This page lists every recorded use of the words injurious and injuriously in parliamentary debate during 1812. Each instance is reproduced in its context as recorded in Hansard.
This survey forms part of the evidence for the correct legal interpretation of injurious weeds in the Weeds Act 1959. See also why “harmful weeds” misrepresents the law.
| Speaker | Context |
|---|---|
| General Tarleton | The cause which he supported, and which he would continue to support, was the cause of truth, and in which he found himself aided by the testimony of our best historians, Hume and Robertson, who always reprobated continental wars as injurious to the real interest of Great Britain. |
| Mr. Whitbread | Ministers, he thought, might, with more decency, have waited till, parliament met, for there were no duties attached to the situation which called so imperiously for performance, that the omission of them would have, been injurious to the public 123 service. |
| Mr. Sinclair | said, that he rose for the purpose of submitting to the House a few observations on the subject of this measure in as far as it affected Scotland; as it appeared to him calculated to be essentially injurious to the agricultural interests of that country. |
| Mr. Sinclair | In addition to this circumstance, it was computed, that no less than 6000 head of cattle were annually fattened for the market from the offals of the grain which was used in the distilleries; and if this supply of food was unexpectedly withdrawn from them (more especially at so inclement a period of the season) a considerable number of these cattle must be brought to market before they were sufficiently fattened for the consumption of the public; or at least it will be found very difficult, if not impossible, to procure sufficient pasture for their subsistence, by either of which alternatives the owner must be seriously affected.—Such was the mode in which this measure would be injurious to most of the farmers in Scotland, one of the most useful, patriotic, and industrious classes of the community. |
| Mr. Sinclair | Such a measure as the present could not fail at this moment to be peculiarly discouraging; and, if persevered in, would not only materially affect the landed interest of Scotland as well as the farmers, by occasioning a considerable fall in the rents, but would also be eventually injurious to the public, from the great diminution in the Property Tax which would necessarily ensue, if the income of the landlord and tenant in Scotland were to be curtailed, by so considerably lowering the value of the produce of the country. |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | Newport) for the manner 291 in which he had proposed his objections, which did not go to obstruct the present measure, but to establish a less injurious system. |
| Sir S. Romilly | But the coarse expression of an illiterate and low-bred woman, directed to another in the same line of life, was not fraught with those injurious consequences which the slander of the higher ranks of society, couched in courtly phrase, was likely to produce. |
| Mr. Tierney | The restrictions contained in that act were such as the prince of Wales felt were not only painful, but injurious and insulting to the character of his royal highness. |
| Mr. Whitbread | Now, it appeared to him that there was no such necessity; for when the whole government of the country was about to be confided to the Prince, it would be a supposition highly injurious to the feelings and character of a most affectionate son, to imagine that he would not be sufficiently attentive to whatever belonged to the care and comfort of his royal father, without the provisions of an act of parliament. |
| Mr. Sheridan | He was certain nothing could be more injurious to the Prince's feelings than such a measure would have proved. |
| The Earl of Aberdeen | Let it even be shown that the operation of the Convention Act would be less injurious to the Protestants than to the Catholics, if the former should act in violation of that law. |
| The Marquis of Downshire | The conclusion that the contemplation of this injurious compact led to, could not be denied, namely, that there may still be a nominal union, but that the separation of heart and mind would be real and permanent. |
| Marquis Wellesley | The very existence of such a body was perilous; its acts, if otherwise innocent, must be injurious to public order, because they must tend to disturb the respect which is due alone to the lawful sovereign and legislature of the realm. |
| The Marquis of Lansdowne | He trusted that England would not persist in blinding herself to the dictates of an enlarged and liberal policy, or be obstinately bent on the maintenance of injurious maxims and mischievous animosities, but that on the contrary the time would soon arrive when they should only be remembered to have been. |
| Lord Mulgrave | It was still under the spiritual direction of an authority, which authority itself was subjected to the controul of Buonaparte: and what might not such a union produce, injurious to this country? |
| Lord Grenville | He hoped, therefore, when the crisis came, that they would then have wisdom enough left to drop generalities; and if they continued to refuse what was asked, to say in what way it was that granting the Catholic demands would prove injurious to the church of England. |
| Mr. Lockhart | He concurred with those who had expressed themselves friendly to the abolition or correction of that privilege of members of parliament so very injurious to the rights of others. |
| Lord Holland | He did not mean, uninformed upon the subject as he was at present, to impute blame to his Majesty's government, but when disturbances of so formidable a nature, so dangerous to the peace and so injurious to the character of the country, had been going on for so long a period, and instead of diminishing, appeared to be increasing in violence, he thought it was due to parliament that some explanation should be given, as to what measures had been taken by government to suppress them. |
| Mr. Parnell | It appears to me, that the recent conduct of the Catholics has been greatly misrepresented by him and many others; and that it is a matter of great importance, that what their conduct has been should be accurately known, inasmuch as it will be highly injurious, not only to them, but to the empire also, to suffer any obstacles to exist, in the way of their emancipation, in addition to those which may fairly belong to it. |
| Mr. Grattan | The conduct of parliament towards the Catholics was injurious to the best interests of the nation. |
| Lord Grenville | As to the very injurious tendency of the measures alluded to, independent of the effect they might have on any pending negociation with the United States, he was decidedly of opinion 686 they should be revoked on the ground of internal policy; and in this view, he would ask whether or not petitions had been presented to the Prince Regent praying their revocation? |
| Mr. Ponsonby | I cannot at all agree that this is a matter of little importance, on the contrary, it appears to me to be of very considerable magnitude, even in an economical point of view; because nothing can be 699 more unfit than that it should be in the power of any minister, when it is convenient to him to call to his own aid, that money which ought only to be the resource of the crown, and to apply it to his own purposes, so as to carry, by force of influence, a measure perhaps highly disagreeable, or even injurious, to the nation. |
| Mr. Eden | He was aware of the force of this reasoning, and that it might be both unjust to individuals and injurious to the interests of the country, to publish in what way these sums were disposed of: but he must be allowed to observe, that a very large sum was annually appropriated out of the supplies, for the purpose of secret service money; and was it to be borne, that the same sort of expenditure should also be mixed up with the various charges on the Civil List revenue? |
| Mr. Arbuthnot | In order to shew the injurious consequences which sometimes follow from the publication in this country of the dispatches of foreign ministers, he begged leave to state a circumstance that occurred to him in one of the missions in which he had had the honour of being employed It would be obvious to the House, that he could not, with propriety, mention the place, or the names of the persons to whom he was alluding; but the fact be meant to state was, that it once happened to him, when employed upon a mission of considerable importance to the interests of this country, to be upon terms of the most confidential intimacy with the minister of an allied power, resident at the same court. |
| Mr. Arbuthnot | As he found that a large sum would be necessary, he wrote home to lord Mulgrave, who had succeeded lord Harrowby, and stated that, in order to save the public money, he intended to sell a part of the ground, though it would be injurious to the view of the palace, and he did actually agree to sell a part for 3,000l Lord Mulgrave sent him directions to complete the building of the palace. |
| Mr. Creevey | had been taken from this fund, altogether without the knowledge of parliament, a proceeding as injurious to the constitution as it was unjust to this island. |
| Mr. Stephen | He denied also that there was any evidence of the mercantile interest in general, considering the Orders in Council as injurious to trade. |
| Mr. Wilberforce | If he agreed in opinion with the hon. gentleman (Mr. Curwen) who had argued with such extraordinary animation in favour of taking the power out of the hands of ministers—if he agreed in his opinion of their principles, he should certainly come to the same conclusion; but reposing as he did a perfect confidence in his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, trusting as he did to the purity of his motives, and the uprightness of his views, he could not deny his claims to the confidence of the House, when he declared that the production of the papers in question would have an injurious tendency. |
| Mr. Wilberforce | He thought the war would be injurious to us, but much more so to America, but he could not think it possible that his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, any "more than himself, could look upon that as a reason for wishing for hostilities. |
| Mr. Whitbread | The present case was nearly similar; but the administration had another reason to assign, and it was said that the disclosure would be injurious to the public service, and the House was left in the dark, consoled only by its confiding ignorance. |
| Mr. Secretary Ryder | rose and said, that he felt great pain in the discharge of the important duty which imposed upon him the necessity of adverting to those transactions which had taken place in some of the counties of England, and which, in their nature, were so disgraceful to the country, and so injurious to the best interests of those places where such enormities had been perpetrated. |
| Mr. Marryatt | did not believe that any mal-practices could be charged against any of the clerks of the Board of Trade, but the whole system of licensing was most injurious to the trade of the country. |
| Mr. Marryatt | He thought the production of the Memorial from Heligoland might be injurious, but before he gave his vote against it he begged to observe, that he entirely disapproved of the whole system of licensing. |
| The Earl of Harrowby | An inquiry more limited with respect to the outrages themselves, could have no good effect; the offence was, as was admitted by every one, most injurious to the interests of the community, and every means ought to be adopted to prevent its repetition. |
| Mr. Lockhart | To entertain such charges would be to make the House of Commons a great court of judicature, authorised to examine every private transaction that was alleged to be improper: and the ultimate purposes to which such a power might be applied no one could foresee; that it would be productive of enormous inconvenience was evident, and he therefore pressed for the appointment of a committee, before a precedent was established calculated to be so injurious in its consequences. |
| Sir Thomas Turton | That acquisition had, in his mind, been exceedingly injurious to the finance of Great Britain. |
| Sir Thomas Turton | Every beneficial measure proposed by that right hon. gentleman should have his support, but when he conceived a measure to be injurious, he must do his duty by opposing it. |
| The Marquis of Lansdowne | said he rose in pursuance of his notice to call the attention of their lordships to the Orders in Council, and to the system of policy which had resulted from those Orders so injurious to the manufacturing and commercial interests of the country, and to the welfare of the state. |
| The Marquis of Lansdowne | Had his only motives been to contradict statements made by noble lords, on the other side, of beneficial effects produced by these Orders, he should have delayed his motion until petitions (as they undoubtedly would) had flowed in from all the manufacturing districts of the country, proving in the strongest terms the injurious consequences of those Orders. |
| The Marquis of Lansdowne | Ministers themselves, indeed, not longer than eighteen months after issuing the original Orders by which the continent was to be coerced, appeared to be satisfied that they operated injuriously, by their partly revoking them, and by the Order of April 1809, opening the trade with the north of Europe. |
| The Marquis of Lansdowne | The effect, therefore, of these Orders upon the neutral, and the injurious consequences upon this head to ourselves, were too apparent. |
| The Marquis of Lansdowne | Most injurious was the effect which this conduct towards neutrals had upon our prize courts, whose decisions had once been so highly respected all over the civilized world. |
| Lord Holland | If it were found injurious, whether affecting the morality or the interests of trade, let it be rescinded. |
| Lord Holland | The true way in which to consider all questions between sovereign states was, to examine whether the situation of things was really such as to be material either in its beneficial or injurious effects to one or both. |
| The Earl of Westmoreland | He contended, that in a commercial point of view it would be most injurious to repeal the Orders in Council, under which he maintained that the trade of the country had risen more than one fourth above what it was in that year when the great financial ministers opposite were complimented on the extent of our commerce. |
| Viscount Sidmouth | Undoubtedly it was expedient to obtain articles of the first necessity, such as grain and naval stores; but, generally speaking, the licence system was injurious, and in no way more so than in the offence which it gave to morals. |
| Lord Holland | supported the amendment on the ground that a discretion would be left in the hands of the judge, painful to him, and perhaps injurious to the prisoner in the exercise. |
| Mr. Canning | The fault he imputed to this system was, first, its tendency to produce convulsions in the course of trade, which were injurious to commercial interests generally; next, as these licences were occasionally granted or withheld, there was no uniform principle upon which men could square their speculations. |
| Mr. Wilberforce | He was originally convinced by the arguments of his learned relative (Mr. Stephen) of the justice and policy of the Orders: but now that there existed great discontent, which was attributed to the injurious effects of those Orders, no conduct could be wiser for parliament, than to meet the discontent" by inquiry, and shew to the people, that whether their complaints were founded or not, they should at least be attended to, and that they should see that they underwent a solemn investigation. |
| Mr. Whitbread | If the committee should report that the Orders in Council were injurious and impolitic, it would then be for the House to decide whether they should be repealed—and it would also be a question to consider whether they could be repealed, consistently with our national dignity. |
| Mr. Bankes | To this he should answer, that he had deemed the free confession of guilt from the delinquent himself ad important document for the House to receive; not, indeed, that it would be strict legal evidence in a court of justice, but the House, it should be remembered, was not bound to the technical forms of law, and it would be injurious to the constitution to permit them to controul its proceedings. |
| Mr. Whitbread | was willing to give the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer full credit for consistency, but it was a consistency which had been highly injurious, and might eventually prove fatal to the country. |
| Mr. Blackburn | the collection of assessed taxes, the exhaustion of the little stores by which the more laborious and provident formerly hoped to obtain a trifling elevation above absolute poverty, the gradual disappearance of the middling classes, which are fast melting down into the lower orders of the community, and the certain prospect of evil still more injurious to the individual sufferers, and to the interests of the country at large; these are some of the consequences of that state of things which is so poignantly to be deplored, and the causes and removal of which, the Peti- 95 tioners pray that the House will take into immediate and dispassionate consideration; in thus adverting to the afflictive privations of the poor, the Petitioners by no means wish it to be inferred that they are the only sufferers; it must be obvious to the House, that the unprecedented number of failures and bankruptcies in the higher departments of commercial society, and in all its descending gradations, are immediately owing to those causes, which, in their ultimate but severest operation, affect the labouring and mechanical classes; they could easily amplify this general statement by a minute detail of painful events; but the members of the House are sufficiently acquainted with the numerous and increasing accumulation of facts in support of the account which has been presented; what those causes are to which evils of such enormity and magnitude may be traced, it is not difficult to ascertain; the Petitioners submit that they may be discovered in the impolicy which suggested, adopted, and still continues un-revoked, the Orders in Council, in the absence of conciliatory measures towards the United States, and in the want of clear, prompt, and satisfactory explanations in diplomatic negociations with that country; but they are imperiously compelled to specify what, in their apprehensions, is the primary cause of their sufferings; as natives of a country professing the Christian religion, they deplore the moral effects of war; as men, they lament the miseries of their fellow-creatures; as Britons, they feel convinced that war is inimical to their interests; that its continuance is more injurious to a commercial country, like our own, than to one which possesses, within itself, greater physical resources; that the subjugation of the enemy is more impracticable than ever; and that his power is more firmly compacted by the opposition he has encountered; supported by these facts, in the opinions they form of the consequences of the present war, the Petitioners fuel the most urgent solicitude, arising from convictions which are every day confirmed and increased, that the House should direct its attention to the revocation of those decrees, which, in imitation of an enemy's policy, have accomplished the object of that policy instead of their own, and which, by their continuance, present the main obstacle to the amicable adjustment of differences with America; they also submit, that the restrictions by which 96 the East India trade has been limited to an individual incorporation, in the metropolis of the kingdom, should be annihilated when the present period of its mono-poly shall expire, and that, on the principles of liberal economy, the advantages of that trade should be enjoyed without exclusion or limitation; but they especially entreat that measures towards the pacification of Europe may become the subjects of the immediate deliberation of the House, who will thus obtain a truly dignified elevation in being the first to sheathe the sword when no object of utility can be effected, when war can be no longer subservient to that which is its only legitimate object, the security of peace; the House will thus obtain at least a temporary cessation to the miseries and distractions of a bleeding world, they will excite afresh the powerful energies of a commercial people, they will furnish employment and subsistence lo an immense population at home, they will give stability and consolidation to our colonial dependencies abroad, they will raise the tone of national character in the estimation of surrounding countries, and connect the remembrance of our pacific achievements with the gratitude and attachment of millions for whose weal they legislate, and whose prosperity is inseparably combined with our own; the Petitioners are aware that an appeal to the feelings of sensibility, or the power of imagination, would be incongruous, but they humbly solicit the attention of the House to higher and more definite principles; and that before the evils which now press so severely on the various classes of society are extended and multiplied beyond the possibility of endurance, the Petitioners beseech the House to investigate their causes, to ascertain the effectual means of counteraction, and, from motives of policy, patriotism, and justice, to administer the appropriate remedies." |
| Mr. Blackburn | the collection of assessed taxes, the exhaustion of the little stores by which the more laborious and provident formerly hoped to obtain a trifling elevation above absolute poverty, the gradual disappearance of the middling classes, which are fast melting down into the lower orders of the community, and the certain prospect of evil still more injurious to the individual sufferers, and to the interests of the country at large; these are some of the consequences of that state of things which is so poignantly to be deplored, and the causes and removal of which, the Peti- 95 tioners pray that the House will take into immediate and dispassionate consideration; in thus adverting to the afflictive privations of the poor, the Petitioners by no means wish it to be inferred that they are the only sufferers; it must be obvious to the House, that the unprecedented number of failures and bankruptcies in the higher departments of commercial society, and in all its descending gradations, are immediately owing to those causes, which, in their ultimate but severest operation, affect the labouring and mechanical classes; they could easily amplify this general statement by a minute detail of painful events; but the members of the House are sufficiently acquainted with the numerous and increasing accumulation of facts in support of the account which has been presented; what those causes are to which evils of such enormity and magnitude may be traced, it is not difficult to ascertain; the Petitioners submit that they may be discovered in the impolicy which suggested, adopted, and still continues un-revoked, the Orders in Council, in the absence of conciliatory measures towards the United States, and in the want of clear, prompt, and satisfactory explanations in diplomatic negociations with that country; but they are imperiously compelled to specify what, in their apprehensions, is the primary cause of their sufferings; as natives of a country professing the Christian religion, they deplore the moral effects of war; as men, they lament the miseries of their fellow-creatures; as Britons, they feel convinced that war is inimical to their interests; that its continuance is more injurious to a commercial country, like our own, than to one which possesses, within itself, greater physical resources; that the subjugation of the enemy is more impracticable than ever; and that his power is more firmly compacted by the opposition he has encountered; supported by these facts, in the opinions they form of the consequences of the present war, the Petitioners fuel the most urgent solicitude, arising from convictions which are every day confirmed and increased, that the House should direct its attention to the revocation of those decrees, which, in imitation of an enemy's policy, have accomplished the object of that policy instead of their own, and which, by their continuance, present the main obstacle to the amicable adjustment of differences with America; they also submit, that the restrictions by which 96 the East India trade has been limited to an individual incorporation, in the metropolis of the kingdom, should be annihilated when the present period of its mono-poly shall expire, and that, on the principles of liberal economy, the advantages of that trade should be enjoyed without exclusion or limitation; but they especially entreat that measures towards the pacification of Europe may become the subjects of the immediate deliberation of the House, who will thus obtain a truly dignified elevation in being the first to sheathe the sword when no object of utility can be effected, when war can be no longer subservient to that which is its only legitimate object, the security of peace; the House will thus obtain at least a temporary cessation to the miseries and distractions of a bleeding world, they will excite afresh the powerful energies of a commercial people, they will furnish employment and subsistence lo an immense population at home, they will give stability and consolidation to our colonial dependencies abroad, they will raise the tone of national character in the estimation of surrounding countries, and connect the remembrance of our pacific achievements with the gratitude and attachment of millions for whose weal they legislate, and whose prosperity is inseparably combined with our own; the Petitioners are aware that an appeal to the feelings of sensibility, or the power of imagination, would be incongruous, but they humbly solicit the attention of the House to higher and more definite principles; and that before the evils which now press so severely on the various classes of society are extended and multiplied beyond the possibility of endurance, the Petitioners beseech the House to investigate their causes, to ascertain the effectual means of counteraction, and, from motives of policy, patriotism, and justice, to administer the appropriate remedies." |
| Earl Filzwilliam | He said he should have several petitions to present from manufacturers and other commercial persons, complaining of the injurious and destructive consequences resulting to their interests from the Orders in Council: and that, when these petitions should be before the House, he should feel it incumbent on him, to come forward with a motion for the repeal of so injurious a system. |
| Earl Filzwilliam | He said he should have several petitions to present from manufacturers and other commercial persons, complaining of the injurious and destructive consequences resulting to their interests from the Orders in Council: and that, when these petitions should be before the House, he should feel it incumbent on him, to come forward with a motion for the repeal of so injurious a system. |
| General Tarleton | presented a Petition from the merchants, ship owners, tradesmen, and other inhabitants of the town of Liverpool, "That the Petitioners humbly beg leave to represent to the House, that by various charters granted from time to time to the East India Company, the Petitioners have for a long series of years been restricted in carrying on trade, as well with the extensive possessions of the company in the East Indies, as with the whole of the islands and territories in Africa and Asia, from the Cape of Good Hope to the straits of Magellan, and have thus, as the Petitioners humbly conceive, not only been prevented from exerting their mercantile skill and industry, and employing their capital in a manner the most advantageous to their country and to themselves, but have been deprived of those privileges which they humbly presume are the common birth right of all his Majesty's subjects, the right of carrying on a free trade to all parts of the British empire and other countries in amity with the United Kingdom, subject only to such general regulations of trade as the policy of this country may require, or as may be necessary for maintaining the relations of these realms with foreign states, and securing to government those revenues which may be requisite for its support; and that the Petitioners further beg leave humbly to state to the House, that they cannot but regard all, monopolies which prohibit the general body of the people from carrying on trade with any other country, and in particular the monopoly of the East India Company, as highly injurious to the general interests of this country at large, and as greatly discouraging that commercial spirit, which, from the nature and local situation of these islands, is indispensable to their prosperity, and upon which their security at this moment essentially depends: and that the Petitioners having therefore assembled together in a general meeting, nave resolved to appeal for a redress of this their grievance to the House, in the humble, but confident hope, that they will consider the protection of the equal rights of his 112 Majesty's subjects to a free trade, and the extension of an honourable, just and legitimate commerce, as amongst the first and most important objects of legislative regulation; and praying, that the House will be pleased to take this subject into their most serious consideration, and that they will, at the earliest opportunity, adopt such measures for abolishing the commercial monopoly of the East India Company, as to the wisdom and justice of parliament may seem most expedient." |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | As to the general question now before the House, he would only add, that if it was injurious to deceive the country by false representations of the flourishing state of its commerce, it was equally injurious, amidst the great interests which were at stake, and the great exertions which were necessary to be made, to depress the spirits of the people by exaggerated statements of commercial distress. |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | As to the general question now before the House, he would only add, that if it was injurious to deceive the country by false representations of the flourishing state of its commerce, it was equally injurious, amidst the great interests which were at stake, and the great exertions which were necessary to be made, to depress the spirits of the people by exaggerated statements of commercial distress. |
| The Earl of Clancarty | But without the existence of any actual scarcity, as the noble earl had avowed his belief of, and without which he must contend that any measure would be injurious, he thought it much to be lamented, that the subject was thus brought forward. |
| Mr. Westerne | On the whole, he trusted the House would grant the papers he should move for, as there was no other resource left to captain Tomlinson by which he could wipe off the stigma injuriously and maliciously thrown upon him. |
| General Gascoyne | Those regulations were injurious to the out-ports, and directly contrary to the articles of the Union with Ireland. |
| Mr. Shaw | of Dublin said, that it was impossible for him to allow this measure to go forward, without entering his protest against what was likely to prove so injurious to the whole body of the distillers of Ireland. |
| Mr. W. Pole | He spoke also of not opening the distilleries so soon; but government could not be expected to adopt what would prove injurious to the revenue. |
| Earl Grey | He had no objection to amend his motion as suggested, by calling for a distinction of the notes under and above 5l.; and as to the objection of the noble earl, that to publish the description of notes would be injurious, he thought it could not really be believed, that the practitioners in forgery wanted any information through the medium of that House. |
| MR. Hutchinson | The Petition was then brought up and read; setting forth, "That, contemplating the warning fate of surrounding nations, and the fearful disparity of our physical means in the vital conflict in which we are engaged, the Petitioners respectfully express, as they deeply feel, a serious and surely not irrational apprehension of the result, unless the legislature in its wisdom shall hasten to oppose an effectual counterpoise to the mighty power now wielded with such rancorous hostility for our destruction; and this great object, it appears to the Petitioners, can only be achieved, by calling into instantaneous action, and combining, ill protection of these threatened realms, every vigorous and quickening impulse, all the elements of generous and moral feeling that can animate and exalt the human breast; and yet, amidst the crowding terrors of these days, in a war emphatically distinguished as a war of principle, when an enlightened policy would be anxious to communicate the equal benefits, in order to infuse the unconquered spirit of freedom, the Petitioners behold, with concern and dismay, a vast majority of the population of this land still degraded and discouraged; above four millions of a gallant and loyal people are summoned to 369 shed their blood in support of a constitution which unnerves the hand raised in its defence, by intercepting its fair reward, and checks the aspiration of their genius by the opposition of ungenerous barriers to its course; they are precluded from numerous offices of trust and honour, the objects and incentives of a noble emulation, though to many of these the more favoured alien is invited at home, and all are open, with the concurrence of the House, to the newly conquered Catholic subject abroad; the native Catholic alone, as if marked by the reprobating stamp of nature, is pronounced unworthy of making his services, in every station, acceptable to his sovereign, or useful to his country; and that these proscriptive statutes, the Petitioners lament to say, have transplanted from their natural soil the talents and fortunes of many an able statesman and valiant soldier; born to diffuse lustre on their own, and compelled to promote the glories of another land; the Petitioners claim, as their kindred, while they deplore to their country, the loss of many names of renown in foreign annals, and on the present great theatre of war, they trace, in some of the most distinguished actors, the blood and spirit of banished Irishmen; and that still a system, so injurious in its operation, generated in times and under circumstances of which the very shadow has passed away, is, they blush to add, attempted to be justified by imputations aspersive of their morality as Christians, and allegiance as subjects, their enemies, and the enemies of the edifice, would fain blot from the page of history, and from the recollection of the House; that to their Catholic ancestors, Britons are mainly indebted for the transcendent blessings of their constitution; they laid the firmest basis of the empire; and it surely is an ungenerous retribution to their memory to make the creed they professed a title of exclusion from the more perfect fabric; that religion, they are bound to infer, could inculcate nothing dangerous to society or prejudicial to the state, the sole and paramount sway of which was owned by those men who first defined the grand outlines of our civil rights, and the influence of which, at the present day, subjects the master passions of our nature, even interest and ambition, to the controul of conscience; by moral man alone is that sacred bar held inseparable and inviolate which the law has interposed between the Petitioners and the 370 attainment of their wishes; and that here they hope they shall be indulged in adducing, as a crowning proof of the tenets and practice of their ancient faith, the sublime example of its spiritual head, the suffering and magnanimous Pius, who stands an illustrious monument of glory to his religion, and of shame to many Christian princes; on him humiliations have been heaped, and the cup of bitterness impotently exhausted; immovable in conscious rectitude, he alone has defied the vengeance of a ruthless power, and, as be came the great minister of peace, refused to join a confederacy leagued for the overthrow of these kingdoms; his despoiler they may confidently maintain will meet little countenance or partiality from Catholic Ireland; and that the Petitioners will not stoop further to repel these calumnies, which even their propagators do not believe, but they refer with complacency, to the solemn recognition of their meritorious demeanor by their own parliament, when it first invited them to the threshold of the constitution, a measure wise and salutary at the time, but doubly grateful as a spontaneous emanation from the royal breast; the benign and parental source, they are proud to acknowledge, of numerous other gracious favours; and with equal pleasure do the Petitioners appeal to the honourable and decisive testimony of their Protestant fellow citizens, whose just discernment has long obliterated, in society, the partial demarcations of the law; with them the Petitioners are blended in all the sympathies of private life and communion of dearest interests; they would open wide, and hail as reason's triumph, their unqualified admission to the sanctuary of British freedom, for to them they have amply proved how deeply they have imbibed, and how prepared they are to vindicate its principles; they witnessed and they cheered their late assertion, constitutional they trust, and authorized of that radical provision of its guardian law, the right they at this moment exercise of addressing the House; and the Petitioners therefore feel warranted respectfully, but most earnestly, to impress on the wisdom of the House the policy of cherishing those elements of harmony and conciliation, which will unite in consentaneous impulse all the energies of the state, will elect for their rulers, in the bosoms of enfranchised Irishmen, a temple of ever lasting gratitude, and impart vigour to the arm, and ardour to the heart, of every in 371 dividual of this nation; the time and talent too they consume in complaint will be de voted, unfettered and undivided to the common cause; and that it is reserved, the Petitioners presume to hope, for the House, and it is worthy the character of enlightened statesmen, to redeem at length the great name of the British empire from the disparaging imputation of sacrificing an eternal principle of justice, and a commanding maxim of legislation, to a passing expediency and to fleeting events; and praying the House, in this crisis of unprecedented emergency, to hearken to the monitory voice of those great luminaries of their councils, whose discerning patriotism has identified their cause with the security of these realms, and who have exhorted the House, as they contemplate a successful resistance to our inveterate foe, to make a brave and gallant people happy in the possession, and invincible under the banners of the British constitution, by the repeal of those laws so manifestly hostile to its genuine spirit." |
| Sir F. Burdett | As to the opinion that this mode of military punishment had no injurious effects on the recruiting service, he would ask gentlemen to knock at their own hearts, and imagine themselves in the situation of spectators of this dreadful spectacle, and then to say, would this or would it not damp their inclinations to enter upon a course of life in which they would be exposed to the liability of suffering the same infliction. |
| MR. PARNELL | presented a Petition from the Roman Catholics of 402 the Queen's County, in Ireland, setting forth, "That the Petitioners beg leave respectfully, at this most important conjuncture to solicit the favourable attention of the House to the peculiar condition of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, under the severe penal laws now in force against them; and that, if they appear to the House to persevere with more than common earnestness in their humble solicitations for the abrogation of those laws, and for a free admission to the blessings and benefits of the civil constitution of their country, the Petitioners trust that their perseverance will be viewed rather as a proof of their just title to the liberty which they seek, and of their sincerity in its pursuit, than as the result of any sentiment hostile to the peace or true interests of this empire; and that the Petitioners should sincerely-dread lest their silence might be construed by a faithful but feeling people as an indication of despair, and they would not lightly abandon the pursuit of a laudable and most important object, strengthened as they are by the concurring support of their generous and enlightened fellow countrymen, as well as by the fullest approbation of their own conscientious feelings; they beg leave humbly to state to the House, that they have publicly and solemnly taken every oath of fidelity and allegiance which the jealous caution of the legislature has, from time to time, imposed as tests of their political and moral principles; and, although, they are still set apart (how wounding to every sentiment of honour!) as if unworthy of credit in these their sworn declarations, they can appeal confidently to the sacrifices which they and their forefathers have long made, and which they still make (rather than violate conscience by taking oaths of a spiritual import contrary to their belief), as decisive proofs of their profound reverence for the sacred obligation of an oath; and that, by those awful tests, they have bound themselves, in the presence of the all-seeing Deity, whom all classes of Christians adore, to be faithful and bear true allegiance to their most gracious sovereign lord king George the 3rd, and him to defend, to the utmost of their power, against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever against his person crown, or dignity; to use their utmost endeavours to disclose and make known to his Majesty and his heirs, all treason and traitorous conspiracies which may be 403 formed against him or them, and faithfully to maintain, support, and defend, to the utmost of their power, the succession to the crown in his Majesty's family against all persons whomsoever; and that, by those oaths, they have renounced and abjured obedience and allegiance unto any other person claiming or pretending a right to the crown of this realm; that they have rejected, as unchristian and impious to believe, the detestable doctrine, that it is lawful in any ways to injure any person or persons whomsoever, under pretence of their being heretics, and also that unchristian and impious principle, that no faith is to be kept with heretics, that it is no article of their faith; and they renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that princes, excommunicated by the Pope and council, or by any authority whatsoever, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects or by any person whatsoever; that they do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, within this realm; that they firmly believe, that no act, in itself unjust, immoral, or wicked, can ever be justified or excused by or under pretence or colour that it was done for the good of the Church, or in obedience to any ecclesiastical power whatsoever; and that it is not an Article of the Catholic Faith, neither are they thereby required to believe or profess, that the Pope is infallible, or that they are bound to any order, in its own nature immoral, though the Pope or any ecclesiastical power should issue or direct such order, but that, on the contrary, they hold that it would be sinful in them to pay any respect or obedience thereto; and that they do not believe that any sin whatsoever, committed by them, can be forgiven at the mere will of any Pope, or of any Priest, or of any person or persons whatsoever, but that any person who receives absolution, without a sincere sorrow for such sin, and a firm and sincere resolution to avoid future guilt, and to atone to God, so far from obtaining thereby any remission of his sin, incurs the additional guilt of violating a sacrament; and, by the same solemn obligations, they are bound and firmly pledged to defend, to the utmost of their power, the settlement and arrangement of property in Ireland, as established by the laws now in being; that they have declared, disavowed, and solemnly abjured, any intention to 404 subvert the present Church establishment, for the purpose of substituting a Catholic establishment in its stead; and that they have solemnly sworn, that they will not exercise any privilege, to which they are or may become entitled, to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in Ireland; and that they can, with perfect truth, assure the House, that the political and moral principles asserted by these solemn and special tests are not merely in unison with their fixed principles, but expressly inculcated by the religion which they profess; and they do most humbly trust, that, as professors of doctrines which permit such tests to be taken, they shall appear to the House to be entitled to the full enjoyment of religious freedom, under the happy constitution of these realms; and that frequently has the legislature of Ireland borne testimony to the uniform peaceable demeanour of the Irish Roman Catholics, to their acknowledged merits as good and loyal subjects, to the wisdom and sound policy of admitting them to all the blessings of a free constitution, and of thus binding together all classes of people by mutual interest and mutual affection; and that yet may they humbly represent to the House, and they do so at this perilous crisis, with sincere regret and deep solicitude, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland still remain subject to severe and humiliating laws, rigidly enforced, universally felt, and inflicting upon them divers injurious and vexatious disabilities incapacities privations and penalties, by reason of their conscientious adherence to the religious doctrines of their forefathers; and that, for nearly the entire period of the last twenty years, the progress of religious freedom has been obstructed, and, whilst other Christian nations have hastened to unbind the fetters imposed upon religious dissent, the Roman Catholics of Ireland have remained unrelieved; and that the laws, which unequivocally attest their innocence and their merits, continue to load them with the pains of guilt; their own consciences, the voice of mankind, acquit them of crime and offence; their Protestant fellow citizens press forward, with generous ardour and enlightened benevolence, to testify their earnest wishes for their relief; yet these penal laws, of which they humbly complain, cherish the spirit of hostility, and impede the cordial union of the people, which is at all times so desirable, and now so necessary and that 405 these penal laws operate for no useful or meritorious purpose, affording no aid to the constitution in church or state; not attaching affection to either, they are efficient only for objects of disunion and disaffection; they separate the Protestant from the Catholic, and withdraw both from the public good; they irritate man against his fellow creature, alienate the subject from the state, and leave the Roman Catholic community but a precarious and imperfect protection, as the reward of fixed and unbroken allegiance; and that the Petitioners forbear to detail the numerous incapacities and inconveniences inflicted by those laws, directly or indirectly, upon the Roman Catholic community, or to dwell upon the humiliating and ignominious system of exclusion, reproach, and suspicion which they generate and keep alive; perhaps no other age or nation has ever witnessed severities more vexatious, or inflictions more taunting, than those which the Petitioners have long endured, and of which but too large a portion still remains; and that relief from these disabilities and penalties they have sought through every channel that has appeared to them to be legitimate and eligible; they have never consciously violated, or sought to violate, the known laws of the land, nor have they pursued their object in any other manner than such as has been usually adhered to, and apparently the best calculated to collect and communicate their united sentiments accurately, without tumult, and to obviate all pretext for asserting, that the Roman Catholic, community at large were indifferent to the pursuit of their freedom; and they can affirm, with perfect sincerity, that they have no latent views to realize, no secret or sinister objects to attain; any such imputation must be effectually repelled, as they humbly conceive, by the consideration of their numbers, their property, and their known principles and character; and that their object is avowed and direct, earnest yet natural; it extends to an equal participation of the civil rights of the constitution of their country equally with their fellow subjects of all other religious persuasions; it extends no further; and that they would cheerfully concede the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty to all mankind; they ask no more for themselves; they seek not the possession of offices, but mere eligibility to office, in common with their fellow citizens; not power or ascendancy over any class of 406 people, but the bare permission to rise from their prostrate posture, and to stand erect in the empire; and that they have been taught that, according to the pure and practical principles of the British constitution, property is justly entitled to a proportionate share of power; and they humbly trust, that no reasonable apprehension can arise from that power which can only be obtained and exerciser through the constitution; and they are sensible, and they do not regret, that this equality of civil rights, which alone they humbly sue for, will leave a fair practical ascendancy wheresoever property shall predominate; but, whilst they acknowledge the wholesomeness of this great principle, they cannot admit the necessity of the unqualified disfranchisement of any part of the people in a constitution like that of these realms; and that they are gratified by the reflection that the attainment of this their constitutional object will prove as conducive to the welfare and security of this great empire, as to the complete relief of the Roman Catholic community; that it will secure the quiet and concord of their country, animate all classes of the people in the common defence, and form the most, stable protection against the dangers which heavily menace these islands; for the Petitioners most humbly presume to submit to the House, as their firm opinion, that an equal degree of enthusiasm cannot reasonably be expected from men, who feel themselves excluded from a fair participation of the blessings of a good constitution and government, as from those who fully partake of its advantages; that the enemies of this empire, who meditate its subjugation, found their best hope of success upon the effects of those penal laws, which, by depressing millions of the inhabitants of Ireland, may weaken their attachment to their country, and impair the means of its defence; and that the continued pressure of these laws in times of unexampled danger only spreads the general feeling of distrustful alarm, and augments the risks of common ruin; and that, to avert such evils, to preserve and promote the welfare and security of this empire, and to become thoroughly identified with their fellow subjects in interests and affection, are objects as precious in their eyes, upon every consideration of property, principle, and moral duty, as in those of any other description of the inhabitants of these realms; and that, if, in thus humbly submitting their depressed condition, and their earnest 407 hopes, to the consideration of the House, they would dwell upon the great numbers, and the property of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, already so considerable and so rapidly encreasing, and to their consequent most important contributions to the exigencies of the state, they would do so not with a view of exciting unworthy motives for concession, but in the honest hope of suggesting legitimate and rational grounds of constitutional relief; and deeply indeed should they lament, if these very recommendations should serve only to hold them out as the objects of harsh suspicion at home, or of daring attempts upon their allegiance from abroad: may the Petitioners then, with hearts deeply interested in the fate of this their humble supplication, presume to appeal to the wisdom and benignity of the House on behalf of a very numerous, industrious, affectionate and faithful body of people, the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and to pray, that the House may be pleased to take into their favourable consideration the whole of their condition, their numbers, their services, their merits, and their sufferings; and that they may be restored to the rights and privileges of the constitution of their country, be freed from all penal and disabling laws in force against them, on account of their religious faith, and may thereby become more worthy, as well as more capable of promoting the service of the crown, and the substantial interests of this great empire." |
| Mr. Whitbread | The Petitions were then brought up and read, setting forth, "That the Petitioners were Christians, who consider absolute liberty of conscience respecting religion to be the unalienable right of all men, that it is the duty of all men to examine as diligently as may be in their power, the doctrines of religion, and after such diligent examination, to 419 adopt and to profess what may appear to them to be the truth; and that, in the performance of that duty, men ought not to be obstructed or discouraged, or otherwise tempted to act hyprocritically, by any law tending to bias them in the course of such examination of the doctrines of religion, by subjecting them, in the case of their dissenting from the doctrines of any I established church, to suffer death by burning or otherwise, or to suffer any corporal or pecuniary punishment, or to be injured in their reputation by any disability more or less disgraceful; and that the Petitioners acknowledge, with high satisfaction, that, in the present reign, considerable progress has been made towards the full restoration of the rights of conscience, by the wisdom of parliament and the benignity of the king rescinding various laws, in whole or in part, which were violations of those rights; yet, since other penal laws, not less injurious to (hose rights, remain unrepealed, since some of these laws subject to corporal punishments or pecuniary penalties, others, as in the case of the test laws passed in the reign of king Charles the second, subject to disgrace, disability, and privation of civil rights, persons, whose only offence it is that, in conformity with their duly, they have examined the doctrines of religion, and by such examination have been induced to embrace and to profess religious opinions different from the doctrines of the Established Church; and that the Petitioners feel it to be their duty humbly but earnestly to remonstrate against the longer continuance of any of those intolerant laws; and they do, in conformity with the premises, expressly petition the House, that every such law may be repealed, and the rights of conscience may thus be restored to all the subjects of this United Kingdom; and the Petitioners humbly beg leave to add, that this request, as it appears to them, is grounded on the most evident considerations of justice; and they trust that the compliance of the state would yet conciliate the affection of millions of their aggrieved fellow subjects, and unite them for ever to the interests of the empire: under each of these aspects their request claims, and they hope will be found to deserve, the assent of the House, as they are statesmen anxious for the safety of their country, and as they are moralists determined to act impartially on the rules of justice; but, when the Petitioners consider farther, 420 that every attempt to influence men in their choice and profession of religion by penal laws, whether corrupt or compulsive in their operation, is contrary to the spirit of the gospel, and forbidden by its plainest precepts in numerous pasages, they hope it may be allowed them more particularly, and with all possible eereestness, to intreat the serious and sincere Christians in the House to interpose their endeavours, not only to vindicate the Gospel from the groundless charge of intolerance, but to influence this Christian state to conform its laws for the protection of the Established Church, to the purity, benignity, and exalted integrity of the religion of the Gospel, to renounce the whole system of persecution, the long accumulation of ages of barbarism and discord, and to free an almost countless multitude of injured individuals from the temptation of ensnaring tests, and the more oppressive severities of compulsive intolerance; by the success of such salutary counsels, at once restoring concord and safety to the empire, and freeing our national Church from the just reproach of retaining that support which persecuting laws can bestow, but which Christianity condemns, and would disdain to accept." The Petitions were ordered to lay on the table. |
| Sir Charles Mordaunt | presented a Petition from several merchants, manufacturers, and other 426 inhabitants of the town of Birmingham, setting forth, "That the Petitioners most humbly represent to the House, that the industry and ingenuity of British manufacturers, aided by the spirit of our invaluable constitution, have produced those great mechanical improvements, and called forth that division of labour, which have given to the merchants of this country a pre-eminence in foreign markets, and have greatly contributed to support that naval superiority which has hitherto constituted the strength and security of the nation; and that not only the revenue, but the very existence of society in its present state in this country, depends upon the prosperity of its manufactures and commerce; and that they view with the deepest regret the present ruinous situation of the manufactures and commerce of the United Kingdom, and are decidedly of opinion that the Orders in Council, by closing their commercial intercourse with the United States of America, are a principal cause of the evils they deplore; and that they consider the system of licences as a virtual acknowledgment of the impolicy of the Orders in Council, giving relief to their inveterate enemy, affording a just cause of complaint to those whom they desire to consider their friends, degrading to the character of the British merchant, subversive of morality, and highly injurious to the navy of Great Britain, a system which, at the same time that it affords a partial and dear-bought assistance to the commerce of the metropolis, renders not the smallest relief to the distressed manufacturers of the United Kingdom; and that, when nearly all the channels of trade to the continent of Europe are closed, the commerce of the East, possessed by an exclusive monopoly, and the national expenditure unparalleled in the annals of the world, the Petitioners deem it incumbent upon them earnestly to recommend to the consideration of the House, the propriety of revoking those measure which the Petitioners conceive to have been originally contrary to the recognised laws of nations, inconsistent with the principles of sound policy, and which threaten to involve this kingdom in a war with its most valuable commercial connection, America, a country linked to England by the powerful affinities of common origin, similarity of language, laws and manners; and that, in the opinion of the Petitioners, the direct tendency of 427 the Orders in Council is to force America upon her own resources, and to oblige her to become a manufacturing nation much earlier than, in the natural course of events, would be the case; and that the town and neighbourhood of Birmingham, containing a most numerous population, and being unquestionably one of the most important manufacturing districts in the British empire, have greatly depended upon a friendly intercourse with the United States of America, and are suffering most severely under the operation of the Orders in Council; and that, if this destructive system be persisted in, thousands of laborious and respectable mechanics will inevitably be deprived of their present partial and precarious employment; and whilst the Petitioners deplore their distressed situation, aggravated by the advancing price of every necessary of life, their concern is greatly heightened by the consideration, that the capital of the merchants and manufacturers is rapidly absorbing in stock, constantly depreciating in value, their ability to participate in the increasing burdens of the state pro-portionably diminishing, and their efforts consequently paralysed, at a period when all practicable means should be resorted to for cementing national union, and supporting with vigour the momentous contest in which we are engaged; and earnestly praying the House to take measures for obtaining a revocation of the Orders in Council." |
| Lord Grenville | said, that their lordships had now heard the Petitions of their fellow subjects, in number nearly one-fourth part of the population of this kingdom, praying to be relieved from disabilities and penalties which they felt to be highly injurious and oppressive to themselves. |
| Lord Redesdale. | Your lordships all know, that an oath was taken by the King at his coronation, binding him to maintain the Protestant succession; and that oath was imposed on the sovereign, to prevent him from committing any act which might endanger the constitution.—(Here the noble and learned lord read several passages of the Coronation Oath.)—All these precautions would be unnecessary, unless they were intended to impose on the conscience of the sovereign an obligation not to consent to any act which he might deem injurious to the security of the constitution, or the interests of the state. |
| Lord Redesdale. | The question then is simply this, whether the proposed act is likely to be injurious or not? |
| Marquis Wellesley. | For my own part, I should be the last man to suggest or to support any measure which I conceived injurious to the Protestant establishment. |
| The Earl of Liverpool. | I do not mean to cast any injurious reflections upon them; but your lordships are aware that in the year 1795 they applied again to parliament for the purpose of removing all their religious disabilities. |
| The Earl of Moira. | A great body of your fellow 655 subjects, debarred of a just participation in those advantages of the community which equally with yourselves, they maintain by their personal efforts and the contribution of their wealth, ought to be held intitled to know why a distinction so injurious to them should exist. |
| The Earl of Moira. | Against this most fatal and most erroneous conclusion I wish to plead: and if my humble voice can be heard, I implore this country and Ireland to repel so injurious, so ruinous a supposition. |
| Lord Grenville | That those whose loyalty you have recognized, and by whose service you daily profit, may receive its due reward in the removal of injurious and degrading disqualifications. |
| Lord Grenville | You remember the countenance given to it by prelates and statesmen, by persons whose station and whose functions, should, at least, have deterred them from the guilt of disseminating groundless alarms and grossly injurious calumnies. |
| Mr. Wellesley Pole | That government did 710 not, indeed, think it necessary when the first alarm was felt respecting the high price of provisions (arising from the cause which he had stated) to take in the first instance, a measure so injurious to the commercial interest of Ireland, and one which would give such a blow to the revenue as to stop the distilleries, but when it was found to be necessary, the Irish government did not lose a moment in resolving upon the measure, and he came down yesterday to give notice of his intention to move for a Bill to stop the distilleries. |
| Mr. Owen. | —Sir, I am ready to admit that there is no question, which, from its immense importance, is more entitled to discussion than the present; nor is there any man more ready than I am to admit, that no individual should be called to an account before any human tribunal for his religious faith, nor excluded on account of that faith from civil privileges, unless there was something in his creed injurious to the interest and safety of the state, under which he lives; but I do not consider that any question of that kind is at all connected with the motion before you, and which I conceive purely a question for granting further extension of political power to the Catholics of Ireland, and the policy of such extension is the real question which we have to consider. |
| Lord Redesdale | His lordship then observed upon the impossibility, as it appeared to him, of making any legislative provision upon this subject, without committing the greatest injustice, by operating retrospectively in the most injurious manner upon rights of property, which had in various ways, been made the subject of contract and settlement. |
| Right Hon. W. Elliot | These imputations, however, it is to be remembered, have been formally and solemnly denied by six of the most eminent Roman Catholic universities in Europe, as well as by the preambles of several statutes on the table, which not only recognize the Catholics as good and loyal subjects, and fit to be trusted with much civil and military power, but declare the restrictive laws to have been inefficacious for their purpose, and injurious to the welfare and prosperity of Ireland. |
| Mr. William Smith | Sir, the vexatious and injurious nature of these incapacities have been justly, and I think not too forcibly stated by ray hon. and learned friend. |
| Mr. Whitbread | How will the grateful hearts of the people of Ireland rejoice to find so powerful, so animated a defender—in the son of the archbishop of York—in a man who must be thoroughly informed on the subject, and who would never utter a sentiment of injurious tendency towards that establishment, over which his venerable father presides—under whose careful eye he has been educated—from whom his principles have been derived. |
| Lord Castlereagh | And I do think it is as injurious to the character and feelings as it is unconstitutional, in respect of the dignity and rank of the illustrious individual alluded to, to bring forward this allegation in such a manner, that it cannot be met and refuted, and at a time, and in a situation when that illustrious personage cannot have any opportunity of stating the circumstances under which those opinions imputed to him were formed and delivered. |
| Mr. Wharton | The Petition was then brought up and read; setting forth, "That the petitioners are compelled, by the most urgent necessity, to lay their distresses and their grievances before the House; and that the general depression of the commerce and manufactures of the country has been particularly felt by the town and port of Liverpool; that the trade has rapidly declined; and that the more laborious part of the inhabitants, consisting of shipwrights, ropemakers, sail-makers, carpenters, porters, carters, and labourers, with their numerous families, are reduced to a state of unexampled suffering and distress; and that the petitioners have heard, with surprize and indignation, that statements have been made tending to keep the House, and the country at large, in ignorance of the real state of that populous town, and denying facts which are but too grievously notorious to every inhabitant of the place; and that it is not true, as the petitioners understand it has been publicly represented, that there were not more than from 3,000 to 4,000 persons whose necessities entitled them to support and assistance from a public subscription of the inhabitants, entered into for that purpose; and that it is not true that not a single shipwright is out of employ in Liverpool, who is willing to work; and that the fact is, that the distresses of the labouring part of the community and their families having rendered relief indis- 1060 pensably necessary, a public subscription was entered into for that object in the month of December last, by which nearly 16,000 persons were in one week relieved and that the petitioners compute the number of persons so receiving relief to have been at least one-sixth part of the present population of the town; and that the falshood of the assertion, that there is no want of employ for those who are willing to work, is apparent through the whole town of Liverpool, amidst all its docks, on all its quays, and in every street, where numbers of industrious mechanics, many of whom are free burgesses of the town, are seen without employment, whilst others are compelled by their necessities to solicit in the vicinity of the town for charitable aid; and that, in addition to the want of employ, the distressed situation of the town is aggravated by the present high and rapidly increasing price of all the necessaries of life, from which evils, if some relief cannot be obtained, by the speedy interference of the House, the petitioners cannot but apprehend the most alarming and fatal consequences; and that it appears to the petitioners to be as impious as it is unjust, to attribute the distresses which affect the country principally to the dispensations of Providence, as to the productions of the soil, or to any other cause which the interference of the House, in conjunction with the other branches of the legislature, may not in a great degree remove; and that the petitioners have heard, with real alarm, that a high and confidential servant of the crow did, in the presence of his Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer, and of a respectable deputation from the inhabitants of a large manufacturing town, lately make use of language which appears to the petitioners, from the time and occasion on which it was introduced, to develope the views and intentions of ministers more decisively than thousands of state papers and public documents; and shews that they are prepared to risk the very existence of the country on the further prosecution of measures which have already reduced it to its present unexampled state of suffering; and that the petitioners cannot but avow to the House, their most solemn conviction that the distresses of the country are primarily occasioned by the present ruinous and long protracted war, by the sacrifice of the manufacturing and commercial interests of the country to war, measures injurious only to ourselves, 1061 thereby destroying and drying up the very sources of revenue, and, in particular, by the Orders in Council affecting in their operation our trade with neutral states; and that the consequences of these Orders are more particularly felt in the port of Liverpool, where, during the year 1807, being immediately prior to the operation of the Orders in Council, 489 American vessels, independently of other neutral ships, were cleared out, and where, in the course of six months, in the year 1809, when the effect of such Orders was understood to be suspended by negociation, 336 American vessels were cleared out, which ships were laden almost entirely with British manufactures, having afforded in their outfit profitable employment to great numbers of merchants, tradesmen, mechanics, and labourers of the town of Liverpool; and that, in consequence of the Orders in Council of November, 1807, continued in certain of their provisions by another Order in Council of the 2Gth of April, 1809, the shipments from neutral states to that port are become very inconsiderable; and that, in particular, the merchants of the American states, being by local regulations of their own government prevented, during the continuance of the Orders in Council, from importing, in return for their cargoes, the manufactures of this country, are compelled to draw bills of exchange for the proceeds of their shipments, which bills have been for some months last past at a discount in the united States of 15 to 20 percent., and are now nearly unsaleable at any price; a circumstance felt at the present time with particular pressure by this country, from its enhancing the price and greatly diminishing the quantity of grain and flour imported from America; and that, whilst the direct effect of the Orders in Council has been to diminish and injure the revenues, commerce, and manufactures of these kingdoms, they have also compelled neutrals to rely upon their own efforts for those articles which were before supplied by this country, and notoriously to establish manufactories of various kinds, which must eventually lead to an exclusion of British manufactures, and thereby render permanent those evils which are at present experienced; and that the petitioners cannot but contemplate with the most pointed sentiments of disapprobation, the system of a licensed trade with the enemy, by which a power of dispensing with the laws is vested in the minister for the time 1062 being, and has been exercised, as the petitioners humbly apprehend, to a most dangerous and alarming extent: that the direct and immediate effect of such measures is the increase of the naval power of our enemies, the transferring the commerce of this country to hostile and foreign traders, and the encouragement of crimes which destroy all confidence amongst civilized states, and which, when limited in their effects to these realms, are punished with the most exemplary severity; the petitioners therefore most humbly, but confidently, call upon the House to vindicate the national character, and to mark with due reprobation a system of intercourse involving the breach of all moral obligation, highly dangerous to the ultimate safety of the country, and supported by perjury, forgery, and fraud; and that the petitioners humbly conceive that these and many other evils would be done away by withdrawing the Orders in Council, that such a measure, by restoring a free intercourse between this country and neutral states, would relieve the nation in general, and the town of Liverpool in particular, from great and increasing distress, would open and restore to our manufacturers the most valuable markets which our country ever possessed, would encourage the shipments and importation of grain and flour, now so indispensably necessary to the supply of these islands, would again afford employment to the laborious part of the community, and would, as the petitioners are fully convinced, be found a speedy and substantial remedy for a great part of our present evils, and a security against those much greater calamines which appear to be rapidly approaching, and which the petitioners cannot contemplate without sentiments too alarming to be expressed; and praying, that the House will take this subject into their immediate consideration, and will afford the petitioners such relief as the House may in its wisdom think fit." |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | He never was more 1066 surprized than when he heard that an injurious impression had been loft upon the minds of some individuals present at the interview, for the deputation from Birmingham appeared perfectly satisfied with the reception afforded them. |
| Lord Stanley | The face of things was at once changed.—The remittances fell in a short time in the ratio of 100 to 30; America, almost the only neutral nation, was disgusted; her ports were shut against us, all intercourse ceased, and not only the trade which we carried on directly with her, but that which we maintained circuitously 1094 through her means, and which it was beyond the power of the enemy to prohibit, before he was aided in his views by our own injurious and disastrous policy, were sacrificed together. |
| Mr. Rose | This was the state of American commerce, and if the measures which she had thought proper to adopt were injurious to us, what were they less than ruinous to her? |
| Mr. Wilberforce | presented a Petition from the merchants, ship owners, and other inhabitants of Bridlington, in the East Riding of the county of York; setting forth, "That the approaching expiration of the East India Company's charter having occupied the attention of the House, the petitioners beg leave respectfully to state their hopes and wishes on that important subject; and that the petitioners are fully persuaded that if the trade to the British dominions in India, and to the immense and populous countries included in the charter, were laid open to the skill, industry and capital of private merchants, it would be conducted with a degree of energy and economy which a large public body is incapable of exercising; new channels of commerce would be discovered, the consumption of our manufactures extended, and our shipping increased, to the advantage of the parties concerned, and the permanent augmentation of the wealth, power and resources of the British empire; and that the extensive and flourishing commerce of the United Slates of America with India and the Chinese empire exhibits a proof that these expectations of advantage, from the exertions of private individuals, are not unfounded; and that the petitioners beg leave respectfully to represent, that any partial modification of the trade would, in their opinion, fall extremely short of those advantages which would accrue from the total abolition of the existing monopoly; and they do therefore humbly and earnestly deprecate any continuation of the Company's exclusive privilege to the commerce with China; they conceive that the British character forbids the injurious suspicion that their intercourse with the Chinese would be disturbed by a conduct deficient 1136 in discretion or propriety, whilst the Americans and other nations have maintained a similar intercourse without interruption-; they also think that no greater necessity for a monopoly exists with a view to secure the duties on tea than those on sugar, rum, or any other highly taxed article of importation; and they trust that no reason can be found, either in justice or policy, for the exclusion of the out ports from the benefit of the trade with India; and the petitioners also hope, that the House will not impose any restraint on the British merchant respecting the burthen of any vessel to be employed in the trade, but leave the choice to his own judgment and discretion; and that the commercial distresses which the petitioners have, in common with the rest of the kingdom, experienced from the enormous power and influence of the enemy on the continent of Europe, furnish abundant reasons for applying to the House, with earnestness and with confidence, for the purpose of opening new channels of intercourse with those distant regions, where the success of his Majesty's arms, by sea and by land, has established British dominion on a permanent basis, and has secured British commerce against all danger of hostile interference; and praying the House to adopt such measures, as to their wisdom shall seem meet, for granting to all his Majesty's subjects, from and after the expiration of the East India Company's charter, a free trade to and from India and its dependencies, and to and from the empire of China." |
| Sir Mark Wood | Barracks also separated them from the contagion of vice, so injurious to discipline in populous sea-ports, such as Liverpool and Bristol. |
| Mr. Huskisson | The frontage of the barracks in Mary-le-bone was nearly one-third of a mile, and the wall to in close it not less than a mile in circumference.—Thinking that the postponement could not be injurious in any point of view, he should support the amendment. |
| The Lord Advocate | He asked no privileges,—he prayed for no favour; but he demanded the fulfilment of a contract, the preservation of rights which were never considered injurious to any mortal, which were the legacy given to her children by an ancient kingdom, and which were now sanctioned by an Union of one hundred years. |
| The Earl of Longford | The war might be injurious to us, but he confidently hoped, that its continuance would not be for any very extended period.—The East India question was one of great interest, and would deservedly have the serious attention of parliament. |
| Marquis Wellesley | He hoped some explanation would be given of that assertion; for it was most injurious both to this country and to Spain. |
| Marquis Wellesley | Such was the important effect of the inactivity of Sweden, and for that inactivity, so injurious to the objects of the war, it was for ministers, in their diplomatic management with Sweden, to account. |
| Mr. Canning | This injurious mode of backing our friends by falsifying their arguments has probably silenced the advocates 75 for peace with England, and left us without a prediction in our favour on one side of congress, or an apprehension of our vengeance on the other.—Tremendous must have been, even among the stoutest-hearted of the advocates for war, the notion of the mischiefs which we could inflict upon the coasts and navy of the Uuited States. |
| Lord Grenville | It appears to me, by obvious and necessary construction, to convey a most injurious, unwarranted and groundless aspersion on the motives and principles of some of the best and wisest men both living and dead, who have ever adorned the councils or the senate of this country. |
| Lord Grenville | They know, I am certain, that nothing could be more unbecoming of their own peculiar stations—that nothing could less befit a grave, and reverend, and religious body, than the attempt to judge the consciences of others, and to fix an injurious calumny on the motives of those from whose opinions they may chance to differ. |
| Lord Redesdale | and, in others, his lordship shewed what injurious effects might result from a further delay on the death of the parties. |
| Mr. J. P. Grant, | The system was equally injurious to private annuitants, and unless so great and grieving an evil should be redressed by the application of salutary measures, and looked at steadily with the eye of a true statesman, the inconvenience would soon become not less obvious to the meanest capacity than it already was to those whose inquiries had rendered them more conversant with the subject. |
| Mr. Macdonald | He had no faith whatever in the proposed specific: but if the only alternative was, to adopt the Bill before the House, or to allow the continuance of the present delays, much as he lamented the latter, as deeply injurious to the interests of individuals, and nationally disgraceful, he would not consent to purchase an exemption from them at the price demanded. |
| Sir Samuel Romilly | There might possibly have been less indulgence, or, as he might say, less invitation to frequent hearings, and re hearings at that time, and which were now equally injurious to the clients of that Court and to the public at large. |
| Lord Castlereagh, | At the moment that America found this country, in the spirit of her usual amity, availing herself of the opportunity afforded her by France, to try whether the Orders in Council could not be put on such a footing as to cease to be injurious to American commerce—when the government of the United States found that we had revoked the Orders in Council, and that the blockade of 1806 was no longer in operation,—that these grounds, the only original grounds for hostilities, were removed from under her,—that government declared that unless Great Britain were prepared to concede the point in dispute between the two countries relative 605 to the impressment of seamen, they would persevere in war, on a ground which up to that moment had never been adduced as a threatened cause of hostility. |
| Mr. Baring | Neither would he enter upon the consideration of the Licence Trade, which had grown out of them, but was now abandoned, and given up as injurious to the country. |
| Mr. Baring | America, in calling for reparation, in his opinion, only did that which every independent country ought to do for itself, and all the proceedings of the noble lord (Caslereagh) which had a tendency to stop the treaty in limine were injurious to both nations. |
| Mr. F. T. H. Foster | When we offered to renew the treaty of 1794, it was this spirit which caused that offer to be rejected, and the party who held it to be injurious prevailed against the other, although it 624 had at its head the great Washington. |
| Mr. F. T. H. Foster | With respect to the Orders in Council, and the doctrine of blockade, he might notice, that at one time, when there was a probability of the former being rescinded, as appeared from the letter of the marquis Wellesley, so far was America from meeting it with a corresponding feeling, her government only seemed anxious to keep alive another excuse for the Non-importation Act, and for this purpose they drew from the dust, where it had lain for three years, the blockade of 1806, which had never before been complained of, and which, at the moment it passed, was not considered as injurious to the interests of the United States by their minister in this country. |
| Mr. F. T. H. Foster | The government were hurried into hostilities by a party they could not guide or controul, though evidently most injurious and dangerous to the interests of the country. |
| Mr. Whitbread | With regard to the subject of impressment, he did not mean to vindicate the American government; but yet, when he considered the multitudinous commanders we had upon the ocean, it was impossible not to suspect that this right was sometimes exercised in a manner no less injurious to England than vexatious to America. |
| Sir Francis Burdett | He says, "the Prince holds it as an undoubted and fundamental principle of the constitution, that the powers and prerogatives of the crown are vested in trust and for the benefit of the people, and they are secured only as being necessary to preserve that poise and balance of the constitution, upon which experience has shewn, depend the true security and liberty of the subject." His Royal Highness then goes on to state the mischiefs that must inevitably result from mutilating the prerogatives of the crown, and exciting suspicion in the mind of the monarch; he also makes various other complaints, and he declares that nothing but the anxious desire he feels to put an end to the anarchy then prevailing, could induce him to overcome his objections, and to try that experiment which he deprecates, "with how little power the executive government of the country may be carried on." Unfortunately, since the date of this letter, another experiment has been tried in his person, under circumstances most disrespectful to his Royal Highness, and more injurious to the public: to prevent, therefore, the recurrence of such events; to provide against contingencies; to preserve that "poise and balance of the constitution upon which experience has shewn depends the true security and liberty of the subject," and to defeat the usurpations of the legislature, in opposition to a particular statute, by which the penalties of a præmunire are incurred by those who attempt to pass any measure without the consent of the King, is my design. |
| Mr. W. Smith | presented a Petition from the there undersigned Protestant dissenting ministers of the three denominations residing in and about the 735 cities of London and Westminster; setting forth, "That the petitioners conceiving the right of worshipping God according to the dictates of their own consciences to be derived from the Author of their being, and confirmed by the Founder of their Christian faith, and therefore not to be subject to the controul of human authority, cannot but regard with deep concern those statutes which restrain and limit the exercise of this right, and impose conditions and penalties that seem to them as unjust in their principle as they are injurious to the vital interests of true religion; and that the petitioners consider those statutes as originally designed to guard against evils which no longer exist, and as expressive of sentiments with regard to the nature and extent of religious liberty, which no longer prevail, at a period when the subjects of the British empire, however they may differ with regard to the principles of their religion and their mode of professing it, concur in a cordial attachment to the family on the throne; and when enlightened views of religious liberty, and a corresponding liberality of spirit, have been diffused among religious professors of all denominations; and that the petitioners, expressing their lively gratitude for the concessions made to their religious rights, in the course of the present reign, earnestly but respectfully pray, that every remaining penal statute, which extends its operation to the province of religion, may be repealed; and that whilst they conduct themselves as loyal, obedient, and peaceable subjects, to the state, they, in common with all their fellow citizens, may be put in possession of complete religious freedom, and allowed to worship their Maker, and maintain their Christian profession according to their own views, and their incumbent duty, without being subjected, under the sanction of law, to any penalties or disabilities, in consequence of their dissent from the Established Church; and that the petitioners, confiding in the wisdom and justice of the House, pray that their cause may be taken into consideration, and the relief granted to them for which they supplicate." |
| Mr. Grattan | presented nine Petitions—of Roman Catholics of the county of Clare; of the county of Wexford; of the county and city of Water-ford; of the county of Sligo; of the county and city of Cork; of the county and city of Kilkenny; of King's county; of the county of Galway; and of the Roman Catholics of Ireland; whose names are there-undersigned, on behalf of themselves and of others professing the Roman Catholic religion; setting forth, 742 "That the petitioners cannot but regard with deep concern those statutes which restrain and limit the exercise of the right of religious worship, and impose conditions and penalties that seem to them as unjust in their principles as they are injurious to the vital interests of true religion; and that the petitioners consider those statutes as originating in causes which no longer operate, and of which no trace at present exists, and as expressive of sentiments, with regard to the nature and extent of religious liberty, which no longer prevail, at a period when the subjects of the British empire, however they may differ with regard to the principles of their religion, and their mode of professing it, concur in a cordial attachment to the family on the throne, and when enlightened views of religious liberty, and a corresponding liberality of spirit, have been diffused among religious professions of all denominations; and that the petitioners, expressing their lively gratitude for the concessions made to their religious rights in the course of the present reign, earnestly but respectfully pray, that every remaining penal statute, which extends its operation to the province of religion, may be repealed, and that, whilst they conduct themselves as loyal, obedient, and peaceable subjects to the state, they, in common with all their fellow citizens, may be put in possession of complete religious freedom, and allowed to worship their Maker, and maintain their Christian profession, according to their own views and their incumbent duty, without being subjected, under the sanction of law, to any penalties or disabilities in consequence of their difference from the Established Church; and that the petitioners, confiding in the wisdom and justice of the House, pray, that their cause may be taken into consideration, and the relief granted to them for which they supplicate." |
| Mr. Grattan | They think that the admission of five or six individuals (such men as lord Fingal, and other enlightened members of the Catholic body) into parliament, will be productive of injurious consequences, but, to the alienation of four or five millions of persons out of parliament they attach no importance! |
| Mr. Grattan | But the author might urge in his defence, that he had no particular meaning injurious to lord Fingal or Sir Thomas Bellew, but only to four millions of his Majesty's Catholic subjects. |
| Mr. Plunkett | Is it that the measure will be immediately injurious to the church, or that it will endanger the church, by enabling the Catholics hereafter to overturn it? |
| The Right Hon. Charles Yorke | This system of indifferentism, which supposes no religion to be true, is that which is the most injurious and the most opposite to the Catholic Apostolic Roman religion, which, because it is divine, is necessarily the only one; and cannot form any alliance with any other; any more than Christ with Belial, the light with darkness, truth with error, or true piety with impiety. |
| Sir J. Owen | replied, that farther delay must necessarily be injurious to himself. |
| Sir John Cox Hippisley | 851 From this statement the House will see how erroneous a view the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Yorke) has taken of this proceeding, and consequently, how much misrepresented the whole transaction has been in the public prints, and how likely to create the most injurious impressions. |
| Mr. Whitbread | The bishop of Lincoln, in his episcopal Charge, has thought proper to lay it down as a maxim to his clergy, not only to discourage the growth of Popery by all the means in their power, but also to take every opportunity of discouraging any opinions, which might have a tendency to diminish the fear of Popery, as opinions injurious to the establishment. |
| Mr. Whitbread | A more injurious, a more illiberal mode of proceeding than this cannot possibly be devised, nor one which has a stronger tendency to revive the outrages which contending sects exercised upon each other in remoter ages. |
| Sir William Scott | I find, in the interesting account given of the transactions of the Pope, under the usurpations of Buonaparté declarations of the Pope, given in pastoral instruction to this effect: "The system of indifferentism which does not in truth suppose any religion, is that which is most injurious and opposite to the Catholic religion, which, because it is divine, is necessarily sole and unique, and for that reason cannot make an alliance with any other, just as Christ cannot ally himself with Belial, light with darkness, truth with error, or true piety with impiety." Pastoral Instructor, 22d May, 1808.—So again, "We reject that all religions should be free and publicly exercised, as contrary to the canons and councils, the Catholic religion, the tranquillity of life, and the good of the state." Page 45.—So again, "The protection, much boasted of, for different worships, is only a pretext and a colour to authorise the secular power to meddle in things spiritual, since, in shewing respect for all sects, with all their opinions, customs, and superstitions, a government does not respect, in effect, any right, any institution, any law of the Catholic church. |
| Sir William Scott | "We cannot invest you with power which, we think, will be employed injuriously to interests we hold dear and sacred, but which you hold mischievous and intolerable. |
| Mr. Wood | The Canal proprietors said, if the clause were suffered to remain, it would be injurious to their interests and the interests of the public. |
| Lord Castlereagh | The Princess Charlotte was still as before permitted to see her mother once a week, when she was in town; but when she was removed to Windsor, it was found inconvenient, and injurious to her education, that a journey to London should occupy three days out of every six; it was therefore determined, that her Royal Highness, during the period of her residence at Windsor, should visit London and her royal mother but once a fortnight; but it never, that the noble lord had heard, was intended to continue this restriction beyond the residence at Windsor, and when the Princess Charlotte should have returned to town, all would have gone on as before. |
| Mr. Canning | He would not have raised the flame by calling in the aid of other persons to assist the cabinet, which had given to the proceeding a character of uneasiness and anxiety that had been very injurious. |
| Lord Castlereagh | The reduction of any part of the staff would be injurious, because it would cause a want of vigilance and regularity in the lower departments. |
| Sir J. C. Hippisley | A fact has been more than once 1222 stated, and if not explained I am given to understand it may be subject to injurious misconception: I had formerly observed that Dr. Bellew, the present bishop of Killala, unfortunately had a brother deeply engaged in the Rebellion of 1798. |
| Mr. Wilberforce | What weighed with him in the vote he should give was, that the elective franchise had already been conceded to the Catholics, and it would be absurd and injurious, after having granted such privileges, to deny them seats in the two Houses. |
Injurious weeds and the law | Why “harmful weeds” misrepresents the law