great unwillingness indeed on the part of the magistrates to arrive at the conclusion; and that on their part, as well as my own, every thing has been done to warn the peasantry of the consequence of their persevering in outrage. Several meetings took place, and printed notices were posted up, to assure them that the magistrates would only be driven to this measure by their illegal proceedings.

In the interval since the memorial went up, and the absence of any outrage until last night, I was still anxious at least for postponement; and I asked two or three respectable and intelligent magistrates confidentially, if they thought we might try to get on without the proclamation; but their opinion was decidedly that they feared the people would think we were trifling with them; and as we had so repeatedly cautioned them, and they still persevered in defiance of our forbearance, they might think that there was some cause for the refusal: in truth, the only difference of opinion on the subject was as to the boundary of the proclaimed district. I am anxious to detail to you, by letter, the leading circumstances of our proceedings, in order that you may estimate how far they are consistent with my view of the case.

I fear you will think I have been too prolix; but on a subject which I know the Lord Lieutenant feels of deep importance, I think it bet ter to err on the side of detail, than of conciseness. I will only add, that I approach this subject with feelings of great concern, and I trust his Excellency will not suppose that I would either relax in any effort to avert it, or that I would offer an opinion that

did not feel I had grounds for doing, on the most anxious and deliberate consideration, (Signed) GEO.WARBURTON, C. M.

Lord Holland's Protest.

After the debate and division in the House of Lords on the 23d of April, several Peers who had voted in the minority signed a dissentient, and Lord Holland entered the following protest to the rejection of Lord Ellenborough's motion :

1st. Because it appears that we have been baffled in all our endeavours, deceived by some and disregarded by other of our Allies, and that the influence of Great Britain on the Continent has declined to a degree inconsistent with the vaunted ascendancy of our Councils at the general pacification of Europe, as well as humiliating to the feelings and injurious to the interests of the country.

2dly. Because the failure of our endeavours to prevent a continental war, is to be traced to error in judgment and want of firmness in the negotiation. Those objections to the designs of France, which a friendly anxiety for the independence of Portugal should have suggested, and which a due regard for our own welfare and even safety should have excited, were either studiously concealed or pusillanimously softened down during the whole discussion. Our negotiators were tender to the ag gressors, distant, cold, and even unjust to the aggrieved, feeble in their remonstrances against the iniquity, earnest in their represen- ́ tations of the inexpediency and danger of the meditated war, as if the honour of the house of Bourbon, and the prosperity of France, were the exclusive objects of an English

minister's

minister's solicitude; and the balance of power, the protection of allies, and even the interests of Great Britain herself, were but secondary considerations.

3dly. Because it was inconsistent with our professed disapprobation of interference, derogatory to the character of impartial mediators, and unfriendly to Spain, to suggest any alterations in her internal government, with a view of allaying the fears or saving the honour of France. Moreover, those suggestions, highly objectionable in principle, held out no certain prospect of advantage to Spain. It does not appear that we were ever authorised to assure her, that on the adoption of the modifications we recommended, France would desist from further demands, and disband the army on her frontiers on the other hand, we were not prepared to enter into any engagements for the protection of Spain, if her consent to the alterations in her constitution so suggested by us had proved insufficient to avert the hostility of France.

4thly. Because if Spain had been inclined to adopt the suggested modifications, as improvements, in

her

constitution, and could she have done so with honour after the menacing language and conduct of foreign Powers on that subject, yet it was notorious that other and se. rious obstacles stood in the way of any such adjustment. Her laws forbade any proposal of innovation on the constitution of 1812, for a period of time which has not yet elapsed; and the members of her Government had taken an oath to abide by that injunction. Prudence, therefore, as well as religion and principle, deterred them from complying with our ill-timed and

S.

officious advice. A Government engaged in the great work of restoring and consolidating the ancient liberties of its people, could not violate a recent and fundamental law, without staking the confidence of mankind in the stability of its institution, and without furnishing at a moment of much irritation and some civil disturbances, new grounds for distrust and suspicion, and fresh motives for division and disunion.

5thly. Because a firm determination on the part of his Majesty's Government to resist all hostile aggression against Spain, and an early and manly avowal of such determination, would, in all probability, have counteracted that odious defiance of public law which a great Northern Power is so forward to profess, and so anxious to inculcate, and might have diverted the French King from those inįquitous and ambitious projects which the course pursued by our Ministers has not prevailed upon him to abandon.

6thly, and lastly. Because the neutrality of England during a contest between France and Spain must be extremely precarious. Should France prove successful, events would ensue which would either involve us in immediate hostilities,

or materially impair the sources of our prosperity in peace: the revival of the family compact; the exclusion of our commerce from all the possessions of both the branches of the House of Bourbon; the exposure of Portugal to menace, invasion, and subjugation; the expedition of combined armaments for the recovery of South America; and the military ascendancy of France, on those very coasts from which the most vulnerable

vulnerable parts of our empire are accessible.

On the other hand, should Spain, by the nature of the war, be provoked to commit acts of violence and outrage within her own territories, and to engage in a species of warfare fully authorised by the law of self-preservation, but peculiarly obnoxious at this moment to the other. Powers of the Contiment-viz. the encouragement of insurrections and revolution in France-we are not so blind to the lessons of experience, as not to apprehend that compassion for individuals, and participation in the fears of other States, may again, in spite of our intended neutrality, involve us (as it has done before) in an extensive war of opinion, alike repugnant to the principles of our constitutional government and to every maxim of ancient English policy.

· Even if those dangers be avoided, a protracted warfare between two maritime powers, possessing such an extent of coast as France and Spain, will expose our merchants to innumerable vexations and injuries, which in all probability must sooner or later embroil us with one of the belligerents.

The Duke of Buckingham and
Farmer Deller.

The following petition to the House of Commons was ordered to be printed on the 24th of April :To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled. The petition of Richard Deller, farmer, of the parish of Easton, in the county of Hants, complaining of the conduct of three Justices of the Peace, the Duke

of Buckingham, the Reverend Robert Wright, and the Reverend Edmund Poulter,

"Most humbly sheweth, "That the farm occupied by your petitioner in the parish aforesaid, is bounded in some parts by lands of the Duke of Buckingham; and that the game preserved by the Duke does your petitioner an injury yearly to the amount of from thirty to sixty pounds.

"That on the 19th of February, and on the 6th of March last, your petitioner was out on his farm, with a party of his friends (to whom the greyhounds belonged) coursing hares, having full liberty from his own landlord to sport on the farm; that informations were laid against him by a gamekeeper of the Duke of Buckingham; that as to the first day, your petitioner proved the owner of the dogs to be qualified, and that therefore no penalty lay against him; that as to the second day, your petitioner was summoned to appear before a Justice of the Peace, and, to the great surprise of your petitioner, this Justice of the Peace was the Duke of Buckingham himself, who summoned your petitioner to appear before him, at his house at Avington, in the said county.

"That thus, John Roberts, a gamekeeper and a servant of the Duke, stood as informer, and George White, another gamekeeper, and servant to the Duke, stood as witness; and the Duke himself, the employer of that informer and of that witness, sat as judge.

"That your petitioner thus appeared before this singular tribunal on the first day of this present month of April; that the day be

fore

fore a compromise was offered to your petitioner, in the Duke's name, by his steward; that this compromise was not accepted, because the Duke would not agree to pay for the damage that might be done to your petitioner by his game.

"That, when your petitioner went to answer the summons, he took a friend with him to be witness of what might pass; that the Duke would not permit this friend to enter the room until the said friend had declared that he was neither barrister nor attorney;

that the Duke had with him an attorney named Woodham; that your petitioner wished his friend to write down an account of what passed; but that the Duke forbade him to do it.

"That your petitioner could have brought witnesses to prove that he ought not to pay the penalty for which he was prosecuted; that he demanded to have such witnesses examined; but that the Duke refused to suffer him to call such witnesses, unless he would state beforehand what questions he meant to put to such witnesses; that your petitioner refused to do this; and that therefore the said witnesses were not called.

"That upon your petitioner's entering the room where the Duke was sitting as Justice of the Peace, he was, before any proceedings had taken-place, told by the said Duke, that if he uttered one impertinent word, there was a constable in the room to take him to jail or to the stocks.'

"That, thus threatened in this manner at the outset, deprived of the evidence that he could have called, if he had been free so to do, he was, by this said Duke, sitting as Justice of the Peace to decide

on an information laid by his own servant, and that, too, after this Justice's steward had offered a compromise to your petitioner; thus, under these circumstances, was your petitioner convicted in the penalty of five pounds, for being in pursuit of hares on his own farm, on which these hares feed, and where they do him damage yearly to the amount of from thirty to sixty pounds; and this, too, while your petitioner has to pay a part of those county-rates and those poor-rates which are occasioned by the prosecutions and punishments for the preservation of game.

"That your humble petitioner has heard much talk about the liberty and property of Englishmen ; but that, to his plain understanding, a state of slavery so complete as that in which he has the misfortune to live, cannot be found in any other country in the world; for, though the ingenuity and caprices of tyranny are infinite, he believes that, in the utmost wantonness of its insolence, it never before compelled a man to pay rates for the preservation of animals that ate up his crops; to do this because those animals afforded sport; and to submit to punishment for attempting to partake in that sport.

"That, while your petitioner was thus treated by a Duke Justice of the Peace, two Parson Justices treated him in the following manner:

"That, on the 10th of this instant month of April, a servant of the Duke of Buckingham, having three dogs with him, entered the lands of your petitioner; that your petitioner demanded his name, which he refused to give, and refused to give any account of himself whatever; that your petitioner

told

told him, that, unless he told his name, he would take him before a Magistrate; that he still refused; that your petitioner then took him by force, and conducted him to the house of the Rev. Robert Wright, a Justice of the Peace, at Itchen Abbas, about two miles from the spot where the trespasser was seized; that the said Rev. Robert Wright refused to hear the complaint of your petitioner, saying that he would not hear it till the next day, and then at Winchester, where his clerk was; that your petitioner went the next day to Winchester, and that then, the Rev. Robert Wright still refused to hear your petitioner, and told him that he must come to the Bench at Winchester the next day; that your petitioner went to the Bench, where the Reverend Edmund Poulter presided, and where were present the said Reverend Robert Wright and Mr. William Neville; that your petitioner now found that he was to be treated as a criminal instead of an injured party; that the servant of the Duke was permitted by these Justices to swear an assault against your petitioner, and your petitioner was actually bound over accordingly; that your petitioner remonstrated against this, and appealed to the act of Parliament, passed in the first year of the present King's reign, and being the 56th chapter of that year; that your petitioner showed the said Justices that, agreeably to the third section of that act, he was fully authorised to seize the said servant, and to take him before a Justice; that, notwithstanding this, the said Justices compelled your petitioner to enter into recognizances as aforesaid, on pain of being sent to gaol; that

your petitioner demanded that his complaint against the Duke's servant should be first heard, seeing that he had been the first complainant, and had been compelled to go so many miles backwards and forwards, and to lose so much time on the business; but that the said Justices persisted in refusing to hear the complaint of your petitioner, until after they had heard the servant of the Duke, and had compelled your petitioner to give bail.

"That when this had been done, the said William Neville quitted the bench, leaving the said Rev. Edmund Poulter and the said Rev. Robert Wright on the bench; that your petitioner then applied to these two Justices for redress against the said servant of the Duke; that they heard his complaint; but that they refused to decide at that time, and put off your petitioner again until the next Saturday; that your petitioner, wearied with journeys on account of this business, and seeing no hope of obtaining redress, resolved to appear before these Justices no more, and to lay a statement of his case before your honourable house.

"Your honourable house need not be reminded, that the act, just mentioned, of the first year of the King, was passed expressly for the insuring of a more summary mode of repressing and obtaining satisfaction for damages done to land,' &c. When, therefore, your honourable house shall have duly considered the conduct of the said Rev. Robert Wright and Edmund Poulter, the delays, the procrastinations, the trouble and expense of your petitioner, and especially the binding of your petitioner over for the assault, though the very oath

on