedy, and he objected to giving to additional power of interference to magistrates appointed by the Crown: now this was the very thing which, in his opinion, recommended the bill most. He did not like the mode of choosing the present magistrates of the town of Nottingham, because they were self-elected magistrates, they elected each other; and when he saw a bench of magistrates who elected each other, incapable, or unwilling, to preserve the peace of a populous town, he could have no difficulty in agreeing to some remedy to that evil, but that remedy was not to consist of appointing more magistrates of the same description. He had no hesitation in saying, that the conduct of the magistrates at the last election for the town of Nottingham was highly culpable; for it appeared, that men came to the booth and shook an halter at one of the candidates, and said, "If I had you at another place, you should suffer death by this;" and that very man afterwards sat down by the side of one of the magistrates. It appeared also, that men sat on the top of the booth, and gave notice to others stationed at a distance, to observe their signals, to insult, in the most cruel manner, all those who did not vote for their favourite; and all this was followed up, on the part of the magistrates, by merely saying," Gentlemen, all this is extremely wrong;" and there was no instance of the magistrates doing their duty properly. The military were called in, but if the sheriff bad suspended the election during the riot, there would have been an end of the riot, because then there would have been an entire defeat of the object of the riot. The Hon. Gent. (Mr. Fox), in his explanation, had said, that he did not mean that the Learned Judge took notice of the good government of the town of Nottingham in one instance, but that he gave it as evidence of the general good government of the town: but this he knew, to the reproach of a magistrate there, that a Judge's warrant was once sent there, for the purpose of apprehending a rioter, and the magistrate did not follow it up, and see it executed. The Rt. Hon. Gent. then concluded with saying, that this bill should have his cordial Mr. Rose said, that if this bill was founded on a mere riot happening once at Nottingham, he should have thought it prudent to have deliberated a good deal; but that was not the case, for it was not merely on the last riot at Nottingham that the bill was founded, but on a proof of a system of rioting, and that proof | came before the committee on the cross-examination of the witnesses produced on behalf of the Petitioner, when it appeared as a sort of justification of the riot at the last election for Nottingham, that what then happened there was not new. Gentlemen seemed to say, "God bless us! riots at Nottingham! What do you complain of? We will shew you that this is not new; there never was an election at Nottingham without a riot; it is not confined to the election of Members to serve in Parliament, but it happens at the elec-support, and he was really sorry that the comtion of every municipal officer of that place, and even on occasions when there is no election at all, and in some of which men have lost their lives." This was the species of apology that had been set up for the late riots at Nottingham, by which it appeared there was a regular system formed and carried into ef-nally. fect, to punish every person whom the prevailing party did not like; and that punish- Lord GEORGE CAVENDISH explained, and ment was inflicted on them by burning their said, that, so far from screening the magis property, destroying their cattle, and inflict-trates, he was for punishing them, nor was he ing every species of cruelty that was practicable by the rioters; for which reasons he was convinced there were abundant grounds for the interference of Parliament. An Hon. Gent, (Mr. Fox) had said, that this was not a proper mittee had not carried the matter further: he thought they would have done well to have recommended to the House to call upon the Attorney General to prosecute with the rigour of the law, those who by name had been reported to have conducted themselves so crimi. for screening the vices of the town of Nottingham, but he was for preserving ancient estàblishments, which were very serious things, and great care should be taken not to lay a precedent for overturning them. Mr. SHAW LEFEVER said, that the present bill had his hearty concurrence. As to the amendment proposed yesterday, by an Hon. Gent. who opposed this bill with much vehemence (Mr. Fox), he found it his duty to oppose it, not only on account of its general bad principle, but also because it tended to degrade the magistracy of the counties of this kingdom, to reduce them, and to place them in a situation with the posse comitatus of which they were the directors on fit occasions. Asto county magistrates being called crown magistrates, he begged it to be understood by the public, that they were persons generally appointed to their office (which was a laborious one, and which they performed gratis), upon principles of independence. They were appointed for the general good of the country, and they generally acted upon the principle of their appointment. He did not like that it should go forth from that House to the public, that the magistrates of the counties had either salaries or emoluments for what they did, or that they had any dependance on the Crown or other dependance whatever; on the contrary, they devoted their time often from week to week, leaving the concerns of themselves and families, to perform some of the most important busi Mr. HAWKINS BROWNE observed, that the | was destroyed by this bill, for it only gave to Rt. Hon. Gent."who had lately spoken (Mr. other justices a concurrent jurisdiction with Rose) had said, that the committee should them. As to the precedent, of which the have taken steps towards the punishment of Hon. Gent. appeared to be so apprehensive, the instigators of the late riots at Nottingham; he owned he saw no danger in it, for such a that they should have been marked out in the measure never would be taken except where it Report as objects fit for punishment: the rea- was necessary, and it would never be necesson why the committee did not do so was, sary, but where such principles prevailed as that the persons alluded to were not parties to those which made a system of riot at Nottingthe cause before the committee, and could not ham, and it was our comfort that such prinbe heard in their own defence, and so the ciples had but little root in this country. committee thought it would not be fair to proceed to any step that might lead to their punishment, without giving them an opportunity of being heard in their own defence: but the committee had recommended that the House might peruse the evidence, and upon which evidence it was as competent to any member of the House as it was to the committee, to recommend a prosecution against all or any of those persons who appeared to have misconducted themselves. This bill had been called a strong measure; he proposed it as a strong measure, for he did not put the riots at Nottingham upon a footing with common riots; they were not like the riots at Coventry, nor any other election riots. He did not call the riots of Nottingham election riots; it was a planned scheme, long concerted, to insult and ill-treat in the most outrageous manner, all those who should vote for Mr. Coke, and there were men stationed at and upon the booth for that purpose, and to give signals for persons at a distance to do the same thing; it was in the estimation of these rioters a capital crime to vote for a Gentleman who had represented the town for upwards of twenty years, rather than for a Gentleman who, whatever his merit was, was certainly a new candidate. The outrages were the effect of a systematic plan; in short, it was a scheme foundedness of the county and of the public, without on French principles, which produced French practices; and if this bill was an unprecedented measure, he answered, that the cause which produced it was unprecedented in this country. The Hon. Gent. (Mr. Fox) had called this bill a measure of affected and insulting lenity. Now the committee did not consider any thing of lenity, they were guided by views of justice, as it was their duty to be guided. There was not any difference of opinion on the conduct of the magistrates; they all agreed that effectual measures were not taken by them at the last election for Nottingham to suppress riot, and to preserve the freedom of election; but the committee had not expressed their opinion so as directly to involve the magistrates in criminality; they did not think proper to propose any measure of prosecution, supposing that which was assumed on the other side to be correct, which was far from being the case; but supposing it to be so, namely, that these magistrates of the town of Nottingham were elected by the people, and that, as such, they were really the guardians of the people, yet it could not be said that their jurisdiction any other fee or reward than the approbation of their consciences for having contributed much to the public welfare. As to the licensing of public-houses, no advantages were derived to the county magistrates from it; on the contrary, it was a power, the exercise of which gave them much trouble. Some clerks and inferior persons had fees and emoluments on such occasions, but the magistrates none. Mr. Fox explained, and said he was misunderstood by the Hon. Gent. who spoke last: he did not mean to cast the slightest reflection on the magistrates of the counties, on account of their being appointed by the Crown; on the contrary, he stated that the greater part of our magistracy was appointed by the Crowe, and that he regarded as one of the excellencies of the system of our government when they were mixed with those magistrates who were elected. He never knew any suspicion entertained of the general character of the justices of the peace for the counties. He never insinuated that their power was exercised from corrupt motives: what he said was, there was much merit in the principle, and great benefit | come back and solicit him to renew his enfrom the practice of blending with them in gagements with them; but this application the general government of the community, was refused by Mr. Taylor, unless the Board magistrates who were elective; and he had gave him an additional sum of 10 per cent. to only alluded to the general duty of a magis- what he before had from them. This, among trate, and observed that some parts of it were other things, ought to come before the House more agreeable to perform than others. The through the medium of the commissioners, so excellence of our general government by mu- that Parliament might form some opinion of nicipal authority was, that it was blended, Mr. Taylor's conduct. He begged leave to that it was an union of those who were nomi- call the attention of the House to the time the nated by the Crown, and those who were Navy Abuse Bill was first offered for the conelected by the subject; for he detested that sideration of Parliament: at that period he affectation of simplicity which would have well recollected, that the friends of the bill one of them without the other. The excel- urged the necessity of passing it immediately lency of our system consisted in providing that into a law, as many abuses in the navy were they should go on together, but each in his known to exist; he therefore thought if there proper station. was good cause to pass the bill into a law at a very short notice, there was also good cause to know something of the good effect produced by the bill; he should therefore move, that the commissioners appointed by act of Parliament, to investigate abuses in the civil departments of the navy, as practised by prize agents, &c. &c. do report the same to the House. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Wednesday, May 4.—(See Minutes, p. 811.) [NAVY ABUSE BILL.]-Sir HENRY MILDMAY rose, and observed, that in any thing he was about to say on a question, in his mind, of considerable importance to the House and the public at large, he did not mean to attach any unjust conduct to any gentleman in his Majesty's navy. He was entirely governed by an act of Parliament which passed a short time back, the letter and spirit of which required, that the commissioners appointed under the act to investigate the abuses which have taken place in his Majesty's navy, should report to the House the nature and result of their minute inquiry; but he could not but express his astonishment, that so much time should have elapsed since the passing of the bill, for the purpose mentioned, and not the least information has yet been given to Parliament on the subject. He thought it would have been no more than the duty of the commissioners to have given the House some information how they were going on, in the business imposed on them: but it did not appear that the public was likely to receive any information on the subject. Under this impression he rose to address the House, on what he thought was his duty as a Member of Parliament. There was one circumstance, among several, that he should take the liberty to mention to the House, which called for some investigation. A gentleman of the name of Taylor, had entered into a contract with the Board of Admiralty, for the term of seven, fourteen, and twenty-one years, to furnish Government with blocks; but without any real cause of complaint against Mr. Taylor, the Board of Admiralty thought proper to break the contract with him at the end of nine years: this sudden and strange conduct on the part of the Board of Admiralty to Mr. Taylor, operated for a time as hurtful to his arrangements: however, no great length of time elapsed before the Board of Admiralty were obliged to Sir CHARLES POLE said, he had the honour to be one of the commissioners appointed by the bill in question, and he could assure the House, that no time had been lost, and that ever since he, with the other commissioners, had met, they had sat from five to seven hours a day; he thought it necessary to observe, that as soon as fair copies were made out, the Report should be laid before the House for the inspection of Parliament, and which should be done as early as possible. He did not doubt but if the Hon. Bart. had made any inquiry respecting the business in question, of either of the commissioners, he would not have brought forward the present motion; he therefore could not but receive it as a rebuke. Captain MARKHAM said, he had the honour to be a Member of the Board of Admiralty, but all he had to observe at present on the Hon. Gent.'s remarks respecting Mr. Taylor was, that the Admiralty considered the contract between him and them as a bad one for the public; he however should not enter into the particulars now, but when the business came before the House, he should speak at some length on the subject; yet it might be necessary for him on the present occasion to inform the House, that a very ingenious mechanic had invented an engine to cut blocks, at a much less expense than Mr. Taylor could make them for, consequently it was the duty of the Board of Admiralty to save the public money, by getting blocks as cheap as possible. And notwithstanding the Board of Admiralty had been abused by the Hon. Bart. yet, he had the pleasure of informing the House, that since the year 1792, we have a better naval force to |