The Press.
London, England, 1854-06-24 00:00:00

JUNE 24, 1854.

but the other admitted them to degrees and emolu-
ments, gave them votes in Convocation, and a share
in the governing power. He insisted on taking the
sense of the house on the question.
Lord JOHN then admitted that if a division were
really called he should vote against the second clause,
as he had againstthe
The division resulted in negativing the second
clause by a majority of 205 to 106-9.
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL kCANADA) BILL.
On the motion for going into committee on this
bill in the Peers on Thursday,
The Earl of DERBY, after a warm attack upon the
measure as an attempt to change the constitution of
Canada from a monarchical to a democratic character,
asked the Duke of Newcastle to postpone the com-
mittee on the ground of the thinness of the house
and the want of autlicient notice.
The Duke of NEWCASTLE complained of the course
taken by the noble earl as unfair, but, after some
little altercation,
The committee was postponed for a week.
THE BARON DE BODE.

The long-standing claims of the Baron de Bode
were on Tuesday brought before the House of Corn
mons by Mr. M. CHAMBERS' who moved a resolution
setting forth " that national good faith requires that
the just claims of the Baron de Bode, established after
protracted investigation, should be satisfied." Those
claims, as the hon. member explained at full length,
arose under treaties concluded between the French
Nerd English Governments shortly after the restore-
ration of the Bourbons, for the purpose of providing
compensation for the losses incurred by British sub
jests through the illegal confiscation of their property
during the Revolution. He argued that the late
Baron de Bode, whose claims and rights were now
transmitted to his heir, had been an English subject ;
that his property bad been sacrificed under circum •
stances which brought his case under the purview
of the treaties in question; and that many distin-
guished lawyers, among whom were Sir Samuel Ito-
milly and Lord Lyndhurst, had investigated and re-
cognised the justice of his demand. Mr. Chambers then
detailed the history of the estate of the Bode family (ori-
ginally a German male fief, situated in Lower Alsace,
a province annexed subsequently to France) ; its
confiscation, in 1793, by reason of the emigration of
Charles Baron de Bode and of his son Clement, the
original claimant ; the claim for compensation made
by the latter under the conventions in 1814, and the
multifarious judicial proceedings resorted to by the
Baron Clement de Bode in this country in order to
establish his claim. In the course of his argument
the hon. member insisted strongly upon what he con-
sidered to be a misrecital of one of the conventions
in the statute bOth George 111., which, he alleged,
had misled the House of Lordi—the court of error
in the last resort—in finally adjudicating upon the
baron's case. He came to that house, lie said; not
because this was a legal claim, but because a mistake
had been made, to be repaired only by Parliament,
which, while it protected the rights of the subjects of
the Crown, should endeavour to redress their wrongs.
Mr. H. DRUMMOND, who seconded the motion, de-
clared that the British nation in denying justice to
the baron had practised repudiation in its worst
form.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL resisted the claim in a
speech devoted to a minute examination of its legal
bearings. He maintained that the case of the
Baron de Bode did not come within the treaty cited,
which was intended to redress wrongs sustained by
British subjects, while the claimant could only
claim a partial right to that title, which he had ac
quired " accidentally." He was born in England,
and his mother was an Englishwoman, but his
father was a French subject, the family were
domiciled in France, and the property which formed
the basis of his claim was held under the French
law. The Baron Clement de Bode took the estate
subject to all the incidents of the tenure of the
property and to the municipal laws of France,
and could not establish a claim for compensation on
the ground of its forfeiture unless he could place
himself entirely out of the reach of those laws in
respect to the tenure. The claim had been thoroughly
investigated by various tribunals, and the Attorney
General justified the conclusions adverse to the
claim at which they had arrived. The wrong sus
tained had not been suffered by the claimant in his
character of English subject, the property being con
limited not as belonging to an alien but to an
emigrant subject of France.
The protracted debate which followed turned
exclusively upon the legal points involved in the
case, which were discussed with great acuteness and
ngenuity, chiefly by the professional members. Mr.
Bowyer, Mr. T. Chambers, Mr. Walpole, and Mr.
Malins were in favour of the motion. Sir F.
Thesiger and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
opposed it. Mr. Spooner and Mr. Dunlop confessed
that they had entered the house under predispositions
favourable to the baron's claims, but had been con-
vinced of their groundlessness by the arguments
they had heard during the debate.