The Sun.
London, England, 1830-06-08 00:00:00

to its declslou ; but, under all circumstances, he would act
steadily upon the feelings and principles which a serious
consideration of the subject had created--( Hear, hear.)

Mr. BROUGHAM said lie would follow the example of
the Right Hon, Secretary, and addtess the House as
briefly as possible. With that view he would throw away
the shell and husk of the argument, and come at once to the
kernel. He would strictly confine himself to what had been
said in the course of the evening, and lie would endeavour
to state to the Right Hon. Secretary and the House the
reasons why, unmoved by his argument and unconvinced
by his inquiry into facts, he meant to support the propo-
sition of his Right Hon. and Learned Friend. The Right
Hon. Secretary argued that great inconsistency. was mani-
fested by his Right Hon. and Learned Friend, because he had
asserted that the punishment of death afforded no security
against the commission of crime, and especially against the
perpetration of forgery, and yet, in spite of this declaration,
he teas willing to continue that punishment where the
forgery of a will took place. But did not the Rielit
Hon. Secretary heir the grounds on which his Right Hon.
and Learned Friend placed that exception ? If he did, the
Right Hon. Secretary Mint have seen that his Right
Hon. and. Leatned Friend. was not at all inconsistent.
Ilis Right Hon. and Learned Friend distinctly said—" I
yield this point--I concede it—l am driven to it. My
own opinion, and my own principle. I wish to carry to
the utmost extent; hut out of respect to others, from
whom, however, I differ, I am willing to retain the
punishment of death in this particular case." But looking
At the matter in another point of view, it did appear to
him that the conduct of his Right Hun. and Leaned
Friend was not so inconsistent as the Right Hen. Secre-
tary seemed to suppose. Because he believed that so
much art, so much cunning, so much preparation, was
necessary in completing the forgery of a will, that inei-
viduals in general looked upon that crime with very diffe-
rent feelings from those with which they viewed the for-
gery of api mnissory note or a draft fur 41. 10s. With
respect to the Right Hon. Secretary's statement as to the
huaintss of the London bankers, neither his facts nor his
arguments supported the case which he wished to defend.
He had told the House that these hankers transacted busi-
ness, 10 the course of three days, to the amount of
(0,000,000/. in the clearing-house, and 5,000,000/. at.
the counter. Now this would undoubtedly give a gentle-
man an immense idea of the transactions which were
going on every day they lived in this great capital ; but
when they came to look to the bearings of the case,
they would find that the punishment of death did not
afford security to those multifarious transactions of pro-
perty. He would pledge Minitel' to show, that all that
Right Hon. Gent. hail advanced on this point was foreign
to the question. The Right Honourable Secretary
had argued, that the Blearing-house afford. d no
security against forgery. On this point he was de-
cidedly at issue with the Right Hon. Secretary, and he
was sure that any one who was acquainted with the na-
ture of banking transactions, would agree with him, that
the clearing-house afforded very considerable security. The
Right Hon, Gentleman had stated the fact of certain
forged cheques having successfully passed through the
cle tring-house ; but surely, when it was considered to
what an enormous extent pecuniary transactions were car-
ried on, when we reflected what traffic in such a great
trading capital as London really wag, it could scarcely be a
matter of surprise that one or two forged cheques should
possibly have passed through it, and escaped detection.
The forgery in the else of Rothschild, where by the greatest
casualty the party had got a foreign bill of exchange, owed
its success to the most singular and extraordinary combina-
tion of accidents imaginable. He should how beg leave to
remind the House of one of the grounds upon which the
Right Hon. Gentleman was generally believed to hare
founded his present measure with its provisions as it now
good. He was stated to have conferred with a Committee
of London bankers who were associated for mutual protec-
tion against forgery on their respective establishments,
some of whom Came to the Right Hon. Secretary in the
greatest possible trepidation and alarm, so soon as they
understood it to be his intention to remit capital punish-
ments altogether. Their earnest representations that they
would be left destitute of all protection whatever if he per-
severed in his resolution, it was supposed had induced him
to abandon his original determination, if such he has ever
formed, and their alarm most assuredly was one of the
pi incipal motives which had incited him to retain his pre-
sent imperfect measure. This) if be might use such an
expression there, was at least a fact in the cause: But
what if it should appear that two of those very
gentlemen who were so sadly frightened at the
probable total abolition of capital punishment, had
themselves furnished a marvellous instance of the
impolicy and inefficacy of a mere speculative theoretical
" paper denouncement," as it was moll properly called,
within a few months,-se-or ht might rather say weeks,—
from the hour et which he was speaking ! What if it had
eo happened, that those who had so unintermittingly be-
sieged the home office, bad been forged on themselves,—
had had evidences amply sufficient fot conviction in their
p'wer,—had had the detected forger within their very
grasp, and had notwithstanding suffered him to escape al-
together rather than have recourse to the capital remedy
—(Hear, hear.)—Here was a testable example in illustra-
tion of the fact that the best security to the property of
the banker in his own deliberate opinion was the absence
of capital punishment, and he mentioned it the rather be-
cause the Right Hon. Secretary thought facts Were to
be preferred to mere declamation. The information was
communicated to him, not indeed on the authority of the
parties themselves, but had been attested by those whose
knowledge of what they stated was to his mind as satis-
factorily established. Here was a Committee sitting for
self-protection against fraud, whose experience was quoted
as unfavourable to the removal of capital punishment ; but
he would ask, did the opinion of their chairman himself
correspond with what they had heard of the Committee?
What was the language of the Hon. Member for Tewkee-
buty ? He was a practical man, a man of business and
experience ; no sentimentalist, no " Quaker,"—for that
was the term by which all the advocates for the abolition
of an impolitic severity were sneeringly designated. What
was his declared opinion as the representative of that
Committee in that House ? Why he avowed there, not in
the Homeeoflice, that he had been brought to view the
subject in the same light with themselves—that his opinion
had undergone a change,—that he was unfavourable to the
continuance of this punishment in any case of forgery
whatever.—(Hear.)—This, he could not help thinking ought
to put an end at once to the whole argument. They had
first, the actual practice of two out of four of the Com-
mittee who were seized with such a panic when the re-
form began to be mooted ; they had, secondly, the per-
sonal authority of their Chairman himself; and, thirdly,
not less than four corcmittee-men had attached their sig-
natures to a petition in conformity with the same opinion
which had been already presented to the House.—(Hear.)
—Then with respect to the country bankers, who were all
apparently very much exposed to forgery, as they were so
much in the habit of receiving small hills in the ordinary
course of their business. had not the whole body called on
the House, as with a single voice, urging the expediency
of such a change as he and those who thought with him
would have proposed? His Learned Friend the Solicitor-
General had animadverted on what he was pleased to
term the sentimental reformers, who pressed Government
to carry the contemplated change of policy to its full ex-
tent, professing to believe that the petition had been got
up by Quakers ; but this notion be could assure him was
widely remote from the truth. It was not got up by that
most amiable, intelligent, and respectable body, nor wile it
signed by them, but he was far from denying that they
had very much interested themselves in the success of a
cause which it was creditable to their humanity to have
embraced. He should feel proud to be the first on all oc-
casions to render homage to their practical knowledge of
business, their disinterested philanthropy, and untameable
perseverance ; and he cheerfully confessed, if they would
permit him to adopt a phrase generally employed in con-
nection with military glory—a paltry criminal glory which
they deservedly despised—he cheerfully confessed, he re.
peated, that they had now added a new wreath to the gar-
land of honour to which their exertions against African
and West Indian slavery had so justly entitled them.
—(Hear, hear, hear. )—On this occasion, however,
they had merely been active in putting the question
in a fair point of view before the country bankers,
whom they had solicited to record their opinion on a
subject of such importance and interest to themselves.
This was all that had been done by the Quakers, and it
was on all hands agreed that that body would have re-
fused, one and all, to interest themselves farther in the
matter, or sign a single name to a petition to that House,
had the 'country bankers, to whom they applied thought
proper to differ from them in opinion. The results, how-
ever, proved to be directly the reverse, as the entire mass
of the banking community soon participated in their views
and seconded their efforts. Was a banker, he put it to
the House, the man who would be the least likely to attach
importance to his signature? Would he be readily in-
duced to append it to a document to which he was desired
to affix it, lay being merely told, " here is a petition that
only relates to banks, bills of exchange, promissory notes,
cheques, drafts, forgery, and such matters, in which you
can have but little interest ; put your name to it?" Was it
necessary that to say he assuredly would not? yet had 733
Penal).* been induced to petition the House for a total abo-
lition of the punishment of death in cases of forgery. Be-
sides, he was perfectly warranted in assuming that these
signatures represented the whole hod', as he might remind