The National Register. — London, England, 1809-05-07 00:00:00

MAY 7: and adultress to intermarry as soon as the Bill passed which se parated for ever the 'offending wife from bet °trended husband. And barefaced and flagrant has this praLtice been, that in a recent initanee the adulterer and adultress were married on the very same day that the Divorce Bill of the latter pas-ed their Lordships' house:. His Lordship, from this topic, proceeded to take a view of the various ills annexed to the crime of adul tery, and chew therefore the argent necessity of their Luc&laps adopting the principle he suggested, and concluded with moving, a• That it be a standing order of the House, that every Bill of Divorce on account of adultery introduced therein, Ithomid contain a clause, prohibiting the e;Tending parties from intermarriage." Lord Ma!grave could not approve of such a legi:lntive inter ference, fur the very same reasons. Beside,:, he thought that. n regulation of this kind would tend to manifeAt injet-aice and cru elty. It would go the leugtli of for ever leaving it out of the pincer of the unhappy find undone female of maki at, any atone ment to society for the. wrong she did : some there Were who thought that there ought to be a law compelling the seducer to marry theseduced. He had no objection that adultery should be constituted a crime, and allotted the most severe punishmeut ; but he never would consent to sanction the principle, much less the proposition of the Noble Lord. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in a sound and orthodox speech-, defended the principle submitted to their Lordships, awl lamented the great increase of this crime, which, he contended, would, if not prevented, at least be diniinished by the measure proposed. His Grace entered into a short but able dissertation of the law of divorce, as it prevailed with the Greeks and Ro mans, and illustrated his observations from authorities of the must remote antiquity, skewing that even up to the present pe riod, the law, evangelical and civil, never sanctioned the inter marriage of the adultrous parties. The Earl of Liverpool defended the motion in a very able speech, and the House divided, after a short explanation be tween the Lord Chancellor, Lord Mulgrave, Lord Grenville, and Lord Stanhope. _ _ _ For the !notion 28 1 Against it 12 I Majority for it 16. Adjourned. Wednesday, .flay 3. The British Ships Capture Bill was read a third time and passed. Thursday, May 4. A MERICA. torti Selkirk rose, pursuant to notice, to submit a motion to their Lordship , . respecting the character of the affair which took /since, in HO7, between his Majesty's frigate the Leopard, and the frigate of the United States, the Chesapeake; of the causes that led to it, and of the consequences with which it may beat tended. The matter of this motion he had long meditated, and could not, consistent with what he felt to be his duty, dclav any 'longer la ing before the !louse the notions and I heap pre herbions to which it gave rise in his mind, if therefore negociations were now pending between this country and the Americas vernmeut, this afair between the Leopard and Chesapeake, and 4t he grnunds upon which it took place, should he most seriously -attended to. This business involved a question of the highest importance; it involved the claim of our naval pre-eminence, it tov olved the source of our commercial prosperity, and indeed of 'jar national greatness. Conceiving that their Lordships' minds must be impressed with the necessity of coming to a clear understanding on these points with the Government of the 17oired States, he should content himself with moving an humble .Address to his Majesty, praying that he would be plea , ed to direct, that in the Negociatiuns now pending, this point be par ticularly attended to. The Earl of Liverpool Objected to it, not only on the grounds which he touched upon when the Noble Lord gave notice of his motion, which grounds weer the impropriety of agitating these points at a moment when negociatious were in train upon them, hut on the ground that it was unconstitutioual in that House to interfere with their advice during the progress ofa negociation, the opening of which belonged to the pretogativc of the Crown, and for the conduct and character of which the Ministers of the Crown were re3ponsible. - - - .After which the question wa% put and negatived without a [I THE NATIONAL.REGISTER . . • Prifiuy, .111;i' 5. 9-9' Lord Erskine made the motion, of which he had formerly given notice, for leave to bring in a Hill toorvent or correct the Practice of Cruelty to Dumb Animals, It was accordingly hrong - ,ht in, read a first tiine, ordered to be printed ; and his Lordship gale notice, that on M.niday next he ,hould Fropose, that the second reading should take place this day se'unightm.— Adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Monday, May 1. The Irish Insolvent Debtors' Bill was read a third time, and ordered to the Lords. • Mr. Whitbread wished to be informed by some of the Right Ilan. Gentlemen opposiie, whether Col. De Charmilly, besides the pay of his Commission in the Army, had not a Pension from the British Government . Mr. Huskisson said, that Col. De Chartnilly enjo y ed his full pay as a Colonel of horse; hut, besides that, he was ignorant that he had any other provision from the British Govern►Ment. • THE DUTCH COHMISSIONERS. Mr. Ord said, that in drawing the attest:ion of the House's) a Report which had lately been laid upon the table, he was sorry to observe that it was too much the practice of the !louse to suffer such Reports to be laid npoo their table without adept ing any proceedings in consequence. of them, or - taking any mea sures to prevent the future recurrence of the abu-es which they disclosed. The facts were briefly as follows: In 1795,a commis sion, consisting of James Cranfurd, John Brick eood, Allen Chatfield, John Bowles, and Alexander Baxter, Etolrs. was ic stitoted for the sale, management, and disposal of Dutch pro perty. captured or detained on the occasion of the commence ment of hostilities with Holland, in consequence of its invasion by the French. When this commission was set on foot, no set tled rates of remimeration were fixed fur the labours of the commissioners, but they had taken this matter lulu their own hands, and with a pros cdent eve to their (twit ieterests, they had charged live per cent. on the Bross amouut of •he Silk:. a the Property committed to their charge. \V !tea the ere a, ked by Mr. Pitt, at a period when government laboured meter ters serious embarrassments, if they could make eny vette,- iii ! iLV public out of the balances which they held in their week. it e ..y answered ; and yet at that time there was a very lag,e ba lance in their hands, which they were cpnverting to their oleo private emolument. The Hon Member, after commeotin e at some length on the abuses disclosed in the Report, said it neght seem stencilling strange that Mr. 3 olin Bowles, a Member of the Society for the Suppression of V ice, should have been con cerned in such transactions. It was said that some of the com missioners had given up lucrative professions to devote them selves to the duties of their situation, and therefore they ought to he handsomely remunerated. Mr. John Bowles might have starved in his profession, had he not found out, under Mr. Pitt's adiniaistration, that the trade of an anti-jacohin vas a meth more lucrative employment taco his owu ; and this was the origin of all his boasted zeal and loyalty. After colsoneetine on various parts of the evidence as given in the Report of the Committee, he concluded with moving a series of Resolut km:4. Mr. Thornton entered into some ex planet iun of the view s o pon which the Committee, of which he was a member, had framed its Report. lie had no objection to the first Resolution proposed by the lion. Member, because that was nearly in the words Af the Report to which he had already agreed ; but he thought the best step for the lion. Member to have adopted would hate been to inquire what course Government had taken in coese quence of the suggestion of the Committee. If Gus eminent hid done nothing, it might then be very well for the Hon. Oentle man to press his Reseiutions; but if it turned out thee the re commendations of the i; eninittee had been attended to, then he did not see the necessity of them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer declared that the principal directions of the Report had been acted upon by the i'rea ury with as little delay as possible. As for the Ist Resolution proposed by the lion. Member, he felt no extraordinary interest in its rejection, because it attached equally to other Administrations as well as that in which he had a share; but as he could pet ceive no good that would result front its standing on the Journals, and the recoumnendations of the Committee had already been attended to, he hoped the Hon. Member would have no objec tion to withraw it, otherwise he should feel hitntelf tinder the tnoessity of moving the previous questing.