The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-27 00:00:00

( Prom the Times of this day.)
To any unprejudiced observer it must appear, at first
eight, a very remarkable thing that there should be any
opposition at all to such a measure as the Limited
Liability Bill. Why in the world is it so obnoxious, so
intolerable, so execrable a thing that a man having, we
will say, five hundred pounds, should not be permitted
co lend it to a neighbour on the simile and innocent
condition of sharing his neighbour's profits, in case of
success, and losing no more than his five hundred
eounds, in the case of failure ? Where is the extrava-
gance, where is the dishonesty, where the peril, where is
the un•English character, where is the inevitable loop-
hole for roguery and folly, in such a proposition ? In
oar humble opinion, it may fairly be assumed that, as a
eeaeral rule, an Englishman who has scraped together
llve hundred pounds, or even come by it in some less
tedious way, will take care of it, if he can, and will not
put it into the hands of the first fool, or the first knave,
who asks for the use of it. The penalty of losing the
money will generally be quits enough to deter the owner
rom a very wild investment, if there is the opportunity
of a better one. Why is it, then, that the proposed
liberty of advancing money on the terms just described
should be fiercely disputed, on the ground that the
penalty of losing all the money so advanced is not
enough, and that the lender must be bound not only to
the amount of his advance, but to the whole of .his
means, every farthing he has in the world, every earthly
hing he possesses, and his personal liberty besides ?
Why this desperate determination to bind a man not
only up to the whole of his venture, but to all that he
has, body and soul ? Shylock had a particular and not
very creditable reason for binding his creditor, not
only to the whole of his six thousand ducats, but to the
very flesh on his bones. But it. is natural to ask with
some curiosity who they are, in a Christian community,
who insist that the law between debtor and creditor
shall always be of this excruciating and murderous cha-
racter. Who are they who insist that in every instance
there shall not only betbeforfeiture of the sum expressed
in the bond, but of everything else the debtor has in the
world? We can only answer a simple question, and we
answer it only from the columns before us. Ti)e bon.
members who make this demand are Mr. Martz, Mr.
Glyn, Mr. W. Brown, Mr. Strutt, Mr. Spoonee, Mr.
Bass, Mr. J. Forster, Mr. Mitchell, and Mr. Hastie, and
then we are told this is note capitalist question! Why,
these are all capitalists.
It does really seem to us a most invidious proceeding
that a dozen wealthy men, with great command of capi-
tal, and great opportunities of employing it to advantage,
should come down to the house in a body for the pur-
pose of debarring the man with small means from using
those small means to the best advantage, except at the
risk of everything he has in the world. If it is not a
question of capital versus labour, these gentlemen are
bound to explain why it is that the opposition to the
measure in the house is conducted almost exclusively by
very large capitalists, We should be, and, indeed, always
have been, the very last to encourage any jealousy be•
tween capital and labour, or, to speakin plainer language,
between the rich and the poor. We shall ever insist, not
only on the rights of capital, but on the duty of the Le-
aislature to protect and cherish it from envious and ma-
licious agitation. But we hold it also a matter both of
policy and of duty to foster the more humble savings of
the poor and increase the opportunities fortheir use. The
wealthy gentlemen who weaned against the bill last night
admitted that limited liability did for France, for the
United States, and indeed, for all ether countries in the
world. But then, it is argued, all these are poor countries,
hat is, in France, for example, there is a very numerous
class of small proprietors, who have not separately enough
for large enterprises, while the enterprises themselves
are flagging for want of means. But, if England is a
rich country, it is also a poor country, for there are poor
is well as rich in it. Everybody who has to do with the
poor must be painfully aware of two continual demands
to be found everywhere—on the one hand, persons want-
ing a little money to carry on some small business or to
seize some opportunity of extending it ; and on the other
hand, persons having a little money, and wanting to put
it out to the best advantage. Now, what do these peo-
ple do with their money at present? They put it in a
savings-bank, which gives them 2i per cent., that is 21.
155., per annum for every hundred pounds. They in-
vest it in a shop or a public-house, and are ruined. They
put it into a building society, with the same result.
They join a freehold land society, and get saddled with
a bit of land they don't know what to do with, two miles
or ten miles off. If the sum of money is a little larger,
they buy shares in a railway, or a mine, being totally
ignorant of both, and pay the penalty of ignorance by
considerable losses. The question before us is how to
deal with these two kinds of demand--the demand for a
little capital, and the demand for small investments.
We maintain that the most obvious, natural, and, on the
whole, the safest way, is to encourage people with small
sums to advance them to small tradesmen on the condi-
tion which Mr. Strutt deprecates as the chance of un-
limited gain with a limited chance of loss ; that is to say,
a chance of 10 per cent., and no danger of losing more
than the 1001. We accept the description, and ask for
the thing so described. Some people know one another.
They know whom they may trust. They know an ho-
nest man, a clever man, and a diligent man. They are
safer in dealing with their neighbours than ii large,
inscrutable, and remote speculations requiring mil-
lions of eapi'al. We are aware that, as the
Duke of Wellington told his soldiers after the war,
"good interest is only another name for bad secu-
rity ;" but we are also aware that few people will
be content with 21. 15e. from the savings-bank, or even
31. Os. from the funds at their ppresent price, No good
reason can be assigned why they should not b 3 allowed
to advance their money to a neighbour whom they knew
and whom they trust, on the condition of sharing the
profits to the extent of the advanoe, and no further.
This evident conspiracy of capitalists, unbecoming and
suspicious enough in itself, wears a still uglier aspect
when it resorts to the pettiest mode of opposition. The
forms of the house are intended to give every opportu-
nity for discussing the merits of a question, not for
multiplying obstructions. But no trades' union ever in-
dulged in so purely vexatious a warfare as that which
these millionnaires are now employing to prevent a poor
man from putting his money into a business without
running the risk of utter destruction. The measure
itself is one that particularly appeals to the generosity
of the rich, and all the generosity shown in this case is
to raise a debate at every possible stage of the measure.
Then, when every kind of obstruction has been offered,
when the promoters of the bill have been baffled at
every turn, and when such a delay has been effected
that the bill has only been got into committee, or rather
on to the threshold, on the 26th of July, there rises the
cry that it is too late to do anything with the bill this
year. Why, whose fault is it that the bill is too late
Whose fault is it that the bill cannot now be fully dis-
cussed in a week, if necessary ? But if the House of
Commons does not mean to lose its character, and
provoke as great a cry for legislative as there is for
administrative reform, it would do well to put an end
to the practice of a purely vexatious and dilatory op-
position. It is a mode of proceeding tolerated in no
society, no class in this country ; and the extensive
use of it in the House of Commons very much dero-
gates from the character of that body as a moral guide
to the nation. Laws are seldom well obeyed unless they
are respected, and they will not be respected unless the
men who make them are respected also ; but, when
members are seen to practise every kind of trickery and
annoyance in order to waste aime and to wear out pa-
tience, the people at large will naturally conclude these
must be very ordinary mortals, something lower and
meaner, indeed, than ordinary mortals. This measure,
and the sister one for the regulation of partnerships, are
not the only victims. Sir William C'ay has been obliged
to give up his Church Rates Abolition Bill, not from
any defeat, or prospect of defeat, on its merits, brit
simply because a. vexatious use of the constitutional forms
of the house had driven him too late for any prospect of
success in this session. At this rate, and with these fre-
quent examples of successful annoyance, the house will
find ere long that it has wholly lost the power of legisla-
tion. Already it is not very far from that result. Yet
all that is wanted is for a few honest men to set their
faces against an improper use of the forms of the house,
and denounce it whenever it occurs. The country must
have good laws, and, if it cannot have them otherwise,
it will not allow the forms of the house to stand in the
way.

(From the Daily News of this day.)
Now that the chance of passing the Partnership
Amendment and Limited Liability Bills has become
almost a forlorn hope, the noble lord at the head of
the Government has suddenly awakened to a sense of
their vital importance. The principle of limited
liability is so well established that any bill framed
with a liberal and frank acceptance of it might have
been carried almost 'without an effort. But whether it
is that Lord Palmerston has only just discovered that a
relaxation of the present law of pa,rinership would be a
most popular addition to his scanty stock of Government
measures, that he scorn; wg sy
ea victory and cannot
condescend to any but a t'',:abing and desperate service,
he has contrived to delay the discussion of the bills upon
this flttil;sct to a period when it will need all his energy
backed by unusual forbearance 01 the part of his oppo-
nents, and some conCe,fsiOn from the HOuse of Lords, to
enable them to become a law. It is very easy to under-
s'cand the ad captandum declaration by Which the noble
viscount endeavoured yesterday to cast off the responsi-
bility of the deir:Ly that threatens to be fatal to legislation
for this session at least. With the well-assumed indigna-
tion of a man whose strenuous efforts had beenthwarted by
an organised opposition, he assured the house Olathe would
go on from day to day, freal lnornin, to morning, perhaps
and the
pi
_.- ~niloqulnetseoxfpitehseiecnoueenintreys tofrnbme
abaiAuillicnetds.ter Andwhe thhaiss
never given an entire sitting to the discussion until the
time has passed after which the House of Lords has re-
solved not to read a bill a second time. We believe that
Ministers do desire to carry these bills. We are quite
sure they wish to have credit for doing so. But the re-
sults of yesterday's debate are not very encouraging.
The house did not get beyond Mr. Muntz's amendment,
the whole morning having been exhausted in re-affirm-
ing a principle sanctioned a year ago by a unanimous
resolution of the Commons, and all but =venally

accepted in the country. If a long session were •still to
come, the discussion would have been satisfactore• enough
for not more than one or two members out of the forty
who voted against the committal of the bill I ad the
courage to declare themselves opponents of tk e prin.
niple of limited liability. Public opinion has f 3 ilenced
open opposition, although the secret hostility. of the
capitalists is not the less active. Even while tgecting
bow before the principle, they reproduced alii the old
threadbare arguments ngainst it of rash and reckless
speculation, the encouragement to fraud, the redundancy
of capital, &c., &c., which have been demolish.eel again
and again. But the lateness of the session was the great
topic, and four mortal hours were wasted in proving
that the house had no time to waste. At this r ate there
is no hope of any good being done before the re cess. It
is only by economising every hour that time can possibly
be found for the discussions absolutely necessai y before
the bills can be redemed to any useful shape. No less
than seven amendments of the most important kind
stand for consideration.. Perhaps the best of them is
that of the honourable member for Belfast, who pro-
poses to strike out nearly the whole of both bills, and
to substitute an entirely new set of clauses of his own.
Then there is Lord Goderich's motion to strike out
the clause by which the privilege of limited liability
is restricted to companies in possession of at
; least 213,000/. of capital. This is an essential- point,
ueon the settlement, of which it depends whether the
Limited Liability Bill shall be a real working measure
of relief, or a mere idle mockery of the popular wish. If
the bill should past.. with any such restriction as it now
contains it would ran:
sin a dead letter, just as the Irish
Anonymous Partheeshlin Act broke down, mainly from
the same cause. In the te.terval of more than a century
,
since it passed scarcely an . instance has occurred of its
powers being resorted to aiwing,to .the exclusion of
associations with small capf.taiMAnd the addition of
vexatious requirements that the wealthier bodies would
not submit to. If the •proposed re et-fiction is maintained,
the same fate will doubtless attend the present mea-
sure, which seems to be framed very much in the
same spirit as its Irish prototype. We are at a
loss to conceive how Lord Palmerston sviil be able to
reconcile his opposition to Lord Goderich
amendment
with the terse summary he gave of the .10esti" l▪ u
the course of yesterday's debate. When he sssisl that i▪ t
was a contest between the opinions and prejudicr!s. of the
few and the inflerests of the Reny, that it was party
,of the
great conflict between Monopoly and Free Trade,'s and
that all that was wanted was to set free small eapiMs
locked up by the existing laws, he exhausted all that
needed to be said on a subject now so thoroughly sifted,
and gave his full adhesion to the doctrines at which the
country long since arrived. But, if this is the true state-
ment of the question, where is the pretence for refusing
' the relief to associations having less capital than 20,000/.?
As Mr. Henley pertinently asked, does Free Trade stop
at 20,000/. ? Oen there be a more glaring violation of
the principle of Free Trade than to give a monopoly of
commerce, in one peculiarly favoured form, to such
partnerships and societies only as are able to start
with a joint stock of a very considerable amount ?
Either the noble lord's argument is bsincere
claptrap or it is meant as a prelude to the with-
drawal of all further opposition on the part of tis
Government to the amendment proposed by Lord
Goderch. The last alternative is too good to be believed,
but if Lord Palmerston thinks, as be appears to do, that
a pointed speech will be accepted by the country as a
substitute for comprehensive legislation, or that by dex-
terously attacking those members who waste hours lie
can redeem himself from the charge of having wasted an
entire session ;le will find that he is grieviously mistaken
whenever a general election shall let the people's voice
be heard. We have long ceased to have much confidence
either in the home or the Administration. But they will
sink lower than they have done in public estimation if
they conclude the session without passing a single mea-
sure of public utility. If, on a matter of which the
principle has now become almost a settled doctrine in
the country and the details alone are left to be arranged,
it is found impossible to get a bill throve gh Pirli
for samentome
in
a session of six months, the sooner 100-E
better law-making machinery than we possess at present
:he better. Wherever the fault lies it must be mended,
f the Legislature is to retain any higher position than
that of the first debating club in the country.

(Fiom the Morning Post of this day.)
From the discuss:on which took place yesterday on
the Limited Liability Bill, the public, we suspect, will
draw this natural and irresistible inference—;hat the
opponents of the measure, finding that they nave no
valid arguments to urge against a principle which the
people of this country and their representatives in Par-
liament, by repeated majorities, have approved, st length
have been compelled to speak against time, in the vain
expectation of achieving a temporary but igneminious
triumph. In the great battle of large capital against small
capital which was yesterday fought in the House of
qoatsnons, those honourable gentlemen who have the
good fortune to possess a large share of the former, and
no sympathy for their less prosperous brethren, managed,
by the most wearisome repetition of long-exploded fal-
lacies, to protract the discussion to a length which ren-
dered the progress of the bill in committee utterly
itrim esible. Tho house of Commons, which at the pre-
sent moment does not stand remarkably good odour
with the public, cannot afford to indulge in these splene-
tic and foolish attempts to stop the progress of measures
which are not only useful in themselves, but are anxiously
desired by the great mass of the people of this country.
Mr. Muntz, Mr. Hastie, and other gentlemen who led
the opposition, may not like the comparison ; but yes-
terday they stole a leaf out of the book of the defunct
Irish Brigade, and sacrificed a whole day in the most
inexcusable and reckless manner. They had, szange to
say, several auxiliaries (Mr. Cardwell, for instance), who
professing to be friends of the principle of linited
the
btlity, still voted in support of the Fabian policy of
honourable member for lirmingham. The public will
rejoice to see that the noMe lord at the bend of the
Government, in spite of all opposition, is deterinhoe isd
to force on the two partnership bills, and ibat
not to be turned aside fiona the plain path d duty bY
the shallow artifice of speaking against time orally other
equally unworthy measure. The noble lord read ter
advocates of monopoly a well-deserved leeurene
which, we trust, the public will bear in mind, Is giving,
in a few brief and emphatic sentences, the real nature of
the contest, and his opinion of the strategical operations
by which Mr. Muntz and his supporters still hope to
keep fettered down the capital and industry of the cella-
try. The noble lord said, " My own opinion is, that both
these bills are of the utmost importance. There is
nothing which, I aim persuaded, would tend more to the
general advantage of the public than setting free, as these
bills would do, small capital to be turned to profitable
employment. The present law prevents that. A
which
eat
multitude of small capitals are locked nil, wh,
if these bills were passed into law, might be emp!oyed
with great advantage to those who possessed them.
and for the great benefit of the community at large.
This is a question of free trade against monopoly, and I
can assure the house that I feel so strongly on this ques-
tion that I will urge the house to go on day after day,
and morning after morning, and if it is attempted to
talk these bills out by long speeches, the country shall
at least see with whom the fault rests, and who it is
who deprives the nation of the advantage which I con-
tend these bills will afford." The noble lord
gentladded,
e-
" Of course, at this period of the session, if h°ll
men will waste time in making long speeches, and pre.,
venting business being done, we may have to sit here
until September. I can only assure the house that no
determination shall be wanting on the part of the Go-
vernment to give the public the benefit of these changes
in the law during the present session of Parliament."
Grouse shooting to be
ignored for such paltry matters
as the Partnership Bills is surely high
treason against
the pleasures and amusements of hon. sportsmen
Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Cairns both asserted that the
Government, if it had chosen, could easily have given
an evening between Whitsuntide and yesterday for the
discussion of these bills. The answer is quite plain.
The Tenants' Coaipensation Bill and the Scotch Educa-
tion Bill, and the never-endlng maynooth debate,
stopped the way, to say nothing of themotions made by
Mr. Disraeli, Sir nulwe.t hytton; Mr, Eoebuck, and Mr.
La and on the Vienna Conferetcesi the Sebastopol
Committee, and every possible topic colinOted with the
war abroad,' and the administration of military and civil
affairs at home. We look upon the application of no
principle of limited liability to the commercial concerns
of this country as providing new means of development
for the resources of the nation, which will tend sen-
sibly, though perhaps not immediately, to compensate
the people for the pressure which a great war must
necessarily entail. We do not for a moment ima-
gine that the recognition of the principle of limited
liability will lead to the formation of trades' unions—to
that pernicious system which places in hostile array the
workman and the master. Neither do we believe that
it will add, as some suppose, a single inducement to the
formation of bubble companies, or to the perpetration
of wholesale and systematic fraud. The joint-stock
mania of 18:14 and 1825 occurred when unlimited liabi-
lity was, as at present, the law of the land ; and the rail-
way mania of 1545 occurred under precisely similar cir-
cumstances. All the abortive schemes which were pro-
jected at the latter period were " wound up " upon the
principle of unlimited liability, to the absolute ruin and
beggary of thousands of innocent persons, who, if they
had dreamt of the extent of their liability, would have
paused before they made shipwreck of their fortunes.
Limited liability, and perhaps no human legislation
can sufficiently provide against these periodical accesses
of madness which affect wealthy and enterprising
communities ; but experience shows that liability to
" the last shilling and to the last acre" has not had the
salutary effect which its advocates so loudly proclaim.
If the privilege of limited liability, purchased by large
capitalists in the shape of expensive Acts of Parliament
and charters of incorporation, has covered our country
with railroads, canals, and great public works—if it has
sent on every sea magnificent fleets of steamers, why is
the small capitalist to be debarred from the same privi-
lege in the investment of his capital ? The monopolists
say No—but the People and Parliament of England say
Yes.

( From tile Morniv Advertiser of this day.)
Major Reed put his question to the Premier last night
in terms of the notice he had previously given. The an-
um of the noble lord to the quelitio4 of ate gallant

(From the Horning :host of yesterday.)
While evvery square foot ro and Sebastopol has be-
come the scene of historic evem.q, we must not forget
that this immense war is also raging on the other side of
the Black Sea, and includes within ih.' sphere of activity
the once famous regions of Asia Minoc- Indeed, here
its fury was exercised for more than a wiiole year, while
the Crinilea was still wrapped in the grini tranquillity of

expectation.
Some time since, General Mouravieff, advancing from
Alexandropol, laid siege to Kars. We learn tram the last
despatches that he has raised this siege, but yet raisedm-
it
in a manner, according to all appearance, so little co
pulsory, that it was supposed he meditated the surprise
of Erzeronm, conoiderahly in advance of it, if we count
from hie point of departure, and to the rear of it, if we
reckon from the Turkish. Now, we can well believe thot
some eantemplated adventure was attributed to the Rus-
sian commander, and yet, at the same time, that mere
necessity obliged him to abandon the operations which
be bad already undertaken. The Asiatic part of the
war is so peculiar that we may be pardoned fordevoting
to it a few remarks, which will not only explain the
seeming contradiction of this reflection, but enable the
general reader to seize at once its real bearings.
It is commonly assumed that Russia bad but two ap-
proaches to Constantinople—one by land, over the
Balkan hills, and one by sea, across the Enxine. But
such has been her enormous increase, and by so many
devious paths has she circumvented the destined prey,
that there was a third, and even a broader path. A few
years more, and nothing could have withstood the enemy
on this side. Descending from Scythia, as the Turco-
mans andTorks themselves descended from it, the modern
Russians pursued a dlfferentline into the same regions,and
therefore had a different kind of communication with their
own basis and their own resources. Circassia and the Cau-
casus, though nearer, are a loss safe and a less practicable
medium than tint more Eastern rouse by which the Tar-
tars of the Ural formerly swarmed down to the conquest
of Asia Minor, and then of the European dominions of
the Lower Empire. We cannot develop this distinction
as fully as it merits. But it is enough to say that the
Russians, taking the shortest way down, found it the
longest way home. They interposed " the Mountain of
Languages" (a name which Professor Max Mailer thinks
is so significantly applied to the country of the various
Circassians) between them and their supports ; a region
never subdued from the time of Darius, from the time of
Alexander to our own. Better for the Russians had
they made a larger circuit ea"
stward, than to have Jeft
straight behind them the Caucasian and Albania.n
Gates."
We need not pursue this—the scholar will understand
us ; but it is not necessary to be a scholar to appreciate
the position ; any diligent reader must also comprehend
it at once. What we have said is the true reading of
the power of Schamyl, and of the paralysis of all the
Russian forces in Georgia, whenever there has been a
fresh rising in the Caucasus. The fact is that, since our
irruption into the Black Sea—the waters of which would
have otherwise rectified the original error of the Rus-
sian advances through Asia Minor —General Androni-
koff, General Prince Bebutoff, and (now) General Mou-

ravieff, have had to depend upon the precarious com-
munications of the Caspian.
These communications failing, they have been forced
to make " war feed war ;" and thus the very occurrence
of a disaster, instead of inducing them to retreat into
the flames of the insurrectionary conflagration raging
behind them, has been but a reason for some desperate
foray, or onward razzia. Were the Russian occupancy,
or aggression, in Georgia at all adequately supported—
were its best supplies not intercepted by the Allied
expedition—were it not dislocated, so to speak,
in its communications—it could strike the most
fatal blow of all against the life of Turkey,
an could knock only too imperiously at the door
of Constantinople. Let us imagine what a great
Russian General, not adequately resisted, could accom-
plish. Suppose Anatolia once swept clean of its long
disorderly defenjers, whom neither Kurshid Bey nor
General Williams cold put in the condition they wished.
Suppose (happily this is no longer likely) the " Castles
of Asia and Europe" in the enemy's hands, nothing that
was then out of the Black Sea could get into it—nothing
that was in it could get. out of it—except by that enemy's
permission. This was the quarter in which the present
possessors of Constantinople mustered to enter it—that is
the quarter from which its new foes, if undisturbed by our
expedition and by our fleet, had the soundest hope of seiz-
ing it; and, strange to say, it was here, in their own conge-
nial legion (for the Turks have been d erided as degenerate in
Europe, but still heroic in Asia), that they, nevertheless,
displayed the least of their hereditary prowess. Here (and,
indeed, in the exact neighbourhood referred to by our last
despatches) they were ignominiously beaten over and
over again by inferior numbers, at the very time
when Omer Paella, in his immortal Danubian campaign,
was furnishing strange illustrations to the current and
favourite platitudes about "Turks in Europe, Turks no
longer," &c. The truth is that a great general always
makes history. In Asia the Turks were at first badly
officered, and badlyled, being originallybadly disciplined
besides. At Kars, in the autumn of 1853, they were de-
feated ; at Akhalzik, on the 18th November, they were
routed ; at Gumri, still earlier in the satire year, they
were shamefully beaten--everywhere vanquished. Why
dli; not the Russians pursue their advantage 7 No one
who has' carefully weighed our preceding remarks will be
at a loss for !le solution of this problem.
.1 further. We consider that Russia is
But we go Ai?
at of all her fields of aggression in be-
baulked of the fa;!
of effective operations in Anatolia
ins rendered incapab::
yower in Asia Minor wet;Jd,
—and the paralysis of he:
our Crimean expedition.
of itself alone, amply vindica:
The " silent highway" to the north of that important re-
enou.gb, when
gion brings her no help. And, curlew. ssive on the
her generals show themselves the most aggrs:
are
frontiers of Imeretia, it is but a proof that they
.111-
usually uneasy about their own rearward communSa-
tions. We may return to this subject, and look more
narrowly at General Mouravieff's present position.

CRICKET.—THE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND V. THE
PLAYERS OF ENGLAND.—This match was concluded on
Wednesday at Lord's, and the following was the score:—
The gentlemen 22G and 43 ; players 222 and 49. The
players thus won by seven wickets.
THE LATE JAMES COLQIIIIOUN.—James Chevalier de
Colquhoun was the only son of Dr. Patrick, at one time
Lord Provost of Glasgow. Dr. P. Colquhoun was one
of the first authors who applied himself to the develop-
ment of the statistics of the British empire. He founded
and carried out gratuitously the present system of
Thames police, and suggested in his work on the me-
tropolitan police the adoption of an improved system
for the protection of public property, subsequently car-
ried out by the late Sir Robert Peel as an original idea.
The late James Colquhoun, as Hanseatic plenipotentiary,
signed commercial treaties with Great Britain, the Otto-
man Porte, Mexico, and Liberia, and negotiated several
others ; he also signed a treaty as Saxon plenipotentiary
with Mexico. He leaves a family of two daughters and
three sons, the elder of whom, Dr. Patrick, the author
of a voluminous work on Roman Civil Law, following
in
his father's steps, signed, as Hanseatic plenipotentiary,
at Constantinople and Athens, commercial treaties With
the Sublime Forte, Persia, and,Greece.