The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-04 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS, FEB. 3.
The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the wool-
sack at the usual hour.
The Marquis of NORNIANBY moved that an
address be presented to her Majasty, praying her to
order that the Report of the Commissioners appointed
to examine into the causes of the existing distress among
the hand-loom weavers, and various other papers, be
laid before their Lordships.—Ordered.
Viscount DUNCANNON presented a petition from
Derby, praying for the total and immediate abolition of
the Corn-laws.
The Marquis of BU TE presented petitions from
Paisley, Rothsay, and Dunfermline, praying for an al-
teration in the laws regulating Church patronage in
Scotland.
PRINCE ALBERT'S NATURALIZATION
BILL.

Viscount AiELBOURNE, in rising to move the
committal of the Bill, for the naturalization of Prince
Albert, was anxious to address a few words to their
Lordships. He was anxious that the Bill should pass
with all possible speed, and with as little opposition and
diScussion as possible, but from his communications he
was so fearful of commencing an argument on this sub-
ject that he had determined to leave out all re-
lating to the precedence of Prince Albert, and to re-
duce the Bill to that which the Noble Duke had
said he had imagined it to be, a simple Naturalization
Bill, leaving the question of precedence to be settled
by the House at some other time.—(Cheers.)
Lord BROUGHAM had previously risen, not for
the purpose of interrupting his Noble Friend, but merely
to ask whether what he was about to state would be
likely to lead to a debate, because he had some petitions
of the utmost importance to present, as they affected
the liberty of the subject ; but he found his Noble
Friend had most judiciously taken the course he had inti-
mated, and therefore it mattered not whether the petitions
were presented before or after. He wished to ask his
Noble Friend whether be intended to content himself
with giving up this point altogether, or whether he in-
tended merely to postpone it.
Viscount MELBOURNE was understood to say
that the course to be pursued had not yet been deter-
mined on.
Lord BROUGHAM wished to know whether there
was any intention to take advantage of the doubtful state
of the Common Law on this subject, and to attempt
to accomplish this object by the exercise of the preroga-
tive, without bringing the matter before Parliament.
It was exceedingly desirable that the matter should be
settled by enactment, as then the judgment of Parlia-
ment could be obtained on the subject, as the Common
Law on the subject of the exercise of the prerogative,
as party precedence was full of doubt and obscurity.
The Bill then went into Committee. On the prece-
dence clause being proposed.
Lord BROUGHAM said, that as no precedence
had been settled for the Illustrious Person in question
by Act of Parliament, he wished to know if it was
the intention to take advantage of the doubtful state
of the law on the subject to exercise the prerogative of
the Crown, as he conceived that would be a course full
of difficulty.
Viscount MELBOURNE.—Nothing has as yet
been determined.

Lord BROUGHAM.—I only ask you to tell what
are your present intentions on the subject.
After a few words from Lord KENYON, the pur-
port of which we could not catch,
The Marquis of LONDONDERRY said that un-
fortunately he had been the person who had first brought
this subject forward, but he thought that, as the ques-
tion had been brought forward, something ought to be
done for the satisfaction of the House and the country.
He was certain that such was the feeling entertained
throughout this country towards the Illustrious Personage
on the throne, that every one would be always ready
to grant precedence to her husband ; but when the
Noble Viscount had stated that the plan proposed had
met with the acquiescence of certain other illustrious
personages, he thought it was but right that such ac-
quiescence should have been entered on the Journals of
the House.

The Bill then went through Committee, the last
elaibe having been struck out.
The LORD CHANCELLOR then moved the
suspension of the Standing Orders, in order that the Bill
might pass through all its stages.
The Report was then brought up, and the Bill was
read a third time and passed.
FROST, WILLIAMS, AND JONES.

Lord BROUGHAM said that a petition had just
been thrust into his hands on a subject of great im-
portance, and to which be begged earnestly to crave the
best -attention of the House. It was from certain in-
habitants of the cities of London and Westminster,
and was numerously signed by many respectable
persons, tradesmen and others, who felt a deep in-
terest in the subject matter of the petition. He
would best discharge the duty with which he had been
honoured, if he stated to their Lordships, in the peti-
tioners'own words, their prayer, and the prefatory state-
ment of facts to that prayer, which were comprised
within a few lines. After having set forth the
conviction of three persons—viz., Frost, Williams,
and Jones, now prisoners in Monmouth gaol, they
stated that a majority of the Judges who had tried
the prisoners had declared that the legal objection
taken to the trial had been good and sufficient, and duly
urged—not touching the question of time, on which a
majority of the Judges held a difference of opinion from
the majority who had decided that it was duly urged—
that a majority of the fifteen Judges bad decided that
the objection to the trial was a good and sufficient
one—that three several juries had recommended
the prisoners to mercy, and that upwards of 200,000
persons had petitioned the Crown for their pardon.
They, therefore, pray the House to address the
Crown, in order that the said prisoners may
be discharged from custody.—( Hear, hear.) He
never in his life time remembered a greater interest,being
excited on any matter connected with judicial proceed-
ings than had been throughout the whole country on
this unhappy question—unhappy in all its bearings,
but most unhappy in the errors which had given rise to
the objection which had lately been decided by the
Judges of the land. It was deeply to be deplored,
from the bad spirit which appeared to pervade
some classes of the subjects of this realm,
but more deeply to be deplored from the igno-
rance pervading other classes, which made them the
tools of designing men—deeply to be deplored from the
grounds which gave rise to the objection—the errors
which seem to pervade the whole prosecution, and which,
in the present instance would prevent the law from being
executed, and criminal justice almost entirely defeated.
As a member of the highest Court known to the law—
as a Member of Parliament—he felt himself impere-
tivelv called upon to watch closely the proceedings of
the Executive Government relative to the administra-
tion of justice. Before he proceeded to advert to the
error which most unfortunately bad been committed,
and which seemed to prevail throughout the proceed-
ings, he felt bound to state that a part only of the pro-
ceedings was stated in the petition. It was true that
a majority of nine of the Judges of the land had held
that the objection taken at ,Monmouth, but not there
decided, was a valid one—but it was not stated that a simi-
lar majority of nine of these Learned Judges had held that
that objection had not been taken in proper time. Upon
the validity of that objection he would give no opinion—
He had.no right to state that his opinion went with the
minority of those Learned personages—he would not, as
scale other persons had been, be presumptuous enough to
say that the Judges had decided wrong.—(Hear.)
If there was any one from whom it was more impera-
tively demanded it was from statesmen and Members of
the Legislature, and men who, because they are law-
makers, were proverbially known to be law-breakers. If
there was anything more imperatively demanded
from them, it was that they should uphold the Judges, and
do their best to inculcate veneration towards them from
the people, and not cavil at them iu order to ruin them
in public estimation.--(Hear. hear.) He could
assure their Lordships, that they would look in
vain for respect for the laws if they ceased to
make men respect the organs and authorities of the law
—they would in vain call upon him to respect those
oracles of the law if they ever so far forgot their
bounden duty as to cavil, misrepresent, and to slander
those Judges when they happened, for purposes of their
own and motives of their own, to dissent from their so-
lemn opinion delivered upon their solemn oaths ;
therefore it was that whatever his private individual
opinion might be, the law having been expounded, he
had a right to hold no opinion at all when those, the
venerable organs and oracles of the law, had deter-
mined what it was. But there was a dif-
ference of opinion on the point, and out of
that arose, among those most Learned Judges, an in-
mtTi maeh
ne Learned
t ioa n,e
shouldr
Gentlemen,
f einn adt
not
ueodcmtee sedinrb,ete
tothhpaeareteacsbestldeheede
counsel
tthe
takenhose unhappy b y
up p
tohno tf o
rr e
o theol eIl d decision.a too
not from any doubt of the validity of their
objection—
that he (Lord Brougham) knew ; not from anyfear
that the objection was doubtful—that he (Lord B),
knew ; not because in point of fact, or rather of law,
that the objection was not valid—and he had
right now to say so, because the Judges of Eng-
land had determined that the objection was valid ;
but they were induced, in the exercise of a most deli-
cate and anxious discretion—more anxious than most
of their Lordships, who had never defended men on
trial for their lives, he would take the liberty of saying
were capable of forming any conception of. And yet
nevertheless, he had known unprofessional men to criti-
cise and canvass the discretion of men so situated,
and which appeared to him almost as bad as to cavil at
the discretion of those who administered justice
themselves. He (Lord Brougham) did not com-
plain of the conduct of those Learned and able
counsel, but it appears they did in the exercise of a most
delicate and difficult discretion agree to postpone ar-
guieg the objection upon the distinct statement made
to them that they and their clients should be put
upon the self same tooting after the objection
was decided, if the other Judges decided in their
fhvour, as they would have stood if the objection