374 Proceedings of the British Parliament. [APRIL, 



thirdly, because that influence enabled a peer to return a member to 

 the House of Commons." 



The singular statements contained in this member's speech were 

 instantly contradicted by the competent authorities, Lord Lowther, 

 the chief commissioner of woods and forests, distinctly stating that the 

 whole story of the Duke's overwhelming number of voters in Newark 

 was a dream, and that his crown lease was no bargain. Sir Francis 

 Burdett then explained one of those rather hasty declarations, in which 

 the baronet's eloquence is apt to indulge. He had dashed out a 

 philippic on boroughmongering in general, and on the Duke of New- 

 castle as a particular instance. The Duke had answered this public 

 charge by no little secret negociation through inferior channels, but 

 gave it the most direct denial imaginable, and in the most public man- 

 ner, by a printed letter. Sir Francis now stated that he had talked of 

 the purchase, (a purchase by the by for his own seat) '' without intend- 

 ing any offence to the noble Duke;" and there the matter ended. 

 The motion was flung out by a majority of 194 to 61. 



It would be amusing to inquire by what peculiar process Mr. 

 Brougham, Lord John Russell, Lord Howick, Sir James Mackintosh, 

 young Zachary Macauley, and a whole tribe of the most inimitable 

 patriots and champions of popular election, have made their way into 

 the Honourable House. We suspect that the influence of the peerage 

 is recognized without much real anguish by those " free and indepen- 

 dent" ornaments of the Legislature ; at least we are prodigiously at a 

 loss to discover in what shape the national voice has summoned them 

 to the honours of representation. 



A more important motion was brought forward by Sir Charles 

 Wetherell on the late trials for libel. The subject has been already 

 largely discussed by the public ; but the manly and vivid statements 

 of this eminent person, combining the fullest legal knowledge of the 

 topic with a singularly powerful and animated appeal to the Common 

 Sense of the country, gave the whole debate a new interest. Some of 

 the charges on the press he turned alternately into stern scorn and 

 contemptuous raillery. " The Duke of Wellington had been accused 

 of ambition," said Sir Charles. " Was he not too ambitious ? Were not 

 all ministers ambitious ? It had been said that the Duke was coldly 

 received at Windsor. And this was a libel ! ' Coldly received by 

 the King at Windsor !' Had ever any thing like this been heard of in 

 England since the iniquitous times of the Star Chamber ? Was there 

 any man in that House, lawyer or not lawyer, learned or unlearned, 

 soldier or civilian, layman or not layman, member or not a member, who 

 would stand up and say that that most iniquitous and infamous tribunal, 

 the Star Chamber, in the very zenith of its power, had pronounced any 

 sentence, or any charge of libel, so puerile and so ridiculous as, that a 

 Alinister had been coldly received by his Sovereign at Windsor ? (Much 

 cheering.) * * * But what said the jury to this libel? No set 

 of men without shoes and stockings (Laughter] without hats or coats 

 ( Laughter) without shirts even sansculottes ( Continued laughter) 

 no jury, however ignorant, naked, or destitute, could have been packed 

 together to find it a libel. The Duke was called imperious ; and who 

 could say he was not most justly called so ?" After thus settling the 

 main question, he touched in a brief episode upon the guilty measure 

 which has made the session of 1829 so fatally memorable. His sketch 



