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all we wish by the war, we must obtain solution, and of disturbing other states.— all we can. Where the best thing is unat- Gentlemen contend that the character of tainable, the second best must be had. Buonaparté should not come into consiFrom the beginning to the present period deration. They deprecate any discussion of the war, there has been no variation of this kind, and think it fraught with the in the grounds of its continuance. Since worst of consequences. Time and occa. I have been connected with the ministry, sion, Sir, do not invite me to say much by no expression of mine could it be sup- on this subject; I will only observe, that posed that I in the least differed from what has been said of Buonaparté did not them. The endeavours, therefore, that arise from any peevish satisfaction in gentlemen have made to fix on my con- weighing his character in the disadvanduct the character of change and indeci- tageous scale, but from the real necessity sion, are altogether unjust. I am not of the case. Before we treat with any ashamed of my sentiments, and have one, we must consider their character and always avowed them openly; this has conduct; nothing could be more reasonsometimes procured me the praise of can- able; how else shall we be able to rely on dour; and at others, the slur of indis- his sincerity? Buonaparté has been held cretion; but I am as little inclined to take out as a hero: this, one would suppose, the praise, as to admit the slur.-There was no recommendation in the eyes of is one question which gentlemen have those who are always declaiming against asked that deserves a definitive answer- kings and conquerors, and war and blood"Will you," they say, "fight for the shed. Yet even this hero, armed with the restoration of that monarchy in France, power of a king, can be contemplated which was always hostile to this country, without fear, and even with pleasure; and has been the occasion of our wars while kings in general are branded with and debt?" This, Sir, is a matter of being lovers of war and murderers of mancalculation. The monarchy of France kind. Such are the prejudices that genexisted 800 years; and if we consider the tlemen are willing to entertain, because evils it occasioned us in that time, pon- two thousand years ago a king and a condere non numero, we shall find them far queror were synonymous terms; yet the inferior to those accumulated upon us union of these characters in Buonaparté by the unprovoked aggressions, the plots, becomes only a venal failing, and he is and the arts of France, in the short still to be endured; as a king he is no course of her 8 years revolution. What longer despotic; as a conqueror, it seems, is found most execrable in the history of he is not the plunderer of mankind. Tried the worst times, has been the every-day in a court of chivalry, indeed, his actions practice of France. Leaving the notion might dazzle; but they would not even for a moment, of treating with that coun- there bear a scrutiny.-Let us now come try as it now exists, let us suppose a to the sincerity of Buonaparté in wishing Bourbon on the throne; might not better to make a general peace. His love of terms of peace be expected from him than peace will be seen in that with Austria, from the present chief consul? Would which was made on his part chiefly with not peace with him be more permanent? a view of carrying war into another quarThe very condition in which a prince just ter of the world. He was in hopes, by reinstated in his throne would feel him- having the command of the army of Engself, would be a security for the limitation land, of subjugating this country to the of his views, and the permanency of his authority of France. In the intercepted engagements; neither, with a disposition letters from Egypt also we have several to be hostile, could he act with the same specimens of his sincerity. Yet, for the sake force as a republic. For some time also of suffering humanity, we are called upon he must, in a great measure, be depen- to make peace with this man. Peace at dant for security on neighbouring nations. all events, without considering what kind, In course of years, however, this same is the cry. Just like the man who turned monarchy, I own, might degenerate in prin- his dirty shirt, and exclaimed: "Oh the ciple as it increased in power, and be even comforts of clean linen!" It has been as hostile to us as the previous government. often asked, what is Jacobinism? I say, It would, however, possess the character of we know it but by its effects; it breaks stability, and capacity to respect treaties, up the institutions of every country where while the present government of France it takes root; its explosions are like those carries in its bosom the seeds of its own dis-of a volcano, sudden and destructive, and

and the owners their estates, would not long scruple, if opportunity offered, to render the same resumption necessary in this country.-The temporary scarcity of provisions is no reason for not prosecuting the war, though it has been represented as almost an invincible objection. If it is of such weight we ought to make peace at any rate. But I object altogether to topics of this kind, on the ground that they are Jacobinical; it is pressing into the service of the question things that do not belong to it. The question of war and scarcity must stand on separate grounds. By exciting among the people discontent on account of the scarcity, important proceedings of administration may be impeded, so as even to force ministers to abandon measures whereon depend the welfare and salvation of the country. On account, therefore, of the mischiefs which are liable to arise from thus mixing topics unconnected in their nature, the practice fully deserves to be branded with the name of Jacobinism, the great characteristic of which is, to take advantage of the discontents of mankind, and turn them to its own purposes.

The Committee divided: Ayes, 162; Noes, 19.

it has almost brought ruin on Europe. At the same time, I own, there is some difficulty in defining it: it can easily transfer its regard from one government to another; at one time universal representation is the true art of governing in its estimation, and at another it is quite overlooked and forgotten. This puts me in mind of a conversation which I had lately with a friend at Norwich, whom I knew to be tainted." Brissot (said he) was a fine fellow!" "If he was so (said I), what was he who cut off Brissot's head?" He was a fine fellow too," answered this weak person. Just so with some gentlemen in this House. In the French revolution, the last murderer is always the hero, and his sentiments and conduct the most estimable for a time; for this reason it is that there is such difficulty in describing Jacobinism: it is a kind of quality that may as well be presented to the mind as chaos itself; it is the very negative of all order. A Jacobin government is a revolutionary government; it is founded on the ruin of every thing permanent and dear to man: it robs the owner of his property to give it to the worthless, and despoils the people of their dearest rights and privileges. We are not to suppose that the danger of Jacobinism is over because it lies dormant, or because liberty Mr. Abbot's Motion for a Committee is destroyed. If the latter circumstance on the State of the Public Records.] Feb. could have precluded danger, all attach 18. Mr. Abbot rose to call the attention ment for Jacobinism must have ceased of the House to the state of the public from the beginning; for that and liberty records of the kingdom. Whoever had have never been found to exist one mo- reflected upon the importance of prement together. Yet there are even now serving the public records and archives persons in this country who wish well to the in any country which enjoyed the blessings government at present in France, and who of a settled constitution and government, would feel its establishment as the triumphof and looked to the condition of our public their sentiments and opinions. Such are the records in this country, with a view to persons who justify the rights of man on their practical utility in matters of legisevery occasion. The progress of these lation, state, or judicature, would cerprinciples is by them deemed no evil, but tainly find them, in some of the principal meets with their warmest support. Those repositories, preserved with sufficient order that wish for peace with Buonaparté, wish and regularity, and in some few, with a it with more than natural ardour, and method and care which are exemplary; blame, therefore, with proportionate in- but in numberless instances, and in many temperance, every measure adopted with of the most important departments, they a contrary view; and this arises solely were wholly unarranged, undescribed, and from their regard for the present upstart unascertained; some of them exposed to French monarchy. The interest of this erasure, alteration, and embezzlement, by country is not to implicate itself with the interested parties, and others lodged in French government, for by so doing every places where they are daily rotting by proceeding which has disgraced France damp, or incurring the continual risk of would meet with our tacit justification; destruction by fire.-That this state of and men who think it would be a great things had come to pass, was not owing calamity to see the rightful sovereign of to any intentional disregard of this subFrance resume his throne and authority,ject, on the part of the crown, or parlia[VOL. XXXIV.]

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ment; but to a variety of events, all of accumulation of materials in every dewhich had contributed, in different ways, partment to which that investigation exto produce this result. The public atten- tended, but many other repositories of tion had been directed to this object, great national importance, such as the from early times. In some of the very courts maritime and ecclesiastical, had first petitions upon the rolls of parliament, not fallen within the scope of the former the public records of the kingdom are em- inquiries, nor had they extended to Scotphatically styled the people's evidences, land. And besides that the Cathedral and it is ordained that they shall be made and University libraries were not then exaccessible to all the king's subjects. At plored, the public had since acquired some periods the sovereign alone, at others other collections equal in value to any of the houses of parliament separately, and those already enumerated, such as the at others the king and parliament con- Royal, the Harleian, and the Sloanian, jointly, had interposed to make special which now constitute the British Museum. provisions and regulations for their due Thus, the difficulties of introducing method preservation and arrangement. But, un- and arrangement had multiplied with the fortunately, almost all the provisions esta- increase of materials: in addition to which, blished by the vigilance of successive a new source of embarrassment had been reigns were broken down by the civil wars created by the change which took place of the last century, and no effectual mea- during the same interval of time in the sures were adopted to retrieve the mis- language and written character of judicial chiefs produced by those times of confu- proceedings; a change which, without sion until the reign of queen Anne. At questioning its utility in other respects, that period lord Halifax, in conjunction had altered the mode of education of with the then speaker, Mr. Harley (after those persons whose professional habits wards lord Oxford), projected and carried should have made them most conversant into effect the design of collecting that with these matters; so that few, very few magnificent compilation of State papers persons possessing even by tradition the and records which the public now possess technical knowledge belonging to these under the name of Rhymer's Fædera. But subjects are now to be met with.-It was as that great national work chiefly related obvious that the practical evils resulting to the foreign transactions of this country, from this train of circumstances must be lord Halifax afterwards, with the zealous very considerable. And some of them co-operation of lord Somers, proposed to were so striking and singular, and of such the House of Lords to investigate the opposite sorts, that the statement of them state of our domestic records, as connected would prove the urgency of some parliawith our internal laws and government. mentary interposition. Within the walls That inquiry was prosecuted without in- of the House of Commons itself, there termission, and with many salutary conse- were loads of records, noticed in the requences, through the reigns of queen ports of parliament nearly a century ago, Anne and George 1st down to the com- and of which no man knew the contents, mencement of the reign of his late ma- though they were supposed to belong to the jesty; at which time this House was in- courts of common law; but nevertheless duced, after the fire, which happened to they still remain in their present situation, the Cottonian library, to set on foot for want of some proper authority to reanother inquiry by its own authority, still move them, or to receive them elsewhere. more extensive and effectual; and the In the courts of common law themselves, very valuable report made at the conclu- those rolls which are called the Docquets sion of that proceeding, together with an of Judgments, and materially concern the earnest and unanimous address of the titles to landed property, so far as they House of Commons in support of the belong to the court of King's-bench, are measures which it recommended, was laid exposed to the daily risk of being burnt; at the foot of the throne.-Since that and those of the Common-pleas, besides transaction, a period had elapsed of nearly suffering an equal risk of fire, are actually seventy years, during which some of the perishing by damp. In the Exchequer of measures recommended by that report equity, such is the defect of establishhad been adopted very effectually, although ment, that any of the ancient decrees reothers of them had not been fully exe-lating to tithes, boundaries, customs, and cuted. And not only the very lapse of other rights, of the most valuable nature, time had progressively superadded a large may be falsified, or removed by any per

taking the most effectual means for their arrangement and preservation. Many strong reasons of personal interest and public policy must prove this to every man who had either landed property to defend, or who felt a value for the constitution under which he lived. And what

those things were regarded in the abstract, he would ask any land-owner, either in the House or out of it-whether, if his title came to be litigated, he would not resort to those repositories with the greatest anxiety, and think himself most secure if he found it was warranted by some royal grant, some ancient perambulation, or public survey. Corporate franchises, and many of the most valuable rights of the church, had no other solid foundation; and in parliament itself, besides the periodical discussions which arise before committees upon election rights, which are often deeply involved in these researches,

son whatever, almost without check or restraint; and there were persons at this time within hearing, who knew that such abuses had been practised. In the office of the lord treasurer's remembrancer the evil was of a different sort; and there, for want of accommodation, the records were utterly inaccessible, so that ques-ever might be the indifference with which tions of public moment were now suspended for the want of documents, known to be lodged here, but which could not be produced, or selected, from the general mass of confusion. In the Pipe-office, another branch of the Exchequer, where by law every public accountant ought to have his quietus recorded, it had been represented three years ago to a committee of this House (the finance committee) that no person, however deeply interested in the affairs of any public accountant, either as principal or surety, could obtain a certificate of the state of his final balance or discharge. An evil of a still different sort occurred in the instance-whenever the two Houses unhappily of special commissions for the trials of treasons; and however strange it might appear, it was strictly true, that the proceedings under the commission executed in the north after the rebellion in 1745, and those in London in 1794, and at Maidstone in 1798, remained now in the unauthenticated custody of private persons, without any blame whatever being imputable to them-but for want of proper process to remove them to their proper place of deposit. And, as to the affairs of Scotland or Ireland, so broker and disjoined were all the documents relating to those countries, that there was no place in which any man might not search for them with some expectation of success, and no place where he could be certain that his search would be successful.-He next stated, that although this was the real condition of the public records, he was by no means confident that some persons might not be of opinion, that no great harm would ensue if all these parchments and papers were left to perish in their dust, or were fairly disposed of by one general conflagration; and he was disposed to apprehend this the more because it was well known that the levellers in the last century had actually proposed that expedient, and there might be some men now, who not unwisely for the same ends, might hold the same opinions. But this was perfectly clear, that there could be no rational medium whatever, between adopting that summary expedient, or

differ, it is by the recorded transactions of their ancestors that their conferences must be guided; for they have no other umpire to which they can resort; and even parliament, in its entire capacity, has at no very distant period, and upon occasions of the most solemn concern, looked to those repositories for the most certain standard of its proceedings, in times and upon questions the most arduous. He trusted, therefore, that it was not too much to assert, in the language of lord Halifax's Report" that it will be a public damage, and dishonour to the kingdom, to suffer such monuments of antiquity to perish."He then proceeded to state the leading points, to which he proposed that the present enquiry should be directed. In the first place, he proposed to call upon the proper officers of every principal repository in England, who was entrusted with any records or instruments in which the public has a concern, requiring him to state the sorts of instruments in his possession, and the periods of time to which they relate; extending this enquiry also to Scotland, where matters of this nature had been in all times regulated with the most exemplary care; and meaning that the contents of all these returns should be afterwards methodized and digested by competent and experienced persons, to be authorized and employed for the express purpose of furnishing the House with the most correct information in the most convenient form. In the next place,

of this country, at the periods to which they relate.-But there was still one object beyond all these, upon which he could not but entertain a sanguine hope; that every new light thrown upon this subject would convince parliament at last of the necessity and facility of establishing a general registration of all instruments affecting landed property. In Scotland this system has already prevailed for ages, with the happiest consequences to those who belong to that part of the united kingdom; in Ireland the same system has obtained for near a century, with the same beneficial consequences; and in the two most populous districts of England, namely, Middlesex and Yorkshire, where the same plan has been established for the same length of time, though upon a narrower scale, it has been found to add a distinct and specific value to the property which it secures; many recent events have contributed to dissipate the prejudices which once hung upon this question, and it now remains only by transcribing one short and approved law to extend the same benefits throughout the rest of England. This considered merely as an improvement of our juridical system would be one of the greatest which could be devised. But as a measure of state policy, it was demonstrably clear, that whatever establishes security and good faith between man and man in transactions respecting landed property, tends to facilitate the

he should propose to ascertain the state of the buildings in which the public records are lodged, as to their security and accommodation; with a view to have those public buildings repaired which may require it, and in some instances possibly to render other buildings public property, which are at present inconveniently holden by private tenure; but in no case to disturb any possession, or change the custody of any records, except perhaps in some very few instances of most evident right, and upon the most cogent reasons of unquestionable utility. And, in the last place, for the purpose of rendering the access to these repositories most complete, to call for an explanation of the state of their catalogues and calendars, and also of their establishments and regulations for conducting searches, with a view on this head to provide more effectually for the security of the records themselves, at the same time that the use of them might be rendered more convenient to his majesty's subjects. From this course of proceeding, beyond the execution of these particular details, there were also other consequences likely to follow, and which ought not to be wholly unnoticed. The very event of a parliamentary visitation would impress the officers of each department with a stronger sense of their duty, knowing that their conduct, if meritorious, would not be unobserved, and that any culpable negligence might not escape animadversion; and this salutary impres-reciprocal exchange and conversion of sion would endure long after the event of the landed and monied capital; and the this particular enquiry, because the period giving to capital an increased activity, when a similar visitation might be ex- will necessarily increase its total amount. pected to occur must always be indefinite. Nor was it altogether to be disregarded Another consequence which might pro- as offering a new and reasonable source bably follow, would be the discovery of of revenue; for no man would have to many valuable monuments of the policy pay for recording his title, without_receivof our ancestors, which it might not being at the same time a specific and correunprofitable to keep in view hereafter; and if the survey of this country, contained in the books of Domesday, has been always truly accounted a work of great public importance, it would be gratifying to the House to know that other surveys may be found, which were executed in the reign of Edward 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, (for some of them the honourable member had seen), which would be of infinitely greater value than Domesday itself, if they should be found complete, inasmuch as they come two or three centuries nearer to our own times, and contain more curious and comprehensive views of the civil and ecclesiastical state

sponding benefit, by the additional security given to his possession; and the produce of such a revenue would be continually rising with the multiplied population and increasing prosperity of the country. He concluded with stating, that although he had dwelt upon these latter topics, because they made part of his general view of the subject, it was not his intention to propose any examination of what might be politic for the House to adopt, in respect of any new institution, or any extension of former systems, but only to ascertain the state of those already established. He therefore moved, "That a Committee be appointed to en

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