or official capacity. There was as great a difference between these, with regard to the forms of that house, as there was in a court of law between the speech of a leading counsel in the cause, and the evidence he adduced in support of the pleadings. The right hon. secretary, not contented with giving his own representation in support of that side of the question which he espoused, had brought forward a chain of evidence, the truth of which it was not in the power of the house to verify, for the sake of influencing its decision upon the question at issue. On the 3d of Feb. certain papers had been moved for by a right hon. friend of his (Mr. Ponsonby); and in the debate which took place, the discussion embraced not only the motions for papers, but the conduct of the individuals to which these papers referred. On that evidence the secretary of state for the foreign department read extracts from two of those papers which had been moved for, for the purpose of putting the house in possession of the information necessary to enable it to form a judgment of the to witness on the 3d of Feb. last, and which stood recorded on the journals of the house of the 8th of Feb. he hoped for the last time. When any thing irregular occurred in the course of the debate, it was not unusual to check that irregularity at the time it took place; but because the irregularity to which he alluded was not checked at the moment it happened, it was no reason why the house should not now impose an effectual check upon its recurring on a future occasion. He should now endeavour to shew that the right hon. secretary of state, by reading extracts from official papers not before the house in the course of the debate, had been as disorderly as if he had introduced his majesty's name for the purpose of influencing the decision of the house; than which, it was unnecessary for him to state, nothing could be more irregular. In the year 1757 a member of the house of commons having expressed a wish to be absolved from his oath of secrecy on a court martial, a message was sent to the house by the king, in which there was a reference to what had passed in debate on the sub-propriety of the hostile proceedings which ject. The message was received, but particular mention was made of the circumstance on the journals of the house, as being of a nature which ought not to pass unnoticed. In that instance the violation of form, he was inclined to think, rather proceeded from oversight; but, on a late occasion, he had not the same apology to make for a much more flagrant breach of order. He hoped, therefore, that the house would so mark it with its reprobation as to prevent its ever occurring in future. In order to induce it to come to this decision, he should shortly recapitulate the circumstances on which he meant to ground a motion; and he was confident that if the house did not adopt some resolution similar to that which he meant to propose, it would be impossible to go on with the transaction of public business in the way in which it had hitherto been conducted, and that there was an end at once to the constitution of parliament. The first point he wished to establish was, the difference that there was between simply answering a question which might be put for the sake of obtaining information on any particular subject, and the practice which the right hon. secretary had introduced, of reading extracts from official papers in the course of debate, to serve any temporary purpose which he might have in view, either in his private government had adopted against Denmark. On the 8th of Feb. another hon. friend of his (Mr. Whitbread) moved for the production of those very papers from which the secretary of state had read extracts on the 3d of Feb. on the ground that the extracts which had been given conveyed a different impression to the house from that which the writers of these dispatches (lord Howick and Mr. Garlike) intended to convey. On the 3d of Feb. the reason given for not producing the whole of these papers was, that their contents could not be disclosed without detriment to the public service; and, on the 8th of Feb. the right hon. secretary had persisted in opposing their production, on the pretence that he had not misrepresented, in the extracts which he had read from them, the opinions of lord Howick and Mr. Garlike. On the 26th of Feb. however, the right hon. gent. had come down to the house, and himself moved for the production of those very papers, the contents of which, on the 3d of Feb. he had contended it would be unsafe to disclose, and the production of which he had resisted on a different ground on the 8th of Feb. for the purpose, as he stated then, of vindicating his own character! When the right hon. gent. read the extracts from these papers on the 3d of Feb. it was not done with the view of communicating information to the house, but for the purpose of influencing its judg-| was then moved in the house of peers; ment upon an important public question. in seconding which the duke of NewIt was not done preparatory to a proceed- castle read part of a letter which he had ing, but on the very model of a proceed- received from Mr. Stanhope, the British ing which was to terminate in adjudica- minister at the court of Madrid, contion; and it was upon this ground that he taining information respecting certain arpronounced his conduct to be wholly ir- ticles of the treaty supposed to have been regular, and highly censurable. If a libel signed between Spain and Austria. The was published upon any member of the duke was immediately asked whether he house, it was competent for that member was authorized to read this letter; and to move that the libel should be read in on his answering that he had the king's the house; but the house would not ground permission to read a part of it, lord Lechany proceedings upon the libel till it was mere observed, that in this case the docuupon their table. This practice, which he ment went for nothing. Here then was a contended to be invariably adhered to, precedent drawn from the practice of parwas supported by an analogy which was liament, which clearly shewed that it was completely impregnable. On the 29th of irregular in debate to quote any paper Nov. 1767, it was contended by Mr. Gren- which had not been regularly submitted ville, on the one side, that it was compe- to parliament. And the case to which he tent for any member to demand that any alluded bore directly upon the circumpart of the journals of the house should be stances on which he meant to found his read: and, on the other side, it was ar- present motion. The papers quoted by gued by Mr. Dyson that this could only the right honourable secretary, on the 3d be done in consequence of a vote of the of Feb. were not before the house in either house, and that this point of form was now of the two regular modes by which pubwaved for the convenience of the speaker. lic papers could be laid before the house, Mr. Adam asserted, that it was in the viz. in consequence of the command of his competence of the house to enforce its majesty, or of a vote of that house; and observation. A vote of the house was not therefore could not be read in debate, necessary, however, to authorize the read- conformably with the law and practice of ing of such papers as were upon the table parliament. Mr. Adam next quoted, in of the house, whether in consequence of an support of the same doctrine, the more address of the house, or by command of his recent authority both of Mr. Pitt and Mr. majesty; and in this case any individual Fox. In 1792, when a question came bemember could, at his own instance, de- fore the house, relative to the seizure of mand that they should be read. In sup- Oczakow by Russia, some members being port of this doctrine he appealed to the then of opinion that the house was not in authority of Mr. Hatsell, and of Mr. possession of information sufficient to warSpeaker Onslow; and the conclusion he rant it in coming to a decision, moved for drew from it was this: that the house the production of other papers; which never came to a decision on any evidence, Mr. Pitt thought proper to refuse. of which it was not in the power of any Mr. Pitt, in refusing these papers, did not, individual member of the house to compel like the right honourable gentleman opthe reading, either long or short, to use posite, pull from his pocket, or his box, the technical term; and that any member the papers which he refused, and read exwho presumed, of his own accord, to read tracts from them to the house; but in a official documents which were not before bold and manly way asked the house, in the house, was guilty of a flagrant violation the absence of information which he did of its forms of proceeding, and of an in- not think himself warranted to grant, to fraction of the law of parliament. Mr. repose in him not a base and servile conAdam quoted two remarkable cases, in fidence, but such a fair degree of confiwhich an attempt of this kind had been dence as a minister who had long acted checked. The first took place at a very before them was entitled to expect. The extraordinary period of the history of other circumstance to which he alluded, this country, when we were in alliance happened in 1801, when some complaints with France and Prussia, and were en- were made of a part of the army not havdeavouring to prevail upon the Lowing been properly supplied with proviCountries to join us in a confederacy against a league which was formed between Spain and Austria. An address But sions; and when in answer to these complaints, a member of that house (Mr. Dundas) attempted to read a letter from read a part of a letter or a dispatch, and afterwards carry it off in his pocket, without leaving the house in possession of the document by which alone it could judge whether the representation given of it was just or erroneous? There were a variety of ways in which this practice might become prejudicial, not only to the constitution but to the whole code of parliamentary regulations. If it was allowed, it would be impossible to avoid referring to former nights' debates, which at present was not permitted; because there was no necessity for it, when the documents which formed the subject of discussion were upon the table of the house, and therefore might be referred to as often as occasion required. In a constitutional view it was obviously of the most fatal tendency, because it might be converted into an engine of dangerous influence upon the proceedings of the house on the part of the king. The fact, therefore, having happened, it was incumbent upon the house to come to some resolution respecting it which would prevent it from again recurring. There was also another point of view in which the conduct of the sir C. Stuart, he had not proceeded two sentences in that letter, when he was interrupted by Mr. Fox, as in a thing which was altogether irregular. Here then were the two highest authorities of modern times, uniting in support of the general doctrine which he had already laid down. But in opposition to this doctrine, the right hon. secretary had read extracts from papers which were not before the house evidently for the purpose of influencing its decision upon the subject to which they related; and afterwards carried off the papers, part of which he had read, thus putting it out of the power of the house to recur to that evidence upon which its decision was to be grounded. On this conduct he thought it was the duty of the house of commons to put such a mark of censure, as to prevent the practice from being ever in future repeated. And if there was no precedent for what he was about to propose, he reminded the house, that the circumstances also were altogether novel, and on this ground he hoped that it would consider itself warranted in creating a precedent. The practice, if it was not checked, might be productive of the most prejudicial conse-right hon. secretary appeared to be highly quences: because it tended to draw the house into a decision, not upon evidence, but upon a simple representation; because it might be converted into an unconstitutional means of influencing the resolutions of the house; and because it went to introduce a new mode of bringing public papers before parliament, different from either of those which had been hitherto practised. There was also a favourite word with the right hon. secretary, namely diplomacy,' and upon this part of the public service it could not fail to have the most pernicious influence. Did the right hon. gentleman think that it was matter of indifference to Mr. Garlike, that a part of one of his dispatches should be read; and that the dispatch should afterwards be carried away, before the house was enabled to judge whether it would bear out the representation which had been founded upon it? Such a system, if persevered in, might have the effect of depriving the public of the services of the ablest diplomatic men, by the apprehension which it would impose of their communications and characters not being safe in the hands of a secretary of state. And what servant of the public in that capacity would be secure, if a secretary of state were at liberty to come down and censurable, namely, in disclosing the secrets of his office, without the command or permission of his sovereign. The great officers of state were bound by law to the most profound secrecy in the exercise of the trust reposed in them, and they could not be absolved from this obligation of secresy, excepting by command of the sovereign. A secretary of state had no more right, of his own accord to disclose the contents of any dispatch with which he was entrusted, than a person picking it up by accident would have to publish it. The interference of the house, therefore, was essentially necessary on the present occasion, as well to mark its disapprobation of the misconduct of one of the servants of the crown in his official capacity, as to secure the regularity of its own proceedings, and the independence of parliament. On these grounds, Mr. Adam concluded with moving the following Resolutions: 1. "That it appears to this house, that one of his majesty's principal secretaries of state did read to this house dispatches, and parts of dispatches, and other communications, to and from the accredited ministers of this country at foreign courts, relative to the subjects of their missions; and that he has stated and read other matters respecting the transactions of this country with foreign powers, none of which were then communicated to this house by his majesty's commands, and some of which this house has determined to be unfit to be produced. 2. That such conduct is subversive of the ancient and approved usages of parliament, is destructive of fair discussion and decision, and has a direct tendency to injure the public interest, by making the resolutions of this house proceed on inaccurate statements, which it cannot correct by reference to the documents from which those statements are made; or to force on the consideration of this house, papers which, in its wisdom, it may deem unfit for public production. And further, That such conduct is contrary to the trust which is reposed by the constitution in the confiden tial servants of the crown." Mr. Secretary Canning said, he rose with more confidence than he expected he should have done. When he considered the profound legal knowledge, the deep parliamentary research, the great experience and the great eloquence of the hon. and learned gent. he feared that he should sink under the combination of all these acquirements. He expected something would have come from the honourable and learned gent. which would have entirely changed the nature of the question. If the hon. and learned gent. was satisfied with his speech, he was no less so; for with whatever confidence he had delivered himself to the house, he could assure him it had entirely relieved him from the doubt and anxieties so natural to a person in his situation. The hon. and learned gent. according to the tactics of accusation, had bestowed great part of his argument to prove that no advantage was to be taken of official situation, and that no information was to be communicated to parliament but in a regular form, either by command of his majesty, or in consequence of an address. If this principle was to be adopted in consequence of the hon. and learned gent.'s motion; if the doctrine was now to be laid down, that no minister was to convey any information, except in that particular form-it would be impossible for the business of the country to go on. Where would the hon. and learned gent. draw the line? Would he say, that to answer a question would be perfectly correct, but to receive voluntary intelligence would be inadmissible? But if communication according to the practice which, he was confident, he would be able to prove before he sat down had existed, were to be made, in what way was it to be done? Should it not be either in the way of summary, or by extract? The reasons for preferring the latter were obvious; and considering the candour with which, on all occasions, he had been treated by the gentlemen on the opposite side, he concluded they would not maintain that the extract was not correctly stated. The hon. and learned gent. complained of the injury which the diplomatic character of some of his friends sustained by withholding some parts of the correspondence, and reading others. But had not that been always the case? In one part of the hon. and learned gent.'s speech he cordially concurred. He joined with him in condemning the practice which had prevailed of late years, of laying, upon every trifling occasion or petty provocation, voluminous and mischievous extracts before parliament. It would afford him the highest satisfaction, if that or any other discussion would have the effect of checking a practice productive of such very great inconvenience. The hon. and learned gent. in the course of his profound parliamentary research, could discover but two instances in which this practice, which he reprobated so severely, had prevailed; and both these, he thinks, are decisive against the practice because the persons who resorted to it met that censure, which it was the object of the hon. gent. to heap upon him. The first was the instance of the duke of Newcastle, who was rebuked for reading an extract from a dispatch. The next instance was that of lord Melville, who was reprimanded by Mr. Fox for an attempt of the same kind. And by whom was he rebuked? Was it by an impartial authority, holding the balance with an even hand, or by a zealous political opponent, engaged in a virulent political war, who would have taken the same advantage of lord Melville that the hon. gent. sought to take of him? But Mr. Pitt, it was said, abstained from the practice. Now, had the hon. gent. searched the modern records with the same zeal he did the old Parliamentary Journals, he would have found, this unconstitutional, this never-to-besufficiently-reprobated practice sanctioned by the authority of that very person. He would produce an instance to shew that Mr. Pitt did not think the practice improper. In the debate which took place in the year 1800, on the overtures to France, the discussion principally turned on the pacific disposition of the administration. On that occasion, Mr. Pitt, in the course of one of the most splendid effusions of eloquence which he had ever poured forth in that house, gave first a general history of the measures of government as far as respected their efforts to obtain peace, and, as a proof of their pacific disposition, did take from his pocket an extract of a dispatch written five years before to the Court of St. Petersburgh, and read it in his place. What was the conduct of Mr. Fox on that occasion? Did he complain that Mr. Pitt violated the duties of his office, and broke in upon the forms of parliament? No: he said that he had never before heard of the application to the court of St. Petersburgh, and that he highly approved of the tone in which the document was written. There was no insinuation here of garbled extracts, for partial purposes. So much for one of the hon. gent.'s instances. But it was not on that occasion only that an extract was read. It occurred in twenty debates during the last war. It might be proper, perhaps, for the hon. gent. to endeavour to draw down the indignation of the house upon him by way of experimentum in corpore vili;' and to check a system of which he was not the beginning but the end. He would give the hon. gent. another instance. It was no later than the last year that lord Howick came down to that house, and read, in angry debate, an extract of a letter from a noble friend of his (lord Castlereagh) to lord Cathcart. This letter was taken from among the papers which the hon. gent. was so anxious to impress on the house were state property, and could not be applied, without a gross breach of duty, to private purposes. And yet it was in favour of this noble lord that all these whimpering complaints were made. He was that transaction. A noble friend of his (the marquis of Titchfield) immediately went to Burlington house, and returned before the debate was concluded, with a flat negative to the hon. gent.'s assertion. What did he think of this instance? As to the motions which were rejected on the 3d Feb. not one of them would have brought the letter to which the hon. gent. alluded before the house. That on the 8th certainly would, and that he rejected not on account of the public mischief likely to arise from its production: he refused it, because it was demanded upon a false assumption, namely, that of his having made a charge against lord Howick. He afterwards granted it in his own exculpation, to prove that the extract he read was supported by the context.-He would say a few words, with permission of the house, upon the Resolutions as they applied to him. It was not for him to state what would have been the course for the hon. gent. to have pursued; but he could not help thinking, that it would have been more advisable for him to have adopted a prospective measure, than to have laid down the principle, and then applied it to him. Why did he not follow the example of Mr. Fox, call him to order, and not let him go on in error, when he read this offensive extract? Why did he not take notice of it at the time, aware as he was, by his own confession, of its impropriety, and not come down a month after, and make it a subject of accusation? The hon. gent. in the Resolutions he had moved, laid down, in language more eloquent than accurate, the general principle, and then made a particular deduction from it. He made it a matter of charge and grave accusation, that he (Mr. Č.) attempted to persuade the house to refuse a paper, an extract from which he had read, But did not the house refuse it, and was not the guilt therefore, if there was any, chargeable upon the house? The hon. gent. deduced also as a corollary from the premises in the first Resolution, that he had committed a breach of trust. If he had done so, he could not be prosecuted with too much vindictiveness. He would deserve those rebukes which the duke of Newcastle received from lord Lechmere, and lord Melville from Mr. Fox. When Mr. Pitt read the dispatch sent to St. Petersburgh, when lord Howick read the letter of his noble friend to lord Cathcart, when another right hon. gent. read volumes of extracts from the records and not yet at the end of his instances. In 1804, when Mr. Pitt moved an enquiry into the conduct of the Board of Admiralty, he could recollect, that a right hon. gent. now in his eye (Mr. Tierney) who was not a cabinet minister, came forward and read masses of papers, which never would have come into his possession, in consequence of having any official controul over them. He could also recollect that a great constitutional lawyer (Mr. Adam) upon a motion respecting the grant of a pension to a Scotch judge, did rise in his place and read a long extract from a letter, for the purpose of fixing upon the duke of Portland the stigma of |