60] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Sir S. Romilly's Motion on the Repeal of an Act of King William 

 respecting Privately Stealing from Shops, S^c. — Lord A. Hamilton's 

 Motion respecting the resumption of Cash Faijmcnts by the Bank of 

 England. — Mr. Tierneys Motion for the continuation of the Account 

 of Bank Notes and Bills. — Chancellor of the Exchequers two Bills, 

 — Debates.-— Tlie same in the House of Lords. 



ON February 25th, Sir Samuel 

 Romilly moved for leave to 

 bring in a bill to repeal so much of 

 an act of William III as took away 

 the benefit of clergy from persons 

 convicted of privately stealing 

 goods, wares, or merchandize, to 

 the value of 5s. in any coach- 

 house, shop, warehouse, or stable. 

 He said it would not be neces- 

 sary for him to trouble the House 

 at any great length on the subject, 

 since their opinion had already 

 been strongly expressed. The 

 identical bill for which he was 

 about to move had passed the 

 House of Commons four times, 

 in the last, he might say, unani- 

 mously ; it had, however, always 

 been stopped in the other House. 

 It was not his intention to detain 

 the House with many observa- 

 tions, but he must be permitted 

 to call their attention to the re- 

 turns which for some days had 

 been upon the table, in order to 

 show the state of the law on that 

 subject. From 1 805 to 1 8 1 7, 655 

 persons had been indicted for the 

 above offence, of which only 113 

 had been capitrJly convicted, of 

 whom not one had been executed. 

 365 had been found guilty by the 



juries before whom they were 

 tried, of simple larceny, by which 

 the capital part of the charge was 

 taken away. It was evident, 

 therefore, that these persons had 

 been improperly charged with a 

 capital offence, or that the juries 

 had violated their oaths. The 

 latter, he should always contend, 

 was a practice of a most immoral 

 tendency, and the temptations to 

 it were such as it was the duty 

 of the legislature to remove. 



The hon. and learned gentle- 

 man then carried the attention of 

 his hearers to various other crimes; 

 such as stealing within a dwelling 

 house, fraudulent bankruptcy, and 

 forgery, of which last offence the 

 examples were of late years be- 

 come extremely multiplied. He 

 concluded with moving the bill 

 first mentioned. 



Sir J. Neivport strongl}' urged 

 his hon. friend to persevere in his 

 efforts to remedy the defects of 

 the law in this respect, trusting 

 that eventually he would be suc- 

 cessful. 



Leave was given to bring in 

 the bill. 



Sir Samuel Romilly having on 

 April ] 4th, moved that this bill 



be 



