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that amounted really to a principle of extermination. From the tenor of it he should have been apt to imagine that Acteon had revived, or that some fabulous divinities had descended to pronounce an eternal ban and curse on the whole race of dogs. They certainly at times were disagreeable, and he had felt that inconvenience; but he should have been loth to have avenged himself upon the whole species, in consequence of a little temporary inconvenience. It was unworthy of this or any country to levy a rate on any animal, because that animal was not employed in tilling ground, or because the poor might feed on dog's provisions. The conclusion that naturally resulted from the general tenor of the bill, and the arguments that had been urged in support of it, warranted the idea, that there was not room enough on earth for men and dogs. The hon. mover had entered into various calculations, to show the number of dogs, and the quantity of provisions they consumed; but he seemed to have forgotten that there was a great body of waste which they destroyed, and which, if they were annihilated, would become a greater nuisance. He seemed to imagine, that all the refuse now given to dogs, would go to human creatures. No such thing; dogs consumed a great quantity of offal, which could not well be otherwise disposed of, and consequently his calculation on the score of provisions consumed was exceedingly erroneous. He had also excited an alarm upon this head, by observing that population increased with provision. It undoubtedly did; but not if there was a greater quantity of provisions than the consumers required. How much of the produce of the earth went to other purposes than the food of man! Did not the hon. gentle man himself give to his coach-horses and his saddle-horses, what would serve for human food? But when the sustenance of men was considered, their comforts and well-being must also be considered; if they were not, society would revert to rudeness and barbarism.-With regard to that part of the bill which related to the dogs of the poor, his objections were too numerous to repeat. Some dogs were retained by the poor as implements of trade, and the legislature ought not to tax the industry, but the expenditure of the people. Some were retained for their com panionable qualities, which did credit to both parties, and when the fidelity and

winning attachment of a dog was remembered, it was unkind to propose any plan which should tend to destroy him. Dogs kept for sporting were peculiar to the rich; and though he did not mean to arraign sporting, he thought it not the highest sort of amusement, inasmuch as it reduced the hunter to the condition of the animal he hunted. With the rich it might be taxed; but with the poor the affection for a dog was so natural, that in poetry and painting it had been constantly recorded, and in any sort of domestic representation, we scarcely see a picture without a memorial of this attachment. If the rich man feels a partiality for a dog, what must a poor man do, who has so few amusements? He would be des titute without one. A dog was the companion of his laborious hours, and when he was bereft of his wife and children it filled up the dreary vacuity. It was a well-known fact that Alexander Selkirk, upon whose narrative the story of Robinson Crusoe was founded, sought the society of every animal upon the desart island, except those which he was obliged to kill for food. That was his greatest satisfaction; and a dog afforded a similar satisfaction to the poor. Would the House, then, sacrifice that honest, that virtuous satisfaction? An hon. gentleman had disapproved of any difference between the poor and rich, because he wished for equality, forgetting that equal burthens were laid upon unequal means, and that they ought to be proportioned in the same manner as rewards and punishments. But although he wished the tax to be levied upon sporting dogs, he was a friend to the game laws, and to aristocratical distinctions; and he thought all the arguments that had been urged against the game laws were recommendations in their favour, provided they were not oppressive. He did not think that poor men kept dogs for the destruction of game, and he lived in a game county where he was qualified to judge; besides, if a poacher wanted a dog for that purpose, he could afford to pay for it; so that extending the tax to the poor, would be no protection to the game. As to the worrying of sheep, the dogs commonly kept by poor people were too small; for the dogs that worried sheep were pointers, hounds, lurchers, guard-dogs, &c. and whenever they were once guilty of that vice, they would never leave it off until they were destroyed; but, dead or alive,

they haunted the animal, and had been known to tear the skins in tanners yards. He felt in perfect conformity with his hon. friend, when he did not wish to leave any assessment on the poor; for if people, so poor and distressed as some were who kept dogs, would deprive themselves of part of their food to keep a dog, that was the best proof of the value of the animal, and he knew if they were assessed, how likely they would be to be taken up by the parish officers. An hon. friend had said, that no person who receives relief from the parish, ought to be allowed to keep a dog. He differed from him in opinion, because the whole class of labourers were so liable to apply for relief, on account of the unequal balance of their earnings and expenditure, that every accident or calamity subjected them to it. It would be cruel and impolitic to pass such a law; it was a sort of law every man would revolt from. The dog was a companion to a solitary man, and to a man with a family a playfellow for his children; and these considerations in duced him to wish that satisfaction to be preserved to the poor. He could not think of sacrificing any man's feelings to the consideration of interest held out by this tax.

Mr. Penton said, he objected to the general principle of the bill. The most beggarly nation would not adopt a measure calculated to exterminate the canine race. Even in Turkey, where dogs were considered as unclean beasts, they were treated with some degree of kindness. In some parts of Germany, dogs were taxed according to their size-a regulation which, if it were to take place in this kingdom, would subject him to a severe impost, as he once weighed one of his dogs against a nobleman in the other House, when the dog outweighed the peer by a pound. The hanging of dogs would familiarize the people to barbarity. The circumstance of a park-keeper once killing a favourite spaniel belonging to him when he was a boy, and cutting the animal's head off afterwards with a hatchet, had made an impression on his mind that never would be erased. Had he had the hatchet in his hand, and had the park-keeper been in his power, at that time, he could not say what might have been the consequence. How, then, could the House say, that the poor man placed in a similar situation would not be actuated by similar feelings? The bill appeared to

him to be so exceptionable, that he recommended it to be withdrawn.

Mr. Dent was satisfied that by the conduct he had followed, he had done his duty. It was said, that every man set up to be his own chancellor of the exchequer; and it appeared to him, that every man set up to be his own buffon. It was said, that a dog was a harmless playfellow to the children of the cottager, but he had received a letter which showed what kind of playfellow it was. The letter stated that a person who had seven children, with whom his dog had been used to play, was bit by this dog, and also four of his children, in consequence of which they had died of the hydrophobia. At Manchester 33 persons, within a twelvemonth, had been admitted into the infirmary, affected with this desperate malady; and at Southampton, 2 or 300 persons had been bit. Dogs consumed a great deal of the food which might be useful to alleviate the wants of the poor. Sheep's heads could not be obtained by the poor, as they were all bought up for the use of dogs. He could never agree to any distinction in the sums to be imposed upon the rich and the poor. Such inequality he considered as operating as a land-tax. The object of the bill was regulation, not revenue, and to remedy the dreadful miseries arising from hydrophobia. The expense of a dog amounted to a penny a day, and upon his calculation of the number, more money was consumed on dogs, than the whole produce of the poor rates.

Mr. Courtenay said, he had listened attentively to the new chancellor of the exchequer, who had just discovered that a dog cost a penny a day, whether he eat little or much, or whether he eat nothing. On what ground the hon. gentleman had founded this extraordinary calculation, he could not imagine. The hon. gentleman had fixed his dentes canini on all who opposed his favourite bill: his dentes sapientiae were probably not yet grown. He had said, that every man was become his own buffoon; but if the hon. gentleman meant to assume that character, it must be in the other House, where he might be witty by proxy; perhaps he might prevail on his friend, the chancellor of the exchequer, to transfer him there. The hon. gentleman dreaded the direful effects of canine madness. To alleviate that horror, he begged leave to suggest the great utility which sometimes

resulted from a state of insanity. According to a celebrated poet

finance minister? Would the old chancellor of the exchequer constitute his coadjutor governor of the Isle of Dogs? The caresses, the playfulness, and the fidelity of dogs endeared them to us. To accustom the people to look with hard

these faithful animals, would debase their moral feelings. It was a fact, that dogs destroyed weazles, rats, pole-cats, &c.; and he verily believed the foxes that were so anxiously preserved, did more mischief than the whole persecuted race. Dogs had always been the friends of man. They were celebrated in the writings of every poet; and in the Scriptures too, for they must all have read of Tobit's.dog. In short, he hoped the hon. gentleman would agree to withdraw the bill.

Mr. Pitt, though clearly of opinion that dogs were a fit object of taxation, concurred in the objections made to this bill; as he was by no means reconciled to the idea of indiscriminate taxation. To the plan of making it a parochial tax, his objections were insuperable. thought a tax on the dogs of the opulent a good one, and meant on a future day to propose, that on assessed houses there should be a tax of 3s. for the first, and 5s. on every other dog.

He

"Great wit to madness sure is near ally'd And thin partitions do their walls divide." Now, if the hon. gentleman had been luckily bit by a mad dog, he might, incidentally, have displayed some symp-hearted indifference on the murder of toms of wit. He could assure the hon. gentleman, this mode of becoming a wit, was not so chimerical as it might at first appear. The late lord Chesterfield had laid it down as a maxim, that, the only possible process by which a Dutchman could become a wit, was by being bit by a mad dog and so ambitious was a late Burgo-master at Amsterdam, of being distinguished by this shining accomplishment, that he had submitted to the operation. Here, then, was encouragement for the hon. gentleman. The hon. gentleman had stated his receiving letters from several shepherds, thanking him for introducing the tax on dogs; and lamenting their losses in most plaintive and pa thetic strains. They had addressed him poetically; "The dogs, my sweet swain, do our fleecy sheep kill;" to which the hon. gentleman might reply" I am ready to cry, both for them, and my bill." The hon. gentleman had invidiously asserted that a dog consumed as much as would maintain a child. Surely he did not recollect that the people of this country read the scriptures in which it was enjoined, "Not to throw the children's meat to the dogs." None but Jacobins would disregard this holy precept. It had been asserted, that 2 or 300 persons had been bitten at Southampton; but where was the proof of this? It was customary, especially since this bill had been in agitation, to report, that every species of insanity, from a strait-waistcoat phrenzy, to a fit of the vapours, were occasioned by the bite of a dog. He was convinced that not one case out of fifty, said to be attended with strong symptoms of the hydrophobia, was actually founded on fact. England had always been celebrated for her breed of dogs: the persevering courage of her natives was exemplified in the bull dog: her hounds and hunters were renowned in all quarters of the globe. He was not an enemy to the principle of the bill; but if cottager's dogs were not exempted from the tax, it would be a signal for a general massacre of the species. Was the hon. gentleman actuated by interest or ambition? Was any place to be struck out to reward this

The question, "That the Speaker do now leave the chair," was negatived; after which it was resolved, that the House will upon this day three months, resolve itself into the said Committee.

Debate in the Commons on the Expul sion of Colonel Cawthorne.] April 4. On the motion of general Smith, it was resolved, "That an humble Address be presented to his majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions, that there be laid before this House, a Copy of the Proceedings of the Court-Martial lately holden for the trial of John Fenton Cawthorne, esq. a member of this House."

April 8. Sir Charles Morgan presented to the House a Copy of the said proceedings.

General Smith moved, "That such a number of copies of the Articles of Charge against the said John Fenton Cawthorne, esq. with the Opinion and Sentence of the Court Martial thereupon, be printed, as shall be sufficient for the use of the members of the House." any of colonel Cawthorne's friends wished the whole should be printed, he had no

If

objection; though he conceived it would be attended with needless expense and an improper waste of time.

Lord Tyrconnel moved, "That the whole of the said proceedings should be printed."

Mr. Grey thought it would be improper for the House to found any measure respecting one of its members upon the opinion of a court-martial. If printing all the papers was necessary to the purposes of justice, it ought to be done. He was afraid, however, that they were so voluminous, that printing them in a mass would tend to defeat any proceeding this session.

Mr. Francis opposed the printing of all the papers, because it could serve no good purpose, the friends of colonel Caw thorne having it in their power to make themselves complete masters of the evidence from the manuscripts that had been laid upon the table.

Mr. Pitt thought it was but fair that all the papers should be printed, and did not see any reasonable objection to the proposition.

The whole of the proceedings were ordered to be printed.

April 25. It was ordered, that the proceedings of the court-martial be taken into consideration on the 2nd of May, and that colonel Cawthorne do then attend in his place.

tend here in my place. I would not, Sir, have quitted the confinement I had imposed upon myself, as a proof of my profound submission to the judgment of a court-martial, composed of honourable men, although I was at the same time convinced that they had been so far frustrated in their research for truth by the intri cacy and confusion in which it was inveloped, as to prevent my being able to convince them, that in the instances in which I may have deviated from the rigid line of military order, I erred either from defect of judgment, which I do not stand up to justify, or from the fallibility of inexperience, of which I was not then aware. But I most solemnly protest, I never acted with an intention to injure any man, or upon any fraudulent or corrupt motive whatsoever, and I venture to assert, that no legal proof has been, or, I trust can be brought before the House, of my having acted fraudulently or corruptly. And surely, Sir, though there can be no doubt but that the court-martial have proceeded with the purest intention, and with the most undeniable desire of making an upright judgment, they may, in a case so complicated and so voluminous as that upon your table, have been deceived. Might not irregularity have been mistaken for fraud, and the receipt of money not at any given time wholly expended, for misapplication, corruption, and embezzlement? In reality they were so; for in every instance to which the terms of fraud, misapplication, corruption, and embezzlement, are an

May 2. The order of the day being read, and Mr. Cawthorne attending in his place, the proceedings of the court-nexed to the opinions of the court-martial, martial were again read, after which, the Speaker informed Mr. Cawthorne, that if he had any thing to offer in his justification, now was the moment to undertake it. Upon which,

Mr. Cawthorne rose, and from a written paper thus addressed the Speaker:

Sir; Under the distressful perturbation in which I rise in this most awful moment of my life, I am too sensible of the can dour and humanity of the House, to think it necessary for me formally to implore for myself that indulgence which it will always, in its justice, show to every one of its members, when called upon to justify or excuse himself. Proud and happy, Sir, as I have hitherto been, in the enjoy ment of a seat within these walls, no consideration whatsoever would have induced me to come hither to-day, had I not received the commands of the House to at

without positive evidence to support them, were I even to admit that the facts of irregularity complained of, and of money not expended at certain given times, have been proved, I will venture to assert, that the inferences drawn therefrom of fraud, misapplication, corruption, and embezzlement, are erroneous. I trust, therefore, that the House will not look upon me in the light of having so suddenly deviated from the character, which, previous to my being thus charged, stood unimpeached. May I not be justified in alleging, that the prosecutor could not affix to any act of mine the appellation of any specific offence; because, after having searched through the mutiny act, in order to find the name of an offence which he could give to any thing I had done or omitted, he was under a necessity of pressing into his charges out of

the articles of war, the words, “in a scandalous and infamous manner, unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman."

Sir, being again become a private member of civil society, I am too sensible of the respectability of those noblemen and gentlemen, who sat as my judges, and of the importance of courts martial in general to the public safety, to harbour a thought, or to utter a word, that could have the remotest tendency towards shaking the general estimation, in which I hope and trust they will ever be held by all ranks of people, as a highly honourable, and indispensably necessary tribunal. But I hope, nevertheless, that the whole influence of military law will be entirely confined to military offences, and limited to military tribunals. For, Sir, I cannot omit observing, that lately I was called upon before a court-martial, not only to answer for my conduct as a colonel of a regiment, but to be responsible for acts done by me as deputy-lieutenant, and so charged and made amenable to a military tribunal for offences of a civil nature, although I had entered a formal and solemn protest against such proceedings. To-day I am called upon to attend in my place, to answer for acts done by me as a colonel of a regiment, and thus charged and made amenable in this high civil tribunal for offences of a military nature. But, Sir, from a consciousness of never having acted from corrupt motives, and a confidence in the unprejudiced investigation of this honourable House, it is the anxious wish of my heart to be tried by you, conformably to the usual course of your proceedings in all cases of trial; having no doubt that, under the scrutiny of your awful inquiry, I should receive a determination that would heal my wound ed character, and re-establish my moral and social reputation. I am sure, Sir, the House of Commons will never consider itself as a supplementary court, for the purpose of receiving and registering the sentence of courts-martial, for the government of their proceedings upon one of its own members, nor deem it consistent with its dignity and justice, to see with their eyes, and to hear with their ears, the competency of evidence received by virtue of military laws. Nor will this House, I humbly apprehend, consider the proceedings of a court-martial as a sufficiently legal proof for them to decide upon the guilt or innocence of its members. [VOL. XXXII.]

Presuming, therefore, that the House only calls upon me to efface the impression of those epithets which tend to fix a stigma on my moral character, and to show, that through the various charges, the language of the articles of war beforementioned, does not necessarily attach on my conduct: I beg leave to call the attention of the House to the main criminating point of the first and second charges, which charge me, whatever moral guilt is alleged to be included in them, with the term fraud. Sir, I presume, from the evidence, that the fraud meant to have been proved, was supposed to have been effected, by concealing from different persons the terms in which a contract made with them was conceived, and which contract was signed by them. To that point I confine my defence; but if the complexion of the case is either to establish or refute any intention in me to commit a fraud, when I first drew for the whole of the marching guineas, it must surely weigh with the House to find that I

paid every guinea instantly to every man at that time in the regiment; that I offered to return the remainder to the receiver-general, who refused to accept it; that long before the exhibition of any articles against me, a general voucher passed for the expenditure of the whole of that sum,which, in fact, was expended, for which the captains gave vouchers, and which they have sworn they would not have given, unless convinced that the whole sum had been expended; and that this is not a case where it is even pretended that the supposed object of the fraud could possibly have tempted any man to commit it. For it is but on the irregular appli cation (and which the charge terms misapplication) of a few of these guineas, that the whole charge is grounded, and not on an embezzlement of them. Even this circumstance, I assure the House, arose from a misconception of the act, from which I conceived the recruits, as well as the men of the regiment, who were embodied in the county, were entitled to their marching guinea also, before they marched out of the county, and therefore agreed with them before they enlisted, for the payment of it along with their bounty, whilst in the county, and paid it to them. The moral turpitude of making such an agreement with any man before he was entitled, who knew what he was doing, and consequently was free to accept or reject any terms offered to him, I [3 T]

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