46] ANNUAL REGISTER, 181<?. 



CHAPTER V. 



Lord 



.. ~ Arch. Hamilton's motion relative to the burgh of Montrose. — 

 The Navy estimates moved by Sir G. Warrender. — Army estimates 

 introduced by Lord Pahnerston. 



ON February 13th Lord 

 Archibald Hamilton rose to 

 make his promised motion relative 

 to the late transactions in the 

 burgh of Montrose. He said 

 that he should commence by de- 

 claring what his intended motion 

 was not ; and then proceed to 

 state what it was. It was not 

 any disguised motion for parlia- 

 mentary reform, nor had it any 

 necessary connexion with that 

 unwelcome topic. His motion 

 would be for the production to 

 this House of those proceedings 

 of the privy council which were 

 technically called the Act or War- 

 rant, by which a new election of 

 magistrates had been granted by 

 government to the burgh of 

 Montrose, and a radical and im- 

 portant alteration had been made 

 in the old constitution of that 

 burgh. The learned lord advo- 

 cate had declared in the last 

 session, when he (lord A. H). 

 had supported the prayer of some 

 Scotch petitions for parliamentary 

 reform, that the people of Scot- 

 land were satisfied with things as 

 they were. They who had ob- 

 served what had passed in that 

 country for the last six months — 

 who had noticed how many public 

 meetings had been held for the 

 sole purpose of considering the 

 abuses and mismanagement in 



their burghs — ^liad seen how all 

 the newspapers had teemed with 

 resolutions from the difterent 

 burghs stating their grievances — 

 would find some difficulty in 

 believing the learned lord's asser- 

 tion of the former year. He need 

 state one fact only to show the 

 state of things in those burghs. 

 The inhabitants of a burgh, who 

 had no voice in the appointment 

 of their magistrates, and no con- 

 trol over their conduct, were 

 nevertheless informed that they 

 were liable for whatever debts 

 they might, in their magisterial 

 capacity, contract. This abuse 

 was founded on another still 

 greater ; namely, self-election in 

 the magistrates ; an abuse of such 

 a nature, when applied to a body 

 which had duties to perform, that 

 the wit of man could not contrive 

 a mode better calculated to pro- 

 duce the most domineering arro- 

 gance in these municipal gover- 

 nors, and the most abject state of 

 subjection and servility in the 

 helpless governed. 



He would now proceed to 

 detail the particulars which had 

 occasioned his motion. In the 

 course of the last year, an irregu- 

 lar election of the magistrates- 

 took place at Montrose. It was 

 deemed, indeed, wholly void ; 

 and thus the burgh in its cor- 

 porate 



