The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-06-12 00:00:00

THE. BRITISH PRESS.

of the Honourable Gentleman who had just been nominatrl ; and
that, by their united talents and character, they would be enabled
to
them, the particular and local interests of their tementuents. The
elector' were stout to exercise an important privilege In electing
their Reptermstives in Parliament; and it was necessary that,
in committing thou interests into the hands of others, they
should be slammed of the principles which their Wine-
untatives intended to practise. It was necessary that they
should he. in heart and principle. the friends of Civil and nee
ligious Liberty, and ready at all tit...es to cooperate in nary
just and salutary measure to put an end to those differences, on
account of religious opinion, which uehappily divided so large •
portion of the kingdom. It was necessary that those who were
elected should be well acquaieted with the principles of the Con.
efittitiim, and hold it in reverence; and while they were firmly at-
tached to the nemarchical part of the Connitution, that they should
he the friends of the people, earnestly desirous of their welfare, as
the chief end of all legitimate government. It was necessary that
the people, whose interests were affected by the laws, for whom she
rights and privileges of the British Conetitution were intended,
should be fully and fairly represented in Parliament. (Applause.)
It wae a duty to humanity to use our utmost endeavourw toward the
abolition of Colonial Slavery, the existence of which was so foul a
stain upon the national character. After sonte more observations
of a general nature, Mr. H., in referring again to the gentleman
whom he had had the honour of proposing, begged to remind the
electors, that although he wu now, for the first time. personally in-
troduced among them, he was yet well known to them by his name.
which was respected In this country and through Europe. He was
known by his connexions—.descended from a father, a reseeetable
resident in this county, of whom they had all heard, and whose
private character and public virtue and popular priaciples they all
had approved and admired ; and now recently connected with a
highly honourable family in this town, he came before the electors
of Portsmouth, with the esteem of not only those who knew
him, hut of the county at large. (Applause.) Believing. uhe
(Mr. II.) did, that that gentleman not only,professed, but would be
prepared to act upon, those great principles to which he, (Mr. H.)
had alluded ; that he would be the friend of civil and religious
liberty, and the guardian of the rights of the people ; and feeling
that he was personally and relatively recommended to the electors
by every aasociation connected with his name and his family, he
proposed with pinning, Francis Baring, Esq. to be a Representa-
tive of the borough of Portsmouth.
Mr. CARTER began by suite?, that he was glad that the time
was conic when he lied to give an ithenunt of 'Meisel( and his con-
duct, not only to the comparatively small body around him, who
were electors, but that larger body of the people who were present,
and who were not electors. Yet he would never shrink from giving
this acenunito all his fellow-townsmen, electors or not. Whether
or not the statement of the comets which he had thought it his duty
to pursue, had been right or wrong ; whether or not the measures
which he had supported or opposed were approved or condemned
by those whom he addressed; he should never shrink from submit-
ting the whole of his conduct upon occasions of that nature, to the
inveatigation, the approval. or disapproval, of the electors and the
other people of the town. It was not, he thought, necessary to go
through all the numerous subjects upon which he had voted. since he
*es rent for the first time to Parliament. His votes were before the
electors and the country; he wished them to be looked at and ecru-
*kilted ; he was willing to stand by them and to be judged by them.
Ilehed now had the honour to represent this, his native place, In Par-
liament, for nearly ten years, and though he took no credit for doing
Any more than his duty as its Representative, yet he did not hesi-
tate to avow, that he now came before hisconstituents, and the peo-
ple of the town at large, with a consciousness of having discharged
that duty honestly and independently, according to the best of his
judgment and ability. (Great applause.) Ile was obliged to them
for this testimony of approbation. It was gratifying tu have the
approbation of his constituents ; but he should not, he trusted, be
diseredited, when lie said It was a higher satisfaction—it was the
proudest reward a political man could possibly have—to meet
with the approbation of the people. When he was first sent to
Parliament, he was sent there upon confidence only ; but it was
that sort of confidence which few, he supposed, would refuse to
exercise—the confidence that a son could not be forgetful of the
memory and virtues of an excellent and venerated father ; that
he would not lightly esteem the principles which had actuated
such a father's public life. Strangely constituted must be the
newel formation of that man's mind, upon whom such recollec-
tions would not have a due influence ; and for himself, he was
quite certain that if, at any moment of temptation, he could have
been induced even to hesitate, under an idea dim', by pursuing
any particular line of conduct, his public principles would have
come into collision with his private interests—of having done
which, however, he felt bound to say he was not conscious—yet,
if such had been the eau, he was certain that the memory of his
father, as soon as it started in his mind, would have been an ef.
fectual warning from the path of defection, and he should have
acted in consistency with his principles and his conscience. Yes,
he kilted upon the character of his departed relative as the star
by which, upon all occasions, he might guide hie Trivete and his
public conduct. Having made these general remarks, he could
not be satisfied without alluding to some of the great questions
which now interest the public miatl. and which are very properly
made the tests of a man's general political principles. In alluding
to one of theie, the question of Catholic emancipation—the ques-
tion of granting very little to the chains of millions of our fellow.
subjects—lie felt the diffieultiee of the question ; but lie could not,
consistently with that straight-forward open course which he had
always pursued, forbear to touch upon it. lie repeated that, after
all, it was but very Mule that the Casholies welted ; naves lest', at
any rate, than many who were alarmed at the imagined dangers
of a concession to their claims summer). Ile therefore unhe-
sitttingly declared that he warn a decided friend to the full and
unquilibed concession of the claims of the Catholics to civil
liberty—to freedom from all disqualification on account of their
peculiar religious tenets. Let hits, not be misunderstood. Ile was
no friend to those tenets, considered as such; upon the contrary,
he did not object to avow his opinion, not oely that they were
qpposed to his own religious sentiments, but that in their ten-
dency they were undoubtedly inconsistent with those principles
of liberty to which Englishmen were accustomed. They tended,
he thought, to the encuurngement of absolute power. But, not-
withstanding that was his opinion as to the remote and charm:.
tried.: tendency of the Catholic Religion, yet he would not display
a want of confidence In Protestantism, by suppoeing that it would re-
quire the aid of civil force, or resnriction, to maintain its ucenciancy.
He whaled not to injure any of our establishments, either in Church
or State ; end •he was of opinion that the granting of Catholic
Emancipation would have no such effect. Even if, by the opera-
lion of Catholic sentiments, we might be supposed for a time to
lose anything ; yet we gained in mother way—in the effect which
the granting of Emancipation to the Catholics upon the grand
plinciple of universal religittus freedom, would have, not only
upon the mental and moral character of the people of this country,
but upon the adjoining ',entitle or Continental Europe. (Applause.)
That sign of approbation again reminded him of the value and im-
portance of the opinions 01 the people. This led hint to a subject
upon which lie woult: never be backward.—a Reform of the Repre-
sentation in Parliament. He knew there were some that affected to
be very pointed in taxing him and others °lbis friends with inconsis.
tricy, connected as ;hey were with a Borough where the electors are
to limited in number, and yet professing to be the friends of the peo-
ple. But that was not just, lie was no friend to the system by which he
was elected ; but he wanted to see a general reform, not a partial one.
He wanted not that this borough should be suffered to go from the
hands of those who, though they at prevent were obliged to con-
form to the restriction of the system, would yet send men to
Parliament who would vote fur the general abolition throughout
the country of such restrictions. Ile confessed he did not want that
it should get from such hands into those of persons who, from the
variou , sources of ieffience which the Government might exercise
in a naval arsenal like this, would be soon induced, if they had the
power, to send men to Parliament who would not only not vote fur
the extension of the elective franchise in this town, but who would
oppose any proposition for a general reform of Parliament. He
was a Afoot to the measure which had been introduced by a Noble
Lord, • deuendant of the noble House of Bedford—Lord John
Riemell. (Great applause.) Ale. Carter then adverted to his con-
duct in attending to the concerns ofa private nature in this neighbour-
hood, which came before the Houeeof Commons. He would mention
one case in particular. When some persons in this neighbourhood,
wishing to enclose a little nook of land in a manor, for that pur-
pose attempted to appropriate LangstoneHarbour, which the fisher.
eon of this town had been accustomed for many yeses to eujoy in
their business, he resisted this'asterapt to Munn a private advsn.
Cage at the ex prime of those poor honest and industrious men—and
he succeeded. Ile appealed to all persons and parties who had
committal him upon subjects of a private nature coming on in the
House of Commons, whether lie had not given them the best of his
attention and zeal, and whether lie bad made any difference what-
ever on account of the political sentiments of any one applying to
him on such subjects. (Cheers.) lie had now, he believed, gone
through the principal subjects upon which he intended to touch.
He hoped. whenever Ifs hail to meet them, he should be enabled to
give as satisfactory an account of himself as (from the, way in which
he had been received) it would seem he bad given to-day. And he
thought that at present Members of Parliament did not appear sof-
licit:tidy often before their constituents. He preferred the good old
constitutional practice of triennial Parliaments. He saw, during
the last Sesaion, a proof of the advantage of a closer and more
frequent connexion between the electors and the elected, in the
rejection of a motion for giving away 6.000/., which, though it
was professedly toward a man who, considered in hitnaelf, might
have deemed it, )et ought not to have been taken out of the
pockets of the people, and the accounts of the country at that time.
That proposition was rejected ; ban he Saw ncur voting fur the re-
hection of it that would not have thought of doing so, if they
ad not known that they were shortly to face their Constituents,
whom they felt would have been iudignent at such • misapplica-
tion of the taxes of the people. The Honourable Gentleman con-
cluded by saying—Yee, give me a closer contact with the people:
let electors arid elected have a more reciprocal influence upon Cacti
other, and I will not despair of the liberties and happiness of my
country.
Ale BAILING said, that to be a Repeesentatire in Parliament of
such a respectable town as Portsmouth, was indeed no common
object of ambition. But to be secreted in the kind manner in
whitest be had been received by the electors; to be elected—(tor
Monett, when he was *peaking, his election had not been declared,
)ct it would be affectation in him not to say that he had no doubt,
front the promises of supports hich he had received, that he was
abut to 'be elected)—to be elected by the free and independent
voice of so respectable a body as the Corporation of Portsmouth,
was an honour, his warm sense of which he had hot wools
imam, and for which he should ever feel moat grateful. Theta
• WAS one thing which he thought it was but pietist at once most
• distinctly to state—that if he should be elected, it would be with
t the free and uniefluenced deciefon of the electors. Nothing had
r Paned between Lim and them, which ;night not be proclaimed