272 Political Affairs in March. 



sonmcnt, or be content with a farthing 

 in the pound.* 



The state of the Continent, and our 

 own relations, are at this moment so 

 interesting, that we Judge it proper to 

 preserve an abstract of a debate on 

 the 27th, on a motion for adjoaming 

 till April 10. 



Lord Archibald Hamiltnn proposed an 

 amendment, tliat tlic House slioiild, at its 

 rising, adjourn only till the 7tli, under the 

 circumstances in which the country, and 



* During the cnrrent inontli, two cases 

 have occurred within the concerns of the 

 writer. A tradesman, wlio had met witli 

 some losses, proposed to his creditors to 

 assign his entire property to two of tliem, 

 and guarantee 10s. in tlie pound within 

 eighteen months; to whicli the whole 

 assented, except one. This man would 

 have his 20s. in the pound, and, bringing 

 his action, olitained execution; and, in 

 spite of nineteen-twenticths of the credi- 

 tors, in number and amount, a commission 

 of bankruptcy was issued ; and the credi- 

 tors will not only perhaps get a mere 

 2«. 6d. in the pound in diree or four years, 

 hut the man is utterly ruiued. In the 

 other case, the whole of the creditors, ex- 

 cept two, came in: one the trustees of an 

 estate, who conceived they had no power; 

 and the other a person gone on the Conti- 

 nent, and whose assent could not be ob- 

 tained : consequently, the wishes and in- 

 terest of forty-seven forty-nindis of the 

 creditors are thwarted; and nothing, as the 

 law now stands, can relieve the parties but 

 a commission ! Such, however, arc daily 

 occurrences, within the experience of every 

 man of business ft^rt we do not believe 

 that one of 600 petitions has pointed out 

 this plain and nne\ce|)tii)nable remedy. — 

 In a third case, we know a very worthy 

 man, just liberated by the Insolvent Deb- 

 tors' Court, whose effects will not yield 

 sixpence in the pound ; and, on enquiring 

 how this could happen, he reiilied, " Ah, 

 my dear sir, if I could have arranged with 

 my creditors three years ago, I might with 

 greater ease have paid 15s.; but there 

 wore two obstinate and selfish men out of 

 forty, and, as I felt th^t these two were un- 

 likely to come into any arrangement, I 

 lived in hope, and put off the evil day till 

 I had not a shilling left. One cannot vo- 

 luntarily rush on certain destruction." — 

 Such are ninety-nine of every hundred 

 cases of insolvency, and yet the commer- 

 cial interest of England is baffled by com- 

 mittees of the House of Commons; three- 

 fourths of which consist of dividers of the 

 spoil, — in commissioners of bankrupts and 

 crafty lawyers, all of whom professionally 

 resist any measure which shoidd enable 

 creditors to settle for themselves with their 

 debtors, without the intervention of law! 



[April 1, 



he might say Europe, was now placed, and 

 when the important question of the inva- 

 sion of Spain by France was in agitation. 

 Some of his (riends had, in the course of 

 the session, paid very lavish comphments 

 to his Majesty's government, on the sup- 

 position of a change of policy on their part. 

 In tl'.ese compliments he had no share. He 

 had thought it necessary to see, before he 

 bestowed any such compliments, either a 

 declaration of altered opinion, oramani* 

 testation of altered conduct. Declaration 

 of altered opinion, at any rate, there was 

 none; for iMr. Canning studiously dis- 

 claimed it. At the very outset of the ses- 

 sion, the Secretary for ihe Home Depart- 

 ment defended the invasion of Naples; and 

 the French government actually justified 

 the invasion on the precedent of this very 

 invasion of Naples, as well as on tlie con- 

 duct uniformly pursued by our govern- 

 ment. Our permission of the invasion of 

 Naples, the abandonment of Sicily, our 

 conduct towards Genoa, — all were brought 

 in review by the French government, to 

 justify their aggression. The Holy Alliance 

 wasjjer se a public nuisance. Itwas not pos. 

 sible that a confederacy of kings could be 

 allowed to meet in Europe to take means 

 for the increase of their own power, without 

 exciting the disgust of all free men, and lay- 

 ing the seeds of civil war in the countries 

 which they pretended to interfere to pa- 

 cify. France had excited hisurrections in 

 Spain; her ministers had made their boast 

 of It. The French government had instal- 

 led a Regency, which it took upon itself to 

 call the rigiitful government of Spain. 

 What now was to hinder Spain from re- 

 tuniinc; the compliment, and appointing a 

 Kegency in the name of young Napoleon, 

 which it might recognise as the government 

 of France; but, in that case, we were 

 bound to protect France ! Again, Portu- 

 gal had made common cause with Spain, 

 and I'.ad declared that an invasion of Spain 

 should be considered as an attack upon 

 her own independence. Now we were 

 pledijed (as Mr. Canning, in a note which 

 had been published, had declared,) to pro- 

 tect the independence of Portugal. It 

 was high time for this country to withdraw 

 itself from the Holy Alliance, to dissolve 

 ail connexion with a confederacy which 

 could only involve its allies in war and de- 

 struction, or expose them to the general 

 indignation of Europe. While any con- 

 nexion with that confederacy of kings 

 against freedom existed, it was impossible 

 tiiat this country could pursue a line of 

 conduct which could conciliate the friend- 

 ship of maLkiud. 



Mr. J. Mucdortald expressed his asto- 

 nishment at the unexampled interruption 

 of the public business, proposed at a time 

 when a struggle had commenced, which 

 was to prove vvhether the independence of 

 nations was an empty sound, for he sup- 

 posed 



