If

tained the facts of the cafe, and the best way would be to order the Clerk of the Crown to attend with the returns. the facts were correctly stated, there was one complete regular return, from which it appeared that the returning officer had executed no other indenture. It also appeared that the fheriff had received from fomebody fomething that purported to be another; not from another perfon claiming to be a returning officer, but purporting to be another return from the fame returning officer, but neither fealed nor figned by him. If this was really the ftate of things, it appeared to him that the fheriff had, in fact, made but one return, and that the perfon fo returned must take his feat. But ftill the other candidate might adopt the regular means of ascertaining his claim by prefenting a petition, the merits of which must be decided upon by a Committee. Suppofe for a moment that there had been no other candidate but Mr. Sheridan, and that there was no other return but that one which was now the fubject of difcuffion, there could be no doubt but that upon fuch return he could not take his feat. If then this return would have been of no ufe in the cafe only of one candidate, it certainly could be of no avail against a regular return. Upon the whole, he thought the regular mode of proceeding would be to order the Clerk of the Crown to attend with the returns, and then the Houfe would be able to judge whether the facts were correctly stated or not.

Mr. Sheridan did not conceive that the queftion could come with any propriety before the Houfe in its prefent shape, whether the return was confidered as double or not. The question would be confidered in due time and in its proper place on the 10th of next month. The right hon. Gentleman uppofite (Mr.Pitt) might not know, perhaps, of this proceeding, or he would not, he was perfuaded, have fupported this measure. But he objected alfo to the form in which this petition was brought up. It was irregular, he conceived, that any petition fhould be prefented by a nominee. So far as he could be fuppofed to be interefted, indeed, he could have wished that no return had been made, as the circumstances ftood. The general queftion he thought it was incompetent for the Houfe to decide. The theriff is the only perfon known to the Exchequer or to this Houfe. The truth was, there was no fuch perfon known to the House as a returning officer. If he was known at all, he was known only through the medium of the fheriff, who was the perfon officially known to the Houfe in cafes of this nature. The hon. Gen

tleman

tleman then put feveral cafes in fupport of his argument, and one particularly in which he himself had been concerned, where the question was not in regard to right, but with respect to the conduct of the returning officer. If the fheriff had done wrong in the instance now before the Houfe, there were other modes of punishing his misconduct, than troubling the House by irregular proceedings. But he could not help thinking the fheriff had done perfectly right. Whether it was fo or not, however, would appear in proper time, as the House had already appointed the queftion to be tried on the 10th of next month, as he had already mentioned. It was not a queftion, he thought, which in its present stage was competent for the Houfe.

Mr. W. Dundas declared that he was ignorant of the nature of the election in queftion, but that he had thought it his duty to fubmit the question as he had ftated it to the confideration of the Houfe. It was the question of right only he had put, and not who was entitled to be fitting Member. Though appointed a nominee in this business, he could not fee that that excluded him from preferring the general quef tion, which he thought deferved the confideration of the House. He wished the question to reft on the plain facts of the cafe, and not on the ingenuity of the hon. Gentleman, the extent of which he was fufficiently aware of. The acquiefcence of the returning officer, that Gentleman had faid, was not necessary to constitute a legal return. Why then did the return in queftion, and to which the objection was made, purport to be the return of the returning officer, while at the fame time it was neither figned nor fealed by him? He must conclude, therefore, that it was a low, pitiful fraud, purporting to be what it really was not.

Mr. Sheridan obferved, that the first return, which had been in favour of Mr. T. Sheridan, had been tendered to the mayor, but had been refufed, and the queftion was, if the authority of a returning officer was abfolutely neceffary to conftitute a legal return. He inftanced a cafe where, between the expiration of a new charter, no authority was acknowledged, and the return was made without the authority of any returning officer.

Mr. W. Dundas was willing to admit this where there was no returning officer; but infifted, as he had formerly done, that a return purporting to be from the returning officer, and at the fame time bearing neither his fignature nor feal, could

be

be confidered in no light but as a fraud, and a wish to impofe on the House.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer faid, that if this return fhould turn out to be as it had been stated, a mere nullity, then the House could of course immediately decide upon it; but if there were any evidence to be examined, then it must be referred to a Committee. He wished at present not to give any opinion on the subject, or prejudge it in any

manner.

The motion was then agreed to.

Mr. Pitt moved, that the Clerk of the Crown fhould attend the next day with the returns. With regard to what had been faid by the hon. Gentleman about double returns, they were cafes where two persons claimed to be returning officers, but in the prefent cafe the return was not figned by a perfon claiming to be a returning officer, nor was it in fact figned at all.

Mr. Burroughs was of opinion that in this cafe there was only one return, and confequently the Houfe could decide upon the point without referring it to a Committee.

Mr. Pitt's motion was agreed to.

A meffage from the Lords informed the House their Lordships had agreed to the Irish malt duty bill, and to the feveral other Irish revenue bills, without any amend

ment.

WAYS AND MEANS.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer moved the order of the day for the Houfe to refolve itfelf into a Committee of the whole Houfe to confider further of ways and means for raifing a fupply granted to his Majesty.

The order being read, the Chancellor of the Exchequer moved, that the account of the difpofition of grants of Great Britain, prefented on the 4th of March inftant, be referred to the faid Committee. Ordered.

He then moved, that the Speaker do now leave the chair. The queftion being put,

Mr. Dent was proceeding to make fome obfervations on the promise of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bring in a bill to indemnify bankers and other commercial perfons who had received dividends for others, by virtue of powers of attorney, from certain penalties in the property bill for not returning, as that bill required, the amount of dividends fo received, &c. when he was informed by

The Speaker, that nothing was regular upon the prefent motion,

motion, except that which might be urged by way of objection to the Speaker leaving the chair.

Mr. Dent then faid, that if driven to that course, he muft take it, and object to the Speaker leaving the chair, until at leaft fome explanation was given to fome queftions he had put to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it was information he had a right to afk in the common course of business in that Houfe. He faid it referred to the fituation of all those who acted as agents in the management of dividends, and who were fo circumftanced as to demand the attention of the Houfe, and particularly the attention of the right hon. Gentieman; for if the Houfe fhould adjourn over the 5th of April, which was probable, and make no provifion on this fubject, those bankers and others, who had received dividends for others, would all of them be fubject to the penalties in the property bill, for not returning an account of the amount of them as that bill required, for then four quarters of the tax under that bill would be due. Not one of thofe who had thus received dividends for others by virtue of powers of attorney, would be exempted from the penalties in the property act for not returning the amount of fuch dividends. The hardship of this would be enormous, for when they had an intercourfe with the Chancellor of the Exchequer early in the winter, when the difficulties of conforming to the property act began to be felt, they were affured that the bill would be amended by a claufe which the right hon. Gentleman intended to propofe, to exempt bankers and other perfons of that defcription from the penalties of the act, and that fuch claufe was to be brought in foon after the Christmas recefs. It was expected of the candour of the right hon. Gentleman, that fuch a claufe would have been propofed foon after the Christmas recefs, and yet the Houfe was now about to adjourn for the Eafter recefs without any fuch provifion: nor did it appear that any alteration was intended to be made in the property bill this feffion, as had been collected from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer faid in answer to a queftion which had fome time ago been put to him, and by which it feemed that the property tax was to be tried by way of experiment for the prefent year, in order that Minifters might judge whether it was a measure fit to be continued or not. There was, however, in that anfwer, alfo an affurance that the bankers and other commercial perfons who had received dividends for others, and who, on account of fome infuperable difficulties in the property act, had VOL. II. 1803-4.

Ee

been

been unable to make returns conformable to that aft, fhould be indemnified against the penalties of it. The answer was that "they should not be liable." Now he hoped he should have an explicit anfwer to the queftion he was about to put to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for he came down on purpose to put that queftion on behalf of the great body of bankers and commercial men, who were apprehensive that they should be all liable to thofe penalties; although it had not been their fault that they were incurred. The queftion was this, Whether any fuch claufe as that which the Chancellor of the Exchequer promifed to propose foon after the Christmas recefs, or fome other measure to that effect, was to be brought forward before the approaching Eafter recefs? Upon the answer which he received to that question would depend the courfe he fhould purfue on the queftion now before the Houfe. The next queftion was equally momentous with the former, and that was,-At what period the holders of the loyalty loan were entitled to be paid off, under the provifions of the law on the subject of that loan? The act of Parliament faid two years after figning the definitive treaty of peace, and that fix months notice should be given, He understood that the opinion of the Attoruey and Solicitor General had been taken upon this fubject; but the parties concerned in that loan could not learn what that opinion was, or what was understood to be the law upon that subject; and they wished to have their doubts removed upon it by fome public declaration upon which they might rely, for otherwife by the 10th of October next they would be under fome difficulties; upon which fubject alfo he wished for fome explanation. It was thus he was obliged to apply to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for without fome public explanation from that right hon. Gentleman, these parties could not judge properly of the fituation in which they ftood.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer faid, that confiftently with the forms of the Houfe, he could hardly answer the hon. Gentleman, because no answer he could give could have any reference to the queftion that the Speaker do now leave the chair; however, by the indulgence of the House, he fhould anfwer the hon. Gentleman. On the first point he was perfectly fatisfied that the Houfe would think it incumbent on them to relieve the parties to whom the hon. Gentleman had adverted, from the penalties to which they might be liable under the provifions of the property bill, and the queftion now only was, whether it was abfolutely ne

ceffury