A power, and that they ought rather to err on the side of mercy that otherwise. clause was introduced by the Committee by which there should be a qualification similar to that of the magistrates before a person could be elected to the board. This would have the effect of excluding small ratepayers; besides which, it was proposed to give a large share of power to the Secretary of State. He thought, therefore, his right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Gibson) could not have brought in such a measure as been proposed by the Committee. They had already obtained poor-law reform and municipal reform; and the time could not be far distant when they were to have county-rate reform. had Question put, "That the word 'now stand part of the Question." The House divided:-Ayes 63; Noes Gilpin, Col. 130: Majority 67. Richards, R. Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E. Seaham, Visct. Gooch, Sir E. S. Hallewell, E. G. Harcourt, G. G. Hardinge, hon. C. S. Hayter, rt. hon. W. G. Henley, J. W. Lewis, G. C. Long, W. Russell, F. C. H. San ars, G. Scott, hon. F. Seymer, H. K. Sibthorp, Col. Slaney, R. A. Smyth, J. G. Stanley, hon. W. O. Stuart, H. Tollemache, J. Townley, R. G. Tyler, Sir G. Verney, Sir H. Walsh, Sir J. B. Walter, J. Watkins, Col. L. Wegg-Prosser, F. R. West, F. R. Wilson, J. Wodehouse, E. Wood, Sir W. P. Wynn, H. W. W. Wyvill, M. Yorke, hon. E. T. TELLERS. Pakington, Sir J. Deedes, W. MONTGOMERY'S ESTATE. 66 "Moved That the petition be referred to two English Judges to consider, passed, Mr. Story would be entitled to the Estates? "1st. Whether, if the Act of 1804 had not been "2nd. Whether, if he should be so entitled, that Act ought not to be repealed?" LORD REDESDALE felt it his duty, as the person to whom these Bills were referred, to oppose the Motion; since to have been silent would have been to seem to sanction their Lordships passing a slight upon the Irish Judges. It was the invariable practice of the House to refer Irish Estate Bills to Irish Judges. The same practice was pursued with regard to Estate Bills in England and Scotland; and he saw no sufficient reason why in this case it should be departed from. LORD BROUGHAM said, he feared it was too late for them now to interfere, He felt a very great sympathy with those who had suffered from the gross irregularity of 1803 and 1804; but the time had passed when it would have been expedient that the subject should be revived, LORD BEAUMONT, agreeing as to the great hardships which these parties had endured, yet thought that, under the circumstances, the House could not possibly do anything now, except indeed as garded the future, when in all cases of private Bills it must act with much greater caution in reference to the circumstance of notice being served on the parties. re Motion (by leave of the House) with drawn; and Petition ordered to lie on the table. AFFAIRS OF INDIA. The EARL of EGLINTOUN presented a petition from James Hamilton Story, of No. 17, Bryanston Square, Middlesex, Esquire, praying Leave to bring in a Bill to repeal so much of 44 Geo. III. [1804], for the more effectual and beneficial raising of certain sums of money decreed by the High Court of Chancery of Ireland, to be raised out of the Estates of George Montgomery, a Lunatic, in the Counties of Cavan and Fermanagh in Ireland, by Sale of the Inheritance of a competent part of the said Estates as is inconsistent with the uses and trusts to which the said Estates stood settled and limited before the passing of such Act." He had no interest whatever in any of the parties implicated in the case, and did not even know the petitioner beyond having met him at the few interviews they had had about the petition. His Lordship explained the case of the petitioner, which he considered a particularly hard one, and The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH, after said that his object in wishing it referred referring to what had passed on a former to two English Judges was to found upon evening (see p. 534), relative to the protheir report a Bill for the repeal of the duction of information respecting the afAct of 1804. As he considered that great fairs of India, said, he must again call the injustice had been done to Mr. Story, in attention of the noble Marquess (the Mardepriving him of his ancestors' estates in quess of Lansdowne) to the preparation of Ireland, he trusted their Lordships would the information to be laid before the Comnot hesitate to accede to his Motion. There mittee on East India affairs. Perhaps he were precedents for adopting the course had not correctly understood what fell from he now proposed, their Lordships having the noble Marquess; but if he had coron previous occasions passed Bills to correctly collected it, the statement was, that rect mistakes which had occurred in pre- no preparation had been made for the layvious Acts with regard to the disposition ing of this information before the Comof estates; and if the petition were re-mittee, and that it would be for Parliament ferred, as he proposed it should be, to two English Judges, they might decide, first of all, whether, if the Act of 1804 had not been passed, Mr. Story would be entitled to the estates, and in the next place whether, if he were entitled, the Act should be repealed. or the Committee to ask for such documents as they might require. If that were indeed the actual state of things, it would be to him a subject of very deep regret; for, in the first place, he thought it would show that Her Majesty's Government were by no means alive to the peculiar impor tance of the question now to be submitted | sons for his (the Earl of Ellenborough's) to the consideration of Parliament-a ques- recall were not published; so much the tion upon the consideration of which they worse, for that enabled people to put the were to decide what should be the future worst construction upon it. He asked in government of India, under circumstances justice to the people of India, as well as to materially different from any which had himself, that these papers should be prohitherto existed. Then, in the second duced, for they were most deeply and esplace, the want of preparation would be sentially concerned in the relations between productive of very great and inconvenient the Governor General and the authorities delay; and it would be obvious that their at home. He had stated that only a part of Lordships, if left to themselves, would be the letter which he had written in defence able to collect but a very small amount of of his measures, had been communicated to information, compared with what the Go- the Court of Directors. If the noble Marvernment would be able to procure by quess thought that only that part of the lettaking proper measures in anticipation. ter should be produced, although he should He had understood the noble Marquess to regret the decision, he would defer to it. say, that he had applied at the India But he did hope that at least that part of House and at the Board of Control, and the letter which had been in the possession to have found a difficulty in getting the of the Court for seven years, might now be papers connected with his recall from given to the whole world. If the noble India, which consequently had only been Marquess had no objection, he would at in his hands a short time before he spoke once move for the production of that exthe other evening. Now, he could not tract, and also of two enclosures in the imagine what could have been the diffi- letter sent to the Board of Controlculty, because the papers were at both namely, his letter from Gwalior in defence offices, and at whichever office he applied of the alterations in the administration of he could have got them. They had at the Saugur, and a minute on a purely legal India Board in their possession the letter question connected with the position of the in extenso which he wrote in vindication of fourth Member of the Council of India his Indian policy, and they had at the India under the Act of Parliament, which had House the portion of that letter which was strangely been adduced as one of the reacommunicated to the Court by the Pre- sons for his recall. sident of the India Board. If the noble Marquess had now read these, he would be able to state distinctly what difficulty there was about producing them, and to tell the House whether any inconvenience would arise from his doing so. So far as he (the Earl of Ellenborough) could judge, not only would there be no inconvenience from their production, but it was absolutely necessary to the just consideration of the whole question. He could not (as the noble Marquess had on a former evening seemed to do), treat this as a question personal to himself. If the noble Earl at the head of the Colonial Department thought it essential to the performance of his duties to recall Sir H. Smith, there could be no doubt that that was a public question of the greatest importance, not merely a personal question between him and Sir H. Smith. The noble Earl had publicly assigned his reasons for it; and he would think it an act of the grossest injustice were he to hesitate to communicate to Parliament any reply which Sir H. Smith might make, although he no longer continued to be the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope. No doubt the rea The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE would first reply to the observations of the noble Earl on the production of papers for the information of the House, and also of the Committee hereafter to be appointed to consider the expediency of renewing the Company's Charter. The noble Earl had not stated correctly what he had said on a former evening. He had not stated that papers would not be presented by the Government, either to that House or the Committee; but he had stated, that in addition to the papers which Government would feel itself called upon to lay before Parliament and the Committee, it would be competent for the Committee, or for any member of it, to move for such papers as were necessary to enable it to form a competent judgment on the subject. Information, he repeated, would be laid before the House and the Committee when the inquiry was commenced, and then it would be in the power of the noble Earl to call upon the Committee to decide whether the information was complete, or whether more ought to be demanded. With regard to the information which the noble Earl wished to have laid before the Committee, relative to the cir cumstances and causes of his own recall, he had only to say that it would be his own wish to do full justice to the noble Earl, and to have all that information laid before the Committee. When he had stated on a former occasion that this was a personal question, he by no means meant to say that it was merely a personal question, and that it contained no matter of interest to the public; for a question touching the recall of a Governor General or a Commander-in-Chief might be of private interest, and yet deserving of the deepest inquiry and judgment of the public. At the same time, he submitted to the noble Earl himself that it might not be convenient to produce those papers and to make that inquiry which he proposed, as a particular case, and not in connexion with a general system. The case in question had now been before the public for the last eight years and more. It was not thought fit by the Government of that day to produce the papers connected with the noble Earl's recall, and Parliament had not called for any inquiry. The subject had slept ever since, and he should regret going at this time, and after so many successive Governments, into any inquiry into that single event. But, considered as one of a series of events, which marked the tone of the Government in India, and of the progress of the relations between the Governor General and the Court of Directors, it might be deserving of inquiry; and, in that point of view, he agreed with the noble Earl in thinking the papers might facilitate the inquiry, not as a matter by itself, but as a matter connected with the general system, and, therefore, it might be expedient, together with any information which might be called for by the Committee, to furnish such information as could be obtained with respect to the noble Earl's recall; and he should be happy to do his utmost to promote that object. He had read the papers in question, and with great interest; but in reading them he had found that that letter, which he had no doubt the noble Earl considered most material to his case, had no existence either in the records of the Board of Control, or in extenso at the East India House. One reason for this might be, that the Earl of Ripon, who was then President of the Board of Control, and who, unfortunately, did not now take much share in their debates, had considered it so far a private letter that he felt himself authorised to take it away with him when he left his office. Now, whether the noble Earl considered it a private letter or not, he The Marquess of Lansdowne should like, before he consented to produce it as a public document, to communicate with the Earl of Ripon and with others. In justice to the noble Earl opposite, he was most anxious to produce all the information he could to illustrate that transaction, considered as a part of the whole system; but, for the reasons which he had already stated, he submitted that it would not be expedient to revive that particular case. He submitted to the noble Earl that he should not move now for these papers. He pledged himself that in the interval between this time and this day se'nnight he would ask Lord Ripon whether he had any, and what, objections to the production of these papers; and that, as soon as he received Lord Ripon's answer, he would communicate it to the noble Earl. He hoped that on consideration the noble Earl would make his Motion, not in that House, but in the Committee. The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH said, that after what had fallen from the noble Marquess, he should not press the Motion for the immediate production of the Papers. He was perfectly satisfied that the papers connected with the question of his recall should be considered in conjunction with all the great questions that would come before the Committee. By law, the Court of Directors had no power to send to India one single syllable of directions as to measures; and yet they had most strangely continued to have the power of recalling the Governor General, by whom the measures were to be executed-a vestige of a former state of things which had now ceased to exist. They had, too, the power to recall without the authority of the Crown the Governor General whom the Crown might think best fitted to carry into effect those measures which, through the Board of Control, the Court of Directors might be compelled to adopt. So monstrous an absurdity had never before obtained admission into the system for governing any empire. The reason he asked for this information was, that he thought the question, whether this state of things should continue, ought to come before the Committee, and that they should have the means of judging of the manner in which that authority was exercised in this particular instance. But even if the unanimous opinion of Parliament should be in favour of the manner in which that authority was exercised in this particular instance, it would not in the slightest degree touch the general question, of whether two such contradictory authorities should exist; The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH said, that he only wished to take that course which, considering the knowledge he had of Indian affairs, would be most convenient, especially to the Government. He would reserve the statement of his views for the Committee, if the noble Marquess wished. one having the power to order measures, marked that it was open to the noble Earl and the other to remove the Governor to use his own discretion in stating his own charged with executing them. He had opinions and views with respect to the heard with the greatest astonishment the snbject of the Committee's inquiry; but he statement of the noble Marquess with re- (the Marquess of Lansdowne) wished it to spect to the non-appearance of his letter in be understood that it was not his wish to the records of the Board of Control. He anticipate inquiry, but that he wished the sent it to the Board of Control by the very whole question should go to the Committee first mail which left India after he knew of unfettered by any previous observations on his recall. He obtained a knowledge of the part of Government. It was upon the that on the 15th June; and his letter, result of the inquiry of that Committee which was dated July 4, must have been that Parliament would be called to come received in England in the beginning of to a definite decision. September. Undoubtedly he (the Earl of Ellenborough) was not then in office, but still he had to defend himself; and would any man prevent Sir Harry Smith from writing a letter for presentation to Parliament, in defence of his conduct against the strictures of the noble Earl opposite (Earl Grey)? He heard with indignation that at the time an attempt was made to treat his letter as a private one, which could not, therefore, be sent to the Court; although it was a public letter, written by a public man, on a most important public matter. It should have been so considered at first as it was at last, for he could show the noble Marquess a copy of Lord Ripon's letter to the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Court of Directors communicating the extract of that letter; and when he (the Earl of Ellenborough) understood that an extract only had been communicated, he wrote to Mr. Waterfield, one of the clerks and secretaries of the Board of Control, and from him or from Lord Ripon he had a distinct assurance that, although an extract only was communicated, the whole letter in extenso should be recorded at the Board of Control. The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE then gave notice that on Friday, the 27th inst., he should move the appointment of a Select Committee to consider the Expediency of renewing the Charter of the East India Company. The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH said, that he thought it would be convenient for him on that occasion to state, as succinctly as he could, the alterations which it appeared to him desirable to make in the present system of the Government of India -first, on the supposition that the Court of Directors were retained with powers similar to those which they possessed at present; and also, further, what fundamental alterations he thought it would be most expedient to make. The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE re The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE did not wish to object to the noble Earl's taking the course which he might consider most convenient. But he wished to state that he did not think that it would be convenient that the Government, or Members who were not so well acquainted with the subject, should deliver their opinions. The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH said, that forty years ago Lord Grenville thought it of importance that the earliest announcement should be given of his opinions of the future government of India, and he took an opportunity of making them known to the House at a great length before the Committee was appointed. COUNTY COURTS FURTHER EXTENSION BILL. On the Motion that the Report of the Amendment of this Bill be received, LORD LYNDHURST claimed the attention of their Lordships for a few moments to a point of law which had arisen under the present Act. He would state in a few words the case out of which the point of law arose. A tradesman sued his debtor for 5l., and obtained a judgment for his claim, and costs. Those costs included the fees, as limited by the Act, given to the attorney. Having received his money and the fees for the attorney, he was satisfied with the decision of the court and the speedy administration of justice. few days afterwards, however, his attorney called upon him, and presented him with a bill of costs for 221. The tradesman was astonished, and said, "I received the sum for which I sued, and paid you the fees sanctioned by the Act of Parliament. In a |