ed. He was not, he said, in the House, when the petitions alluded to by the noble lord were the subject of debate, and the days fixed for ballotting for committees to try their merits were altered: if he had, he most certainly should have opposed such an alteration, because he felt it incumbent upon him, as one of the parents of Mr. Grenville's Act, to resist every effort to destroy the operation of that Act. The great utility of that Act had now proved itself incontrovertibly, and he trusted that the young members would pay it due attention, and think it no inconsiderable part of their duty to undergo the fatigues it imposed on them with cheerfulness, especially when they balanced against their labo the great good they thereby rendered their country. He concluded with moving, as an amendment, that the words, " 15th of February," be omitted, and that the words, "26th of June," be inserted instead.

Mr. Adam said, that Mr. Grenville's Bill having given the House a power of altering the day of hearing any petition, it was a false argument to maintain, that to accelerate the trial of any petition, founded upon allegations of an extraordinary nature, was either to contradict the meaning of Mr. Grenville's Act, to attack it in any shape, or to impede its proper operation. He said, no man respected Mr. Grenville's Act more than he did: he had, in the commencement of the last parliament, learnt to admire its justice and its policy, by experience acquired in the course of his frequently sitting and acting under its authority upon various commit tees. That he was perfectly acquainted with the whole of that Act, and had it contained any enacting clause, limiting the House to a certain day for ballotting for a committee to try any election, he should then have thought the present motion an attempt to fly in the face of the Act; but as there was no such clause in the Act, on the contrary, as the Act contained a clause, giving express power to the House to delay the trial of any petition at its discretion, and as the obvious aim of the Act was to accelerate justice, he could not conceive, that the present motion could, in any view of it, be construed into an opposition to Mr. Grenville's Act.

Mr. Dunning said, he had ever considered Mr. Grenville's Act as an instrument of great good; but though there was no clause forbidding such a motion as the present, he maintained that the spirit

of the Act was as obligatory as the letter of it; it clearly was to take the trial of elections wholly out of the House, to administer justice equally, and without partiality or distinction, through the medium of a committee, who were to judge solely from the evidence, and not from prejudice or affection.

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Mr. Macdonald declared, that no man had a greater deference for the opinions of the learned gentleman who spoke last than he had, since from his opinions he had chiefly learnt to form his own, but that he could not help differing from his argument, and from his mode of reasoning. agreed that an Act ought to be construed by its spirit as well as its letter, but could not agree that the letter should be disregarded altogether. He then stated that the Act gave an express power of procrastination to the House; whence he inferred, that the House had power to accelerate a ballot where the case was extraordinary. This doctrine he applied to the case in question.

Mr. Lloyd Kenyon said, he stood in the predicament of a member petitioned against on the heavy charge of bribery. That his moral character was bleeding afresh every hour that the trial of the petition against him was delayed; that in obedience to the regulation of the House, he had submitted, on the principle of general convenience, to the day on which the committee to try the petition against him was fixed to be balloted for; that he had as much right to acceleration and preference as another, and if another was so favoured, he should consider it as an indícation that hostilities were determined against him, and as a grievous injury.

Sir Herbert Mackworth said, the arguments of lord Beauchamp were plausible, and had impressed his mind at first very forcibly; but on a re-consideration, he thought, as the House had determined on a particular regulation, that regulation ought to be adhered to most strictly.

Governor Johnstone said, the argument divided itself into two branches; the one, the question, whether the House had a power to accelerate the trial of any petition under any circumstances? The other, whether the circumstances of the Coventry petition were such as justified that sort of acceleration? He decided both these questions in the affirmative; and concluded with saying, that if the Coventry petition was not soon tried, it would be in the power of any returning officer, first by

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2 making no return to a writ, and then by an unfair return to a second, to gain time, and seat for the first year of a parliament, any two persons he thought proper.

Mr. T. Townshend, after mentioning lord Beauchamp's connections with Coventry, said the present motion was an effort of power to save two favourite candidates; and there needed no stronger proof of it, than the extraordinary circumstance of ministers being present, and staying till six or seven in the evening, who had opposed Mr. Grenville's Bill, and who, whenever any question relative to the operation of that Bill was to come on, had constantly kept away from the House.

office, from his great abilities, or from his interest in the borough of Coventry, he could prevail on the House to adopt a discretionary power, in order to obtain a partial exercise of it in favour of the petitioners, it certainly must appear, to the conviction of every man, that the part of the effect of Mr. Grenville's Bill, universally allowed to be the good part, was broke in upon, and violated; and that then matters would be in a train to recur to their old channel, and it would be as much in the power of the minister to become the elector, and to chuse the members of that House, as it ever had been. His hon. friend had gone into a very refined mode of argument, to prove that the returning officer of any borough might seat any two gentlemen that he chose, in that House, for one whole year; to the end of the first session, and possibly for some part of the second; and how had his hon. friend attempted to show that this was likely? Why, by stating it as a case, that a returning officer might do just exactly what had happened in the present instance, namely, make no return to the writ at first, in hopes that when a second writ issued, his successor would be weak and wicked enough to return his two friends by any means, in defiance of right, and in contempt of the House. There was something so strange in the idea of a returning officer procuring any person to be so returned, and something so weak, foolish, and absurd in any gentleman's consenting to come into that House under such circumstances, and take his seat for one year only, that he could as little conceive his hon. friend meant to put the case seriously, as he could conceive that it ever had happened, or ever would happen. With regard to his hon. friend's assertion, that a returning officer had it in his power to make an im

Mr. Solicitor General Mansfield said, that the Act gave the House in express words, in the beginning of it, a discretionary power as to the time of hearing petitions on elections. He then took a review of the allegations contained in the petition, and concluded that the Coventry election was a very extraordinary case, and therefore merited extraordinary attention. Mr. Fox said, that as he had before the adjournment taken some part in the election for Coventry, he should now say something upon the motion, which he must oppose, for this reason; because he did not see any colour of necessity or justice for paying more regard to the petition that had been read that day from Mr. Yeo and lord Sheffield, than had been paid to the various other petitions, which had been presented before the holidays. His hon. friend (Johnstone) had argued very fairly, that the whole argument was reduceable to two points, and those were, first, whether it was right, on any account, to accelerate the trying of an election petition before others were tried, which had been previously presented; and secondly, whether the petition now before them was one of that sort which was entitled to such extra-proper return, and that perhaps some ordinary acceleration? With regard to Mr. Grenville's Bill, he should only state what had always appeared to him, and had been admitted by those who thought of the Bill as he did, that the good of the Bill was, that it took the whole of the election causes out of the House, and gave every petitioner an equal chance of having substantial justice administered to him in the fullest and most impartial manner; and that it put a stop to the exertion of influence and power in favour of one set of petitioners in preference to another. If by the noble lord's influence arising from his distinguished character, from his high

would do so unless the House proceeded to give some mark of their resolution to check such attempts, undoubtedly it was the fact. It was an inconvenience that necessarily belonged to the case of an election, it was inseparable from it, and the only means of putting a stop to such an abuse of trust, was for them immediately to institute an enquiry into the conduct of every returning officer who either neglected to do his duty, or did it negligently and improperly. How happened it in the case of Coventry, that the conduct of the returning officer, who had failed to make a return to the first writ, was not immediately inquired into ?

as returning-officer had no such power: all these were in themselves flagrant crimes; but they were the crimes commonly alleged, and could pass for nothing, till the committee had heard evidence upon them. The learned gentleman who spoke last, said the Coventry election was an extraordinary case, but he was amazed to hear him set out with an attempt to prove, that the petition of lord Sheffield and Mr. Yeo, which contained no extraordinary allegation in itself, and respecting which, the noble lord who made the motion, had stated no one fact of an extraordinary nature to justify his motion, was entitled to preference than the petitions respecting other boroughs. It was too evident, he said, to be contradicted, that the present attempt to accelerate the hearing of lord Sheffield and Mr. Yeo's petition, was made by a noble lord high in office, because the petitioners were favourites of the minister, and agreed with him in political opinions. It was, he declared, an effort of power to commit injustice; an effort which he trusted that House would have the virtue to resist.

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Let gentlemen remember who it was that moved for the issuing of the second writ, previous to such an inquiry's taking place! Let them recollect that he had earnestly pressed for an inquiry, and had strenuously opposed the issuing of a writ for a second election, till the inquiry was gone into and finished, in order that it might be known by the House, to whom they were to ascribe the first failure of a return of members for Coventry!-The question before the House was not whether lord Sheffield and Mr. Yeo, or sir Thomas Halifax and Mr. Rogers, should be the sitting members, but whether the House should adopt a new mode of proceeding in cases of election, and give a preference to the Coventry petition by accelerating the time of it, in prejudice to the parties concerned in every other petition? And here the argument presented itself under its two heads: was it right to accelerate the trial of any petition, and was this one of those petitions entitled to such an acceleration? With regard to the first position, possibly there might be cases in which it would be warrantable for the House to accelerate the trial of one petition before another, but Lord North said, that no insinuations surely the House ought to have proof, of his having an improper regard to one before they went out of the usual road of set of men, in preference to others, should proceeding, that there was a sufficient prevent him from discharging his duty as cause for such a change of the course of a member of that House. It had been justice. Did the petition that had been thrown out, that lord Sheffield and Mr. read, contain a single allegation of a flagrant Yeo were more his favourites than sir T. nature, uncommon from the general tenor Halifax and Mr. Rogers; and that his of other petitions presented to the House presence in the House, when any matter from parties claiming seats? The petition relative to Mr. Grenville's Bill came on, against a learned gentleman, who had with was uncustomary, and therefore liable to great feeling, and with great propriety com- suspicion. Gentlemen were welcome to plained of the injustice of resolving to bal- make the most of such insinuations; but lot for a committee to try the Coventry they should not intimidate him from actpetition, before the House went to a balloting as he had a right to act, nor from givto try the petition presented against him, stated a charge of bribery; bribery, in order to gain a seat, was a very flagrant crime! The petition presented against an hon. friend of his, the member for Stafford, was founded on a charge of the same sort: the crime in both cases was very flagrant; and in both cases the sitting members would doubtless be exceedingly pleased to have the petition against them heard and determined upon as soon as possible. What were the species of allegations generally stated in election petitions? They were these, that the returning officer had suffered bad votes to be sworn, and had rejected good ones: he had been bribed; the voters had been bribed; the return was unjust, or the person who had acted

ing his reasons why he should vote for the motions offered to the House by his noble friend. With regard to the petitioners of Coventry, and the sitting members, they were unknown to him in the consideration which then directed his conduct; they were all worthy and respectable characters, and therefore he felt the less compunction in taking that line which justice and reason so strongly marked out. As to his being present, the House well knew that his presence was necessary for other reasons, than the subject of the motion then before them, and he believed he had less to charge himself with on the score of failure of punctual discharge of his duty by attendance, than almost any member who had sat for so many years in parlia