The National Register.
London, England, 1819-03-14 00:00:00

SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 1819.

ion, furnishes a plain, practical lesson on the sub
jectof Annual Parliaments, andenables us to ar-
rive at the safe conclusion 'upon which we have
so often insisted, namely, that " Annual Par-
liaments would be but annual confusion."—
Whatever mortification may have resulted to Sir
Francis Burdett, at finding his influence in West-
minster was not without its limits, or to Mr.
Hobhouse from the sad experience that the
sentiments he chose to promulgate were not those
of the majority of the Electors whose suffrages
he thought he had secured, we doubt not but
the country at large will be well satisfied with
the mode in which this battle was decided. The
sound and constitutional friends of rational free-
dom, if we may judge of Mr. Lamb, from his
talents, his declarations, and the high character
of those who have espoused his cause, will have
no reason to regret that his competititor must still
defer his legislative services, at least to a future
period. The man who has chalked oat for him-
self the line of public policy which was trodden by
Sir Samuel Romilly, and can muster in the train of
his•trittaaph such men Ls Lords J. and W. Russel,
Lord Sefton, Lord Nugent, Sir R.Fergusson, and Mr.
Latubton, can be no enemy to the liberties of man-
kind, and the real interest of his country. We can
assure our renders that we personally feel no small
pleasure in being thus able to bid adieu to such
a subject, and to turn to topics of more general and
permanent importance.
The march of public business in Parliament has
lately been so rapid as to allow to the weekly Jour-
nalist scarcely any chance of keeping pace with
it; and yet when we remember that in a free
country, not only every act of the Legislature, but
every vote given by those to whom our political
Interests, our Rights, and our Liberties, are en-
trusted, arc matters of high and indispensable con-
cern, it will not be without sincere reluctance
that we shall suffer any of them to pass unnoticed.
The debate which took place on the 2tl instant,
on the motion of Sir J. Macintosh, for an enquiry
into the state of our Penal Code as it relates to the
punishment of death, must have been hoard or
read by the whole people of England with a deep
and lively interest. It is a measure which the au-
thority of the wise and of the good hadiicng called
for, which reason, humanity, and !Odic policy
were all pledged to sanction, and which we should
indeed have grieved to see baffled anti paral)sed
by the unmeaning tissue of Lord Castlereagh's so-
phistry upon statesman-like vien a and extended
principles. The measure is DOW, by a majority of
19 against Ministers, placed in time hands of those
from tvhose zeal, industry, taleat, and experience,
every thing may be expected that can tend to the
amelioration of a system which tin good man could
calmly contemplate; for no good man, we again
repeat, could sec without pain and regret the gla-
ring defects of our sanguine enactments, and the
effects which flowed from them; could see our
judges, our juries, our prosecutors driven to dis-
obey or to evade the very laws they were appointed
to enforce and to ailminister, front a conflict of
feeling aucl ot duty, such its no well-regulated in-
stltutiius shook' ever occasion, anti which can

[PRICE ,4d.

only result in accumulated crimes and the progress
of moral depravation. The Bank of England has
long absolutely become a tribunal, arrogating to
itself the highest prerogatives of the Crown, sitting
by its legal authorities in judgment upon the life
and death of their fellow-creatures, hurling at one'
moment upon the wretched victims of an unnaturpl
currency the full force of its sanguinary vengeance
at others persuading the objects of their prosecution
to plead guilty to a minor offence when they ktutp-,
themselves to have committed a greater, either,} --
themselves horror-struck with the encreasing fre-
quency of their executions, or dreading to try far*
ther the exhausted patience of a disgusted and
sickened public. Now, in a state of things like
this, what are we to think of a minister of this
country, who can have the hardihood to attempt,
or the folly to hope, that at his bidding a British
House of Commons would permit these scenes to
be continued, or hesitate to adopt the shortest and
most effectual mode for their removal. No, hap-
pily for the country, the spirit of its Parliament is
at length rising to a sense of its own dignity and
of the high and sacred trusts with which it is
vested. The ministerial majorities hove gradually
dwindled from 109 to a minority of 19. The Op-
position is headed by such a leader, and has
embodied in its ranks so great a weight of talent,
of integrity, of respectabilty, and of public virtue,
as can never fail ultimately to triumph and under
their mild and constitutional guidance Old England
will et he seen, we trust, lifting up her head
above the waves and storms which have so long
assailed and almost overwhelmed her fortunes.

r 41. ACE CO T, FRIDAY, NIARetil.M.