services of sir Guy Carleton: he apprehended that no person who remembered the American war could have forgotten them. It was not, at all events, the proper time to discuss the merits of the subject; the question then before the House being nothing more than for the taking into consideration his Majesty's message.

Sir George Howard said, he should briefly state both the services of sir Guy Carleton, and the reasons for the delay. In the first place, when all our other colonies had revolted, he, by his gallantry, activity, and industry, saved the city of Quebec, and by that means the whole province of Canada. The reason why the delay had taken place did the highest honour to the feelings of sir Guy. When the important services he had performed in America, were known to his Majesty, he determined to reward him for them, by conferring on him a pension equal, and in the same manner as that now proposed. The necessary papers were accordingly sent for sir Guy to sign, previous to his being entitled to the pension, in a ship ready to sail for Canada. This ship did sail, and had a most prosperous voyage as far as the Gulf of St. Lawrence, when it was attacked by a violent storm, and forced to return to Europe without landing in America; consequently the papers not having been signed, the pension could not then be granted. Shortly after, general Burgoyne was sent out to a command in the northern provinces, which sir Guy imagined he was himself intitled to, and feeling himself ill-treated by being overlooked in the appointment, he applied for leave to resign, and accordingly returned to Europe. The completion of his Majesty's intention relating to the penson, was then offered to him; but he declined it for the present, on the idea of delicacy, because, as he alleged, there being at that time an intention of examining him as a witness, on the affairs of the colonies, at the bar of that House, he was apprehensive that some persons might entertain a suspicion that so recent a pension would possibly have an effect on the testimony he should give. Shortly after, the Bill was brought in, restraining the power of the Crown in the granting of pensions, and it became necessary to defer it until an application to Parliament, such as that now made, should be brought forward to empower his Majesty to make good his gracious promise.

Mr. Courtenay said, he could easily ex

plain the reason why his Majesty had, i some instances, specified the service o the persons meant to be rewarded, and had omitted to do so in the present. The services of lord Rodney and Hood wer conspicuous and brilliant, and his Ma jesty, as well as every other person in the kingdom, were fully acquainted with them they were therefore easily enumerated Whereas there had been no services whatsoever performed by sir Guy Carleton. and therefore none could possibly be mentioned. Sir Guy had by no means protected Quebec; it was the inhabitants in conjunction with chief justice Livius (whom general Carleton afterwards expelled from his situation), that protected it. Instead of taking any measure for the defence of Canada, he had left St. John's, which was the frontier and barrier of that province, in a state completely defenceless; so that there could be no reason whatever for granting him a pension on account of his military services. He supposed, therefore, it was for services of a different nature, and principally for contriving the law by which British subjects were deprived of the privileges of the British constitution, that this pension was to be conferred on him. On the whole, however, he could not but approve of the caution of the right hon. gentleman in his silence on the subject of sir Guy's services, and totally resting the question on his Majesty's promise; which certainly was the only ground on which the House could comply with the proposal.

Captain Luttrell replied to Mr. Courtenay, reprobating his censure of sir Guy in a very pointed manner: he called to the recollection of the House the whole life of sir Guy, which had, he said, been a series of services. In the most brilliant war we ever sustained, he was foremost in our most hard-earned victories, and in the most disgraceful contest in which we ever were engaged, he alone of all our generals was unconquered. All he regretted was, that the motion for a pension did not originate in that House and he almost envied his Majesty the honour of having anticipated the people of England and their representatives in suggesting it. He wished that to the 1,000. a year proposed by the Crown, that House could add another thousand; and he regretted that any promise had ever been made to sir Guy, because he was now entitled in justice to what he wished should have been the voluntary gift of generosity.

;

Mr. For thought it by all means the most constitutional method of rewarding a military officer, that it should be done at the motion of the Crown, rather than from the original suggestion of that House. He thought, however, that as there had been a considerable delay since the time when the circumstances that prevented sir Guy from accepting the pension had any existence, and as that delay was a manifest injury to that gentleman, it ought to be accounted for.

The House having resolved itself into the committee,

Mr. Pitt rose and observed, that the services of sir Guy Carleton were of such a nature, and of such long standing, that had it not been his Majesty's pleasure long ago to have promised him the pension now proposed, he should have been happy to have been himself the mover and adviser of it. The uncommon but meritorious delicacy of sir Guy had created the necessity of recurring to Parliament on the present occasion; for had his sense of honour permitted him to accept of the pension when it was offered to him on his return from America, the King was then of his own power competent to grant it; the Bill restraining that power not being at that time in existence. He was sure, however, that the present discussion would be rather an advantage than the contrary to sir Guy, as he would have the satisfaction of finding the measure pass unanimously, or at least with but one dissenting voice; and that one, which if it did not add to, would at least not diminish the honour of the grant. Shortly after the circumstance that had occasioned sir Guy to decline the immediate acceptance of the pension, the act of parliament for limiting the discretion of the Crown in the disposal of pensions had taken place: this naturally caused a further delay; the many changes that took place in administration, subsequent to that period, still added to it, and it was highly probable that his Majesty's ministers might, from the scrupulous nicety and disinterested spirit of sir Guy Carleton, be ignorant of the existence of any such promise: for his own part, he was ignorant of it for some time since his coming into office; but still he confessed he might have taken an opportunity of bringing the business forward at the end of the last session; he should therefore endeavour to atone for his remissness, by proposing that the grant should have a retrospect so as to indemnify sir Guy for [VOL. XXVI.]

what he had lost by the delay of the session. He therefore moved, "That the annual sum of 1,000l. be granted to his Majesty, out of the aggregate fund, to commence from the 1st day of Jan. 1785, and to be settled, in the most beneficial manner, upon lady Mary Carleton, wife of sir Guy Carleton, knight of the most honourable Order of the Bath, and Guy Carleton and Thomas Carleton, sons of the said sir Guy Carleton, for their several lives."

The motion was agreed to nem. con.

June 28. The resolution being reported,

General Burgoyne requested the indulgence of the House to deliver a few words, unnecessary to them, because they were already duly impressed with sir Guy Carleton's merits, but very essential to his feelings. It had been his lot to serve with sir Guy in different parts of the world, but particularly in Canada, where he was second to him in command. After the campaign, he had the honour and the pride to mention, with high and deserved encomiums (as all others did), that offi. cer's military talents, which it was the aim of men in power to depreciate. In 1777, he (general B.) went to Canada in consequence of his Majesty's orders to be put at the head of sir Guy's troops on an expedition which, sir Guy conceived, he ought to have commanded in person. Whatever might have been the cause of the misfortunes attending that expedition, no blame could possibly be imputed to sir Guy Carleton. On the contrary, he should regard himself as most dishonourably criminal, if he did not take every occasion to declare, that had sir Guy been personally employed in that important command, he could not have fitted it out with more assiduity, more liberality, more zeal, than, disappointed, displeased, and resentful against the King's servants, he employed to prepare it for a junior officer. He mentioned this not only in praise of personal honour, but as a great example of military principle. There was another merit in this great officer more applicable to the part of the favour which depended upon that House than the most brilliant military actions; and that was, the purity of hand and heart with which he had always administered the expenditure of the public purse. When an officer had been in situations, in which nothing could have prevented his enriching his family but a [0]

scrupulous attention to his public duty; when pensions thus became necessary for the support of a family, that House would always consider it to be its duty, to mark such examples by distinguished favour, and thereby excite emulation amongst those who might hereafter be employed on similar occasions.

The motion was agreed to, nem. con.

Debate in the Lords on the Disposal of the Bodies of Convicts after Execution.] July 5. Lord Loughborough observed, that he rose under the fullest conviction of the necessity of stating to their lordships, that there was a Bill in the House, of the nature and scope of which, he declared, he had been wholly unacquainted till last Monday, when he happened to be present when it was brought up; but it was a Bill of so serious a nature, so important in its consequences, and so likely to affect the morals of the community, that he could not suffer it to proceed without calling upon their lordships to put an end to any farther progress in it for that session. The Bill to which he alluded, had been introduced in an extraordinary manner, and was a Bill undoubtedly of the first magnitude, since it went so far as to affect the criminal justice of the country by altering it in mode and execution, and imposed such hardships on the judges of the land as made their case at least a very compassionate case, when an opportunity should offer for his going more at large into explanation on the subject, than he meant then to do, unless it should be the wish of the House at that time to hear the reasons which he had to submit to its consideration respecting it. [A general cry of Hear, hear!] Collecting it to be the sense of the House that he should proceed, he would pursue his subject somewhat farther. The Bill in question was one for changing the sentence of convicts in certain cases. The Bill contained a clause, directing the judges to order the bodies of all convicts for burglary, robbery, &c. to be given to a surgeon; and yet would it be credited, that the judges had never been consulted about a Bill under which they were to act in a manner perfectly new and unheard of before? It would have been natural to have supposed, that any gentlemen who thought of a project for altering the criminal law, and its mode of execution, would at least have asked the opinion of some one or other of the judges, and shewn his intended Bill

to him, if he had not found it convenient, or chosen to have consulted the whole of them, previous to his broaching his project in either House of Parliament; but he believed no one of the judges had ever seen, or perhaps heard of the Bill, till it came into the House of Lords; at least he was sure that the judges of the court in which he had the honour to preside had not heard what the nature of the Bill was, till he informed them of it on Tuesday morning. In all preceding times every Bill relative to the criminal justice of the country, and its mode of execution, was submitted to the opinion of the judges in the first instance; and, sure he was, the judges of this day, one individual excepted, were as well entitled to be treated with respect, and to have the confidence of all men reposed in them, as any of their predecessors. The judges were the description of men most likely to discover any defects in the execution of the criminal justice of the country, if any such defects there were; and in that case it might be presumed they were as competent to suggest a remedy as any other order of men who constituted a part of the mass of society. But the judges, he was perfectly sure, saw no palpable defect which called for a remedy, much less such a remedy as that proposed by the Bill.

His lordship proceeded to point out the parts of the Bill which affected the judges, and took away from them powers long since wisely placed in their hands. He observed, that in this country, from the natural humanity of the people, our punishments were in general mild, and in no case attended with torture or circumstances of aggravated severity and cruelty, as in other states. For a considerable number of years the law stood undisturbed by any addition of punishment, but at a particular period, 25 Geo. 2, when the crime of murder became more than ordi narily common to London and Westminster, the necessity of the case naturally called upon the Legislature to provide some check, and then it was that the statute he had just mentioned passed, the title and preamble of which ran thus: "A Bill more effectually to prevent the horrid crime of murder;" and the preamble stated, that "Whereas murders had of late frequently happened, contrary to the natural genius and known character of Englishmen, it became necessary," &c. By this statute, the addition of taking away the

than the last adieus of the convict in prison previous to his execution, the impression made by which, on all present, was deep and lasting. At his funeral again, another scene of useful woe was exhibited-respect for the family of the defunct, his former credit, the recollection of his fate, and a variety of circumstances, all possessed the minds of the surrounding spectators, and, beyond doubt, were productive of consequences which conduced to the preservation of the good morals of the vicinage. Another, and a very material consideration, presented itself, and that was, the inducement to commit still greater crimes, which the Bill held out; for surely nothing could be more obvious, than that if the same punishment were to attend the convict for burglary as for murder, breaking open a house would generally be attended with murder, as robberies in France were, the criminals there knowing that the commission of the one crime was to receive no greater punishment than the other.

right of burial, and destining the body of the criminal to dissection after execution, was made. That addition had been found of essential advantage to the community; criminals hardened in vice, and practised in villainy, had stood with a firm countenance during trial, and had even heard sentence of death passed on them without emotion; but when the judge informed them, that their bodies were to be deprived of sepulture, and that they were to undergo a public dissection, their countenance changed, they grew suddenly pale, trembled, and exhibited a visible appearance of the extremest horror. This sort of exhibition had always made a forcible impression on the minds of the by-standers, and he had not the smallest doubt was attended with the most salutary consè quences. Was it wise, therefore, to destroy this salutary effect, by making the deprivation of the rights of burial a common and an ordinary consequence of every conviction of almost every capital offence? He, in his capacity, as a justice, and he was sure every other justice, must have seen repeated instances of the effects produced by the addition to the sentence of death, which he had described. Another consideration of no small importance was, the strong prejudices of all ranks of people, but especially of the lower order, in favour of burial and the disposal of their bodies after death. In fact, there existed few men who did not feel great anxiety on the subject; and would their lordships say, they thought the feelings, and even the prejudices, of the lower order, a matter of small moment. As the Bill stood, the judges were directed to order the bodies of convicts of certain descriptions to be given to surgeons after execution, which was, in the first place, a direction so loosely worded, that it was scarcely possible to act under the clause, even if the Bill should pass; but if it did, the clause effectually took away from the judges the power of granting a respite, a power which they had long possessed, and the exercise of which had been found to have been wisely placed in their hands. In London, where the criminals had been many of them born thieves, and nursed and bred up in constant habits of depravity and vice of every kind, it might not have the same good effect; but at a distance from the metropolis, where the convict had been born of reputable parents, had a valuable wife, or good connexions of any kind, a more edifying scene could not take place

His lordship stated the tendency that the Bill would have to remove all religious prejudices from the minds of the lower order of the people, and appealed to the bishops, whether the manners of the times were such as to render it advisable to wipe away religious ideas and sentiments fromany ranks of the community? That, however, was a topic on which they were more competent to discourse than he could pretend to be: he nevertheless felt that such would be its effect, and therefore thought it right to state it. He took notice of the loose and inaccurate manner in which the Bill was drawn, a circumstance which sufficiently proved, that the author was not used to the subject upon which the Bill professed to go. In one part of the Bill, calculated for operation in London and Middlesex, it talked of justices of assize, when it was notorious there were no justices of assize in either London or Middlesex. He mentioned other inaccuracies, and said, that the words used in the Bill were not apt for the purposes to which it was evident that they were meant to be applied. He dwelt for some time on the impropriety of men not conversant with law, turning projectors in respect to it, and in moments of vivacity coming forward with raw, jejune, ill-advised, and impracticable schemes for the alteration of the mode of distributing and carrying into execution the criminal justice of the country. When he was in the other House of Parliament, as attor ney at one time, and as solicitor-general