in cases of imperfect pardon both at home and in the colonies. Mr. Peel said, that in all cases a pardon under the sign-manual would operate as a full pardon. Mr. Lockhart adverted to another anomaly in clergyable offences -that a party successful in praying his clergy, could avail himself of that benefit so as to prevent his prosecution for all clergyable of fences committed previously. That opinion had been sanctioned by one of the judges, in a recent case tried in Essex. Mr. S. Rice advised the extension of these ameliorations in the criminal law to Ireland, as freely as former governments had extended the severities of the English code. For example, the statute of Henry VIII., which made words treason, was extended to Ireland. It was repealed for England by 2 Philip and Mary, but not for Ireland. The honourable member for Knaresborough introduced several bills, which had passed, for ameliorating the code; but they were not extended to Ireland, though the parliament had been entreated to do so. Mr. Bernal, understanding that the right honourable gentleman was about to introduce a bill for regulating the police-offices, took the opportunity of adverting to a circumstance which gave much public disgust without any corresponding benefit. He alluded to the practice of parading numbers of offenders chained together between the police-offices and the gaols to which they were to be committed. Some of the magistrates had laudably undertaken to wave that loathsome ceremony, and to send the culprits in hackney-coaches. He would suggest the advantage of a strong close caravan, to be kept for that purpose. Mr. Peel said, that one caravan would not be enough. The offices were so far asunder, that they would each require one, and the expense would be too great. The subject had engaged his attention, and he had expressly encouraged the magistrates to order hackneycoaches. Mr. Hume rose to move for the copy of the despatch of Marquis Hastings, of the year 1819, respecting the organization of the Indian army. He began by observing, that nothing was more desirable in regard to the government of India, than that it should be well managed on one side; and on the other, that the government there should not be annoyed or disturbed by any improper interference from the parliament, or any other body at home. He deprecated the origin of the late war in India as highly dangerous to the British possessions: once commenced, a common feeling of security demanded that it should be carried through successfully. He admitted that there had been a succession of wise and able governments, and he had hoped that under the Marquis of Hastings, who had shown himself one of the persons best qualified for the station, that the prosperity of those, possessions would have reached the highest pitch. He had expected that the liberal system of European politics penetrating these distant provinces, would have removed the shackles and restrictions which kept in the energies and resources of that country. He entreated the house to weigh well the effect of good or bad govern❤ ment ment upon that large and fruitful territory, to consider its extent and resources, and to reflect upon the powers by which it was held in obedience to the British. A military force, which comprised only 22,000 Europeans, held an extent of country reaching from the utmost Indus to the Burmese country-from the mountains of Thibet to the southernmost point of Asia. The population of this immense tract, amounting to 80 or 90 millions or more, had settled down in peace with us. The offices of government were ably filled-the civil servants in good understanding with each other. This state of things continued while the Marquis of Hastings remained in India as governor-general, and for some time after his departure. The case was very different as soon as Lord Amherst was sent out. He did not blame Lord Amherst for going, but he blamed those who sent him. Nobody who knew any thing about the government of India, or was at all connected with that country, could lay his hand upon his heart and conscientiously declare that he thought Lord Amherst a proper or a competent man for such a situation as he held, however amiable his lordship's private character might be a point which he (Mr. Hume) readily conceded to the hon. gentlemen opposite. He did not deny that in a time of peace, with the assistance of an able council, Lord Amherst might be competent, possibly, to discharge the duties of his high station; but he did contend that in a time of war, when numerous and skilful enemies were attacking our frontiers, he was a very improper person for such a post. 1825. A period of little more than two years had sufficed to verify the fears of many who conceived that Lord Amherst ought never to have been sent out in such an arduous capacity. Under his government, the country had been plunged into a war which could not now be closed with any advantage to the interests of the East India company. For the sake of the argument, however, he would admit to the right hon. gent. (Mr. Wynn) that the Burmese war, under the circumstances, was a just and proper war, and an event that was not to be adverted. But he now came to another question, and that was-how a war of this kind, having been commenced, ought to have been carried on and continued? The hon. gent. (after condemning the declaration of the Burmese war, as an unnecessarily rash and precipitate measure, even if the government had, on more reflection, found it necessary to take a similar step) maintained that it was impossible for any competent judge to sanction for one moment the conduct which had been pursued throughout the prosecution of that business by Lord Amherst. Every body must be aware that India had its periodical rainy seasons, during the prevalence of which no military operations could, with propriety, be commenced. This was a fact upon which he was not speaking theoretically merely, but from his own practical experience. He had himself been out in the wet season, and in camp, in India; and he knew well the disastrous effects which service at such times produced upon European constitutions. Would not the house be astonished to learn, however, that since the commencement of the Burmese campaign, in a wet season, out of an European force of 10,000 men, more than 1,500 remained unavailable? It had been the invariable rule of all former governors-general to undertake no war during such seasons. Now, seeing that Lord Amherst was vested with such powers, that he could act in the matter without any control from other quarters, and that having undertaken the Burmese war, he had chosen to despatch the troops to Rangoon during the wet season; no man, surely, could stand up to defend Lord Amherst's conduct at so critical a juncture. Our troops, as British troops, on whatever service they might be engaged, always would do, had made repeated attempts to bring the main force of the enemy into action: but in these attempts they had been unsuccessful. The consequence of these delays, the weather, and their fatigues, had been a mortality among them, so dreadful in its amount, that he (Mr. Hume) was almost afraid to state what he had heard upon that subject. Unhappily, no certain public information was now officially communicated in such cases by the government in India; and the press in that country not being allowed to speak out on political news of this kind, people in this country could only resort to the medium-possibly a perverted one -of private letters. If he might speak upon such authority as that -if he might speak from letters written by parties actually on the spot-he (Mr. Hume) should state to the house, that on the part of the Europeans we had lost by disease and casualties from 800 to 1,000 out of 10,000 men, Taking the lowest average, however, the mortality arising from these causes, and from the diseases to which persons not accustomed to such fatal seasons must inevitably be exposed during such a state of operations, had certainly been of the most alarming and extensive character. The general result of the campaign had been this—that we had received a variety of checks, which had excited a degree of alarm all over Hindoostan, such as had scarcely ever been before excited throughout our empire there. It had never been heard of before, that the Bengal native troops would refuse to march, when a service of danger and importance called for their services. In his time no such incident had ever happened, unless, indeed, he were to except a slight mutiny that occurred among these troops in the year 1795, in the new appointment of some commandants of corps-appointments which had never since been renewed. To the honour of the native troops, instances of insubordination were very rare among them. The native army at present stood on very ticklish ground. A severe example had been made of the mutineers among them; and, indeed, it was felt by those who were best acquainted with the whole subject, that that example had been much more severe than it ought to have been. He (Mr. Hume) was at a loss to know what was the original and immediate cause of the mutiny at Barrackpore-whether it was some misunderstanding of the orders of the governor-general, or deficiency of such orders, or some difficulty in executing them, occasioned by the Burmese Burmese war. When he hinted at the severity of the punishment that ensued, he would not for one moment defend the recourse of the parties to arms. However grievous or just, even, their complaints might have been, there could be no doubt that the welfare of India required the immediate suppression of their mutiny. After its suppression, the government might have had time to consider the matter maturely, and inquire into its detail with calmness; and had there been a governor-general of talent, and a competent council to advise him, he (Mr. Hume) thought the matter would have taken a very different course from that which it had taken. Was it possible that in any country-but in India of all others-any government could, under circumstances of so unfortunate a description, resort to a measure of extraordinary severity, that should confound the innocent with the guilty? For his own part, he did not know of any instance in the annals of military punishment, that could furnish a parallel to the punishment which was inflicted on the 47th Native regiment. When the three officers who were deputed to undertake that difficult duty had exhausted every effort to repress the mutiny of the corps, and to induce them to return to their duty, they called upon all those who still held, and were true, to the government and the company, to separate themselves from the mutineers. Every commissioned and non-commissioned officer in the regiment left the ranks, and returned with the three persons composing the deputation. He had already said that he thought the punishment of the It mutineers was too severe; but would it be believed, (although such was the statement published in the Calcutta Gazette that he held in his hands), that the governor-general issued a proclamation in which he stated that it was impossible the mutiny could have taken place without the privity of the commissioned and non-commissioned officers of the regiment; and that therefore, as being no longer worthy to serve in the armies of the government, they were dismissed from the service with infamy? Such was the treatment of these gallant men, whose fidelity, instead of punishment, should have been rewarded, honoured, and remembered. was after their dismissal — as if blunder was to be heaped upon blunder by the government of Lord Amherst that a court of inquiry was to be instituted into the conduct of these officers-that was, after they had been thus punished and degraded. If he was rightly informed, the despatch to the court of directors, announcing the intelligence of the mutiny, concluded by stating, that if it should appear in the course of the inquiry, that the conduct of the native officers was justified, they could be reinstated in their rank. This was the way in which atonement was to be made to them for their dismissal, and the manner of that dismissal. He called upon every gentleman who had lately received letters from any of the presidencies, to come forward and declare whether people in all parts of India were not agreed that Lord Amherst was the most unfit and the most incompetent man for his high office that could have been selected. It had be come an act of duty on the part of the house to inquire whether the government at home had or had not yet taken any measures to remedy the evils of this nobleman's appointment. ("Hear," from Mr. Wynn.) He was glad to hear that cheer from the right hon. gent.; for when all official information on such matters was so studiously concealed from the public in India-when facts of this grave nature only now and then crept out, as it were, it was no wonder that some cases were magnified, and others diminished, through the uncertain reflection of private accounts. No persons, in England, therefore, could be justly blamed for being but erroneously informed on such topics. Speaking to the best of his own knowledge, he must say that the discontents which took place at the moving the troops from Calcutta to the south-east part of the frontier the grumbling of the army, in short, might have sufficiently informed the governorgeneral of the necessities of the army, and might have taught him the duty of relieving them, especially as they had loudly preferred their complaints for three weeks previously. Formerly, when the native troops passed our Indian frontier, they were paid double full batta; but that allowance had been subsequently reduced, and pared down, and confined, first to Lucknow-then to Cawnporethen to Benares, and so on, until this allowance to the native, and even the European troops, was reduced closely to that point which was equivalent to the provision of mere and absolute necessaries. Perhaps the house was aware, that in order to enable the sepoys to move their baggage and their families with facility, they used to be accommodated with the necessary cattle on easy terms. They had some bullocks and some cooleys for this purpose; the fact being, that for every single soldier in an Indian army there were on an average about ten followers, which, indeed, were in some sort necessary: it being impossible in that hot climate for sepoys or any other troops to carry behind them the same quantity of baggage on a march, that soldiers carried in other countries. When the troops were ordered to move from Barrackpore, upon the south-east frontier, dividing Hindoostan from the Burman empire, the government at Calcutta were apprized of the wants of the sepoys, in respect to these necessary and accustomed accommodations. But govern ment had purchased up every sort of carriage previously; and if even, as it was said, the sepoy regiments had each of them 5,000 rupees for the purchase of these articles, there were in fact hardly any to be purchased. ("Hear," from Mr. Wynn.) So little did the right honourable gentleman know about India, that he (Mr. Hume) was willing to rest the whole of his case upon the fact that no carriages were to be had, even for money, without the assistance and influence of the English civilians in India; and for the truth of this statement he would appeal to several military and civil gentlemen who were cognizant of the fact, having been themselves in India. Nothing could be a more grievous inconvenience to the Sepoys, than the deprivation of such assistance and accommodation. Formerly the commander of march |