J54] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



were to contaminate the trust re- 

 posed in them, and to say to such a 

 woman, " your plea is, or, at least, 

 such is the plea of your officious de- 

 fenders, that, if you may not be per- 

 mitted to form a second contract 

 with the man, by whose seduction 

 you have broken your first contract, 

 you must naturally and necessarily 

 abandon yourself to prostitution. — 

 Your plea is most unprincipled ; 

 your passions are most depraved : 

 but you shall be gratified. You 

 have broken a sacred and solemn 

 vow ; but we will enable you, by 

 a legislative act of ours, to go back 

 unblushingly to the altar, which you 

 ought to approach with agony and 

 horror. Come again to us, as soon 

 as you shall feel disposed to quit this 

 second husband, and to take a third. 

 We shall be ready, toties quoties, to 

 authorize you to change the part- 

 ners of your iniquity." 



The bill was, on the motion of 

 lord Auckland, printed, read a se- 

 cond time, and, on the twenty-first 

 of May, committed : when several 

 amendments, proposed by lord El- 

 don, were agreed to. 



On the twenty-third of May, lord 

 Auckland moved, that the bill be 

 now read a third time. He replied 

 to the various arguments that had 

 been adduced against it. He was 

 astonished at the opposition which 

 had been set up, and at a loss to 

 conjecture from what principle it 

 could arise. 



The bill was now opposed by the 

 earl of Coventry, the earl of West- 

 moreland, the earl of Carlisle, the 

 duke of Cumberland, the duke of 

 Clarence, and the earl of Mulgrave : 

 it was supported by lord Eldon, lord 

 Hobart, the bishop of Rochester, 

 and lord Grenville. 



The earl of Westmoreland, among 



a variety of sensible and shrewd re- 

 marks, said, that he would even 

 assert, that the virtue of the coun- 

 try was one cause for the frequency 

 of divorces. The sentiments of men 

 had become more delicate, and they 

 could not endure to continue uni- 

 ted by wedlock to a woman, by 

 whom they had been dishonoured. 

 Lord Carlisle said, that, with the 

 accessions of population, commerce, > 

 and consequent luxury, it was not 

 surprising if divorces were more 

 frequent : but they afforded no rea- 

 son why the laws of the land should 

 be altered in cases of divorce ; and 

 why the conniving husband should 

 have his remedy against a seducer, 

 by indictment for a misdemeanor, 

 with fine and imprisonment, and 

 should also have an action by which 

 he might obtain an exorbitant com- 

 pensation : much less did they fur- 

 nish a reason, why an unhappy wo- 

 man should, for an error, perhaps 

 occasioned as much by provocation 

 on one side as persuasion on the 

 other, be turned adrift forever from 

 society, and, by the conclusion now 

 proposed, driven perhaps to Beth- 

 lem. He might have expected from 

 theframer of this bill, that when he 

 introduced so many new penal pro- 

 visions, he would, at least, have 

 protected the offender from another 

 kind of torment : while he left him 

 at the discretion of the chief justice 

 of the King's Bench, he should have 

 exempted him from prosecution by 

 the ecclesiastical court. — This bill 

 served to confirm lord Carlisle in 

 the opinion which he always enter- 

 tained, that monkish seclusions, for 

 there were legal as well as ecclesias- 

 tical monks, were not adapted to 

 qualify a man for legislation. The 

 studies of a recluse did not lead to a 

 knowledge of the world: but, in 



