borough continued to be the same as at the time of taking the population in 1821. They likewise had given, and would give, the most anxious attention, to any memorial from any particular place, pointing out errors in the returns, and they had likewise carefully considered the petitions from particular places which had been presented to the House. There were, then, four data on which they meant to proceed in ascertaining the number of inhabitants in different boroughs

1. The original population returns;-2. The corrected population returns;-3. Memorials laid before the Secretary of State, by persons well known, complaining of inaccuracy in the existing returns ;-and 4. The petitions presented to the House on this subject. Carefully looking to all the documents, ministers hoped that they would be able to make an efficient correction, with reference to the places contained in the schedules A and B: so that a fair and equal course should be adopted with respect to the different boroughs concerned. There was, for instance, before the House, a petition from the burgesses of Buckingham, shewing very clearly that certain parts of the town of Buckingham were not contained, as they ought to have been, in the population return-and which, if added to the existing return, would, they believed, raise the population to 3,000. The whole of this statement was so particular and so clear, that it contained, in his opinion, sufficient reasons for taking the borough of Buckingham out of schedule A. Again, with respect to the borough of Truro, a memorial had been presented to the secretary of state, which would also be laid before the House,

showing, that the whole population of the town of Truro was not fairly represented in the returns of 1821. On the other side, a memorial had been presented from the town of Guildford, stating that it contained a greater number of inhabitants than was set forth in the returns. That document averred that some streets, which ought to have been included in the returns, were omitted. The memorialists did not, however, state what part of the town those streets were situated in, neither did they say what was the total amount of the population, according to their view, in 1821.

Under these circumstances, unless some other petition was presented to the House, or a different or more explicit memorial was laid before the secretary of state, it would be impossible to omit Guildford from the schedule B. He thus gave notice to such boroughs as could make out a clear case, that their population had been under-rated, and that they contained more than 2,000, or more than 4,000 inhabitants in 1821, in order that they might apply, in proper form, to the House. With respect to taking the population, in relation to the borough or parish, ministers thought it right to adopt the same rule with regard to all boroughs; because, in many places, it was impossible to distinguish the borough from the parish, especially when the parish bore the same name as the borough. The whole bill had, during the recess, been maturely considered by his majesty's ministers. They had examined it most attentively, to see whether they could make any improvement in it. With regard to the wording of the bill, considerable alterations had been made, but nothing what

great, and if it should decide to retain the whole, ministers would not think it such a deviation from the principle of the bill as would induce them to abandon it. On the contrary, they would then be prepared to recommend to the House the manner in which those members should be disposed of; adhering to their original principle, that no members should sit for boroughs which came within the line of disfranchisement which they had felt it their duty to draw. The members thus to be disposed of, should the House so decide, they would recommend to be given in many cases to large towns, but in all to large bodies, adhering as much as possible to that balance of interests which was at present kept up in the country; but he begged to be distinctly understood, that the retaining the whole number of members was in no one degree to touch that principle which went to the disfranchisement of the rotten boroughs. If, after the government had proposed the number of

which they thought the House ought to consist, the House should compel ministers, by a division, to increase that number, then they would take in populous towns, or populous bodies of constituency, and bestow the elective franchise on them." These declarations could not be misunderstood. The only reduction of members proposed by the government was, the cutting off sixty-two members from the representation of England; no proposal to prevent that reduction could have reference to any thing else; and they had declared that they would not consider a successful proposal to avoid that reduction any encroachment on the vital and essential parts of the bill; while they were perfectly right in saying, that to retain the sixty-two members, for the purpose of restoring them, in whole, or in part, to the decayed boroughs, was a very different mea. sure, to which they never would accede.

field Salford,

Stoke on Trent (Potteries), while Halifax was restricted to the township, and to return only one member, the parish being twenty-five miles in extent. Sons of freemen, entitled to the privilege of freemen, on their coming of age, born before the introduction of the bill, and apprentices, having entered into indentures in the same manner, were to retain their franchise, on taking out their freedom, being resident, and registered under the provisions of the bill.

General Gascoyne moved as an instruction to be given to the committee,-"That it is the opinion of this House, that the total number of knights, citizens, and burgesses, returned to parliament for that part of the united kingdom called England and Wales, ought not to be diminished." His motion, he said, was not founded on any superstitious attachment to a particular number, but was directed against the principle of the reduction. Neither was it founded on any hostility to an increase of the representation of Ireland and Scotland, but to their aggrandizement at the expense of England. Let Ireland and Scotland obtain their additional members, but let it not be at the expense of England. The proposed reduction of the English representation could not be defended on any principle of necessity, or justice, or expediency. It could not be defended on the ground of the population of Ireland having increased so much as to warrant such an increase of the relative number of its representatives in that House; for, if population were taken as the basis of the Irish representation, it ought also to be taken as the basis of the Irish taxation. That it was not

so was plain, and had been urged as an argument in favour of the legislative union with Ireland by Mr. Pitt. At that time the population of Ireland amounted to 4,200,000 persons-the taxation was 4,600,000l.; while the population of England was 10,700,000, and the taxation 27,700,000l. At present Ireland did not contribute more than one-tenth of taxes in proportion to its population as compared with this country, so that, if population were taken as the ground for adding to the representatives of that country, it ought also to be made the basis of a more equal taxation. What would be the feelings of Ireland and Scotland, if the bill proposed to add to the English representation at the expense of the representation of Ireland and Scotland? And was England to be stripped of her relative share without remonstrance? Were they blind to the unanimity with which the representatives of Scotland and Ireland resisted every plan, emanate where it might, which tended to equalize the burthens of the state in all parts of the united kingdom? In the divisions on the property tax, on the assessed taxes, on the spirit duties-in fact, on every new impost whatever the Irish and Scotch members always voted so as to throw the weight of the taxes off their own shoulders on the people of England; and yet here was a proposition which took from the English representation and added to that of Scotland and Ireland. Did they forget that ministers were compelled to exempt Scotland and Ireland from the operation of the metallic currency bill, in consequence of the opposition of the members of those countries?-that eighty-three out