bation he had received. Under all the circumstances, he thought the motion should be acceded to.

Mr. Bootle Wilbraham thought that this was not a matter in which the House could constitutionally interfere. In cases where the privileges of the House were concerned, they had the power of calling the party offending to the bar. The sheriff was undoubtedly amenable to the House in all cases of election, but he was not aware that the House could constitutionally exercise any control over the sheriff in other cases. It certainly did not appear from Blackstone, that the sheriff was subject to the control of this House in any matters except those connected with the election of knights of the shire. He begged not to be understood as wishing to abridge the privileges of the House; but the facts of the present case did not appear to him to justify their interposition. The sheriff was a gentleman whose impartiality and purity of conduct were unquestionable. He was persuaded that he went to the meeting with a firm determination to do his duty with impartiality. One of the charges against him was, that he did not summon the inhabitants, though required to do so; another, that he refused to put the amendment, Now, he did not know what law there was to compel a sheriff to put the amendment. As to the other charge, that he refused to divide the meeting, but contented himself with a shew of hands, the usual mode of taking the sense of a meeting was by a shew of hands, and the constitutional appeal from the sheriff's decision was to a poll; but this was a case which did not admit of a poll. He believed the fact was, that the room in which the meeting took place was so full, that it was next to impossible to divide. He certainly regretted that the sheriff had not allowed his noble friend to be heard; at the same time he must observe that some expressions which had been used by his noble friend were received with strong marks of disapprobation, and might account therefore for his not obtaining a hearing. He trusted the House would not yield to this motion, and by so doing afford a triumph to those tribunes of the people who had liberty in their mouths, but anarchy in their hearts. Mr. Curwen said, it was of the utmost Importance, that the right of petitioning should not be violated, that the country might know whether the noble lord op VOL. IV.

posite and his colleagues did or did not possess the confidence of the people. If it were in the power of the Sheriff to refuse to take the decision of a meeting, material injury would arise, both to the people and to this House, as it would prevent them from hearing the sentiments of their constituents. Had the object of this motion been to censure the conduct of the sheriff, he should not have been willing to go that length in the first, instance; but, as it went merely to inquire into his conduct, he thought the motion ought to be acceded to.

Mr. Wynn said, that the first point upon which the conduct of the sheriff was arraigned, was, that he had called a meeting of the nobility, gentry, and frecholders, and not of the freeholders and inhabitants. Now, he contended, that in so doing, the sheriff had only discharged his duty; for he believed the practice of summoning the inhabitants to county meetings was of very recent date. A county meeting, in the constitutional sense, was a meeting of the freeholders of the county, of those persons only who had a right to attend the county court. As to the charge, that the sheriff did not put the amendment, he really was not aware that the forms of that House, however excellent, were of such high authority, that every public meeting in the kingdom was bound to copy them. It appeared that an amendment to the ori ginal address had been proposed by lord Grosvenor, and that the sheriff, instead of putting the amendment in the first instance, had taken the sense of the meeting upon the original address. Now, he really could not see why the sense of the meeting might not be as fairly collected in this way as by following the forms of that House. There was another charge against the sheriff, that he had refused a division when it was called for. Now he had heard of a great many county meetings, but he had never heard of a division taking place at such a meeting. The objection was perfectly frivolous, and honourable members, who knew how much time a division occupied in that House, must be aware that the numbers at a county meeting could scarcely be counted on a winter's day. He thought the sheriff had exercised no more than a legal discretion, and that, whether legal or otherwise, his conduct ought not to become the subject of inquiry in that House.

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Lord Belgravesaid, he was present at the meeting, and certainly there was a material difference between the terms of the requisition as it had been read by the hon. member for Cheshire, and the terms which were actually employed. The hon. gentleman had stated it to be a requisition for a loyal address to his majesty; but the words of the requisition were, "We, the undersigned, call upon you to convene a meeting, for the purpose of declaring to his majesty the sentiments of loyalty and attachment to the throne which animate the breasts of the inhabitants of this county." He was sorry to hear it denied by the sheriff, that he had refused to put the amendment; for the fact was, that he had distinctly said, "I take upon myself to refuse putting the amendment to the meeting." He regretted that he was obliged to complain of the conduct of several gentlemen with whom he had the pleasure of being personally acquainted, but without entering into details, he would only observe, that so extraordinary was the behaviour of some of those gentlemen, and so great was the confusion, that though he was close to the chair, he could not hear the vote of thanks to the sheriff. The sheriff withdrew precipitately from the hall, and the whole transaction reflected disgrace upon the county to which he had the honour and the happiness to belong. The two important points were, that the sheriff had first refused to put the amendment, and next, that he had not allowed a division, though in truth there ought to have been little difference of sentiment, since the address and the amendment, rightly viewed, were hardly distinguishable. He was anxious that the authority of the sheriffs of counties should be supported, as he knew that it was as important to a county that its sheriffs should be looked up to with respect, as it was to the city of London that it should have a magnificent lord mayor. But, he wished the House to remember in what manner the sheriffs had formerly been chosen by the people, and he wished them to look care fully at any proceedings that went to make them act as the mere instruments of the Crown. Up to the 9th of Edward 2nd the sheriffs were always chosen by the people, as much as members of parliament were at present. He shewed how this right had fared in different parts of the kingdom. In the county of Westmor

land, it was vested in one noble individual, and a countess of Pembroke had actually sat as sheriff on the bench with the Judges. This might seem strange to Englishmen, but not so strange to foreigners. He was led to this conclusion, from having the other day accompanied a foreigner to the House of Lords, who on seeing the bench of bishops, had asked, "if they were "if they were not peeresses who sat there in there own right." If the sheriff complained of, had been in an error, his conduct ought to meet with reprehension. He thought the House ought to reprehend the conduct of the sheriff, and declare that the amendment ought to have been put, and the division called for granted.

Mr. Warre was convinced that the sheriff of Chester had not acted with any intentional partiality, even if he had erred on a point of form. He must therefore oppose the motion.

Lord Castlereagh felt that no case had been made out to impeach the conduct of the individual in question. No insinuation had been uttered against the intentions of the sheriff, and his letter bespoke a mind of the utmost candour and liberality. He protested against the doctrine, that whenever a charge was brought forward casting even the remotest doubt, an inquiry ought instantly to be commenced. If the House suffered itself to be dragged into such investigations, they must be interminable. He should be sorry indeed to see county meetings in any way discouraged, because from them the public sentiment was to be collected; but it was to be remembered that, by law, the sheriff was invested with a discretion whether he would or would not call them, and no more effectual mode could be adopted to induce him to decide against them, than to threaten that his conduct as president, however impartial, should be made the subject of complaint and inquiry, provided he were guilty of the slightest breach of the most insignificant forms. Besides, such a jurisdiction did not in fact belong to the House of Commons. If the conduct of sheriffs at county meetings was to be made the subject of the labour of committees, in what way were other assemblies whether convened by lords lieutenants, by magistrates, or in private rooms, to be excluded. The presidents of all these miglit în turn be brought before the House, whose functions were ill qualified for such a

duty. With regard to relevancy, who | was to decide what was or was not relevant? At a late meeting in Middlesex regarding the Queen, that great reformer, the veteran major, had introduced the topic of a change in the representation: and the subject of the Queen and parliamentary reform, to say the least of it, seemed quite as nearly allied as the original address moved in Cheshire and the amendment attempted to be substituted in its place.

object of his motion was the encouragement of county meetings. If a sheriff could refuse to put the question upon an amendment, he could not see what occasion he had to call the meeting at all. He regretted that an hon. gentleman (Mr. Wynn) should have lent the sanction of his authority to this doctrine-a doctrine by which what was called a loyal address might be represented as containing the sentiments of the county, although it libelled two-thirds of the people, and charged them with the vilest blasphemy and sedition. The sheriff of Derby, and the sheriff of Oxford, had not acted under the guidance of this new light, but had considered it to be their duty to offer amendments to the meeting, those amendments having been regularly moved and seconded. In now pressing his motion he was actuated by no vindictive feeling towards the gentleman whose conduct was the subject of discussion'; but he thought the House owed it to their constituents to uphold the sacred right of petition, and to express their disapprobation of the course adopted in this instance.

Mr. A. Moore thought it of the highest importance, that the House should inquire whether the sheriff in this instance had violated a public principle, or merely deviated from a formal rule. Contradictory statements had been submitted to them, and it therefore became necessary, in order to get at the facts, that the subject should be referred to a committee. That some further explanation was desirable, had, he thought, become obvious. An hon. member had observed, that he should have been more inclined to pay attention to this complaint, had the sheriff refused to convene the county. Now to him it appeared that a refusal to collect and to ascertain the sense of the county when it was assembled, called still more loudly for the notice of that House. It was far from his intention to dispute the respectability of the sheriff's character; indeed, that respectability added to the importance of not suffering his example to become a precedent. It had been urged that the practice of convening counties under the authority of the sheriff was but of recent date. He agreed that they had no judicial power over such as semblies:-they were in a situation similar to that which they held in their county courts. In the latter case' e the jury, and in the former the freeholders, were the judges. The office of sheriff was purely ministerial; when he refused, therefore, to put an amendment, he exercised a discretion with which he was not invested. The persons assembled, and not the sheriff, were to pronounce an opinión on the relevancy or non-relevancy of the proposition submitted to them. It was to that House alone that the people could look for redress of a grievance of this nature. A court of law could afford none; but the animadversion of the House, and a recorded statement of its opinion, could hardly fail to prevent a repetition of the abuse.

Mr. Creevey then shortly replied.

The House divided: Ayes 65; Noes 122. Majority 57.

List of the Minority.

Allen, J. H. Althorp, lord Becher, W. W. Bright, H. Bury, visct. Calvert, C. Caulfield, hon. H. Campbell, hon. F. Clifton, lord Crespigny, sir W. Davies, T. H. Denison, W. J. Duncannon, visct. Ellice, E. Farquharson, A. Fergusson, sír R. Grant, J. P. Graham, S. Gordon, R. Griffiths, J. Guise, sir W. Hamilton, lord A. Harbord, hon. E. Heathcote, G. J. Hill, lord A. Hobhouse, J. C. Honywood, W. P. Hornby, E.

The

Tennyson, C.

Western, C. C.

Wharton, J.