Sir Adam fore, felt himself obliged, in a confcientious discharge of his duty, and with a view to measure out equal terms to both defcriptions of men, to give his vote in fupport of a bill, calculated in fome degree to relive the hawker and pedler. Sir Adam Ferguson faid, he had given himself the trouble Ferguson. of examining what the fum was, that the country fhopkeeper paid for the fhop-tax, upon which fo much stress had been laid, in return for which it had been mentioned, that the House ftood pledged to perfist in the severe restrictions of the last year respecting hawkers and pedlers. The amount of the fum paid by fhopkeepers renting houfes from five pounds to ten, and even up to twenty-five pounds a year, was from 3s. to 6s. 8d. and up to 19s. at the higheft. He remarked in how few cafes fo large a rent as twenty-five pounds a year was paid by a country fhopkeeper, and dwelt for fome time on the extreme injuftice of depriving a large defcription of induftrious individuals and their families of the means of earning an honeft livelihood, in compensation to a fhopkeeper of extenfive trade and dealings for the trifling tax of nineteen fhillings a year. Mr. Pulteney. Mr. Chan Mr. Pulteney defired, that as the person who had presented the petition on which the bill was founded, as well as introduced the bill itself, he might be heard a few minutes upon the fubject. He then went at large into a difcuffion of all the arguments urged against the bill, and faid something in controverfion of each of them. With regard to the idea fuggefted of the hawkers and pedlers cultivating the waste lands, he obferved, that the honourable gentleman, it was evident, had been but little used to cultivating land, or he must have known that it was very expenfive. The hawkers and pedlers, who had formed a fettlement in Staffordshire, had, for a number of years, applied the profits of their industry as hawkers and pedlers, to the improvement and culti vation of the foil around their habitations. Were they fuffered to continue their induftry unrestrained as before, they would be enabled to continue their agricultural improvements; but the honourable gentleman wifhed to deprive them of acquiring an honeft profit, and yet would fet them down as cultivators of the foil, without any money to carry on that bufinefs. Mr. Pulteney ftated the extreme difficulty that must attend their complying with the claufe of the act, which reftrained them from coming within two miles of the center of a market town. In fome cafes, two market towns were fo near each other, that it was not poffible to be at the distance of two miles from the center of one, without being within that distance of the center of the other. Mr. Chancellor Pitt faid, that the honourable gentlecellor Pitt, man oppofite to him feemed to be miftaken in the ftate ment he had made of the circumftances under which that bill firft came forward-It did not arife, as he had stated, from any oppofition to the fhop-tax, but was in fact opened to the House at the very time that that tax was first mentioned. On his intention to propofe a tax on retail shops, he had thought it neceffary to confult fome of the best mercantile authorities on the fubject, and had collected from them that the only method by which that body of people which were intended to be made the vehicles of the tax to be raised for the use of the public, could be reconciled to it, would be by withholding the licenses of the hawkers and pedlers; by which means as a compenfation for the new burden to be impofed upon them, they would be relieved from what they already confidered as a fevere grievance, the unfair competition between them and the hawkers and pedlers. He difclaimed the doctrine of any pledge from the legiflature to a body of men, who feemed proper objects of a tax; and, above all, a pledge that it would omit to do what might in future occur to it as juft and politic-but yet, though he fhould by no means admit fuch a principle, he thought that the circumftances attending the introduction of the two bills laft year, and the one being made a palliative to the other, and many gentlemen having agreed to both, who would have objected to one of them feparately, he thought. without admitting any idea of the public faith of Parliament. being committed, that there was fufficient reafon for the House to withstand any proposal of a repeal of one of them, unless upon the moft mature deliberation and the strongest arguments. The juftice of the reftraints on the hawkers and pedlers arofe out of the very nature of commerce, in which fo much depended upon a competition, that it would have been the most unfair and unwarrantable measure to have laid one fet of traders under a burden, and at the fame time to have left their competitors free from it. The intention of the legislature in impofing the tax on retail fhops was, that they should indemnify themselves, by adding an advance to the prices of their labour; but, if the hawkers and pedlers had been left upon their old footing, they would have been under no fuch neceffity of increafing their prices, and confequently would have been able to underfell the fhopkeepers, and by that means deprive them of their trade. To illuftrate this, he made a fuppofition that there were in the city and neighbourhood of London eight diftillers, would it not, he faid, be impoffible to impofe a heavy tax upon feven of those perfons, and to leave the eighth free and unincumbered, without doing a material injury to those who were obliged to pay it? Admitting, merely for the fake of argument (becaufe, in fact, it could fcarcely happen) the propriety, and VOL. XX. eyen Mr. Wilber force. Mr. Gilbert Sir Watkin even the urgency of a repeal, it behoved the House not to fuffer it without the utmost circumfpection and the fulleft certainty that numerous advantages must follow close upon the measure. Mr. Wilberforce faid he had not been in the House when the bill of last year was debated, and confequently he had given no opinion whatever on the fubject. He had fince had an opportunity of inquiring more accurately into the matter, and he felt himself warranted to declare, that he had good reafon to think that the hawkers and pedlers were a very honeft, induftrious, ufeful description of men; that they Bad been too feverely dealt with, and merited the attention and favours of that Houfe. Mr. Gilbert, defcribing the large colony of hawkers and pedlers fettled in Staffordshire, declared that it had been uniformly fo unexceptionable, and at the fame time fo praiseworthy, that the Houfe ought to confider hawkers and pedlers as objects of its protection and kindnefs rather than of its feverity. That fettlement was not the only ftationary proof of the industry and laborious exertions of the hawkers and pedlers; they had furnished other proofs, and were really fo well worthy the care of Parliament, that he trufted the humanity, as well as juftice of the Houfe, would be evinced, by their fuffering the bill to be read a fecond time, in order that it might be put into fuch a shape as fhould fecure its paffing, and thereby relieve a large defcription of honeft and deferving men from unmerited and unexampled, as well as unneceffary hardship. Sir Watkin Lewes faid, that having had the honour of prefenting to the Houfe a petition from a refpectable county, the fignatures to which he was well acquainted with, and beFieved it contained a great majority of perfons of the first property in that county; he, therefore, thought it a duty he owed to thofe gentlemen, as well as what was due in juftice to the hawkers and pedlers, to obferve, that the approbation of fo many refpectable characters, bore an honourable teftimony to that defcription of traders, who afford the confumers great accommodation where they are fituated at a confiderable diftance from corporate towns. With refpect to the city of London which he had the honour to repre fent, and whofe intereft it was always his higheft with to promote, he must beg leave to inform the House, that the reftriction impofed on the hawkers and pedlers, was fo far from being a relief to them, that they confidered it as an additional burden. After which the Houfe divided, when the numbers were, Noes 99 Mr. berforce. Mr. Wilberforce obferved that the extreme difficulty which Mr. Wilfurgeons experienced in procuring bodies for diffections, and the shocking cuftom of digging them up after burial, rendered fome means of furnithing the fchools of anatomy with fubjects neceffary to be reforted to; and a flill ftronger reafon could be alledged to prove the neceffity, &c. that the bodies dug up after burial were frequently in fuch a state, from having laid fome time in the ground, that the great end of diffection was foiled, and in fome cafes the bodies had been in fo putrid a condition, that their diffection had proved fatal to the anatomifts themfelves, and put an end to their lives, inftead of contributing to lengthen the lives of others, For these reasons, and a variety of others which could be urged, if neceffary, he prefumed that there could be no objection to his motion for leave to bring in a bill for the difpofal of the bodies of convicts, in certain cafes, after execution. Mr. Dundas faid that it was neceffary to exprefs the mo- Mr. Duntion in precife and fpecific terms, in order to avoid deftroying das. the effect which the fentencing the bodies of malefactors, to be anatomized after execution had upon the prejudices of mankind, confidered as a punishment for crimes. In the part of the country he came from, Mr. Dundas faid, to be anato mized, was always a part of the fentence for murder. The motion was agreed to; and the House adjourned. Wednesday, 17th May. The order of the day being read for refuming the confideration of Mr. Haftings's impeachment, the Houfe refolved itfelf into a Committee, Mr. St. John in the chair. Mr. Burke then moved, "That Major Gardiner be called "to the bar." The Major then appeared, when an examination enfued relative to the tranfactions of Benares; after which the House adjourned. Thursday, 18th May. Mr. Burke having premised that he confidered the circum- Mr. Burke, stances of his coming forward as the inftrument of establishing an investigation of the tranfactions in India during the government of Mr. Haftings, in the light of an indifpenfably requifite difcharge of his duty to the House and to the country, added, that he thought it would be neceffary, upon the conclufion of the evidence, to fubmit to the Houfe one grand queftion, comprehending the merits or demerits of the whole agregately confidered. He was perfuaded that the whole. evidence would be closed fo foon as to admit of a general introductory question within the courfe of a few days; he Gg 2 there The Speaker. Sir Francis Mr. Drake. therefore gave notice, that he would upon the Friday fe'nnight following bring forward a queftion for the impeachment or exculpation of the fuppofed delinquent. The Speaker, now begged leave to remind the House, that the next business which claimed in rotation their attention was, the cafe of Mr. Mortlock, who had been guilty of altering or mispelling the names of thofe appointed to act as commiffioners of the land tax for Cambridgefhire. It had been ftated, that a regular lift had been delivered to the engroffing clerk, by General Adeane, a member of the Houfe; and that afterwards it had been altered in such a manner as to deftroy the original defign of the appointment by a fubftitution of falfe names. The gentleman accufed (Mr. Mortlock) had already made a confeffion to the House, by mentioning that he was exceedingly forry for what had happened, and that he had no intention whatever of offending the Houfe. It was in the breaft of the House to decide upon the matter as feemed moft proper; but he thought it his duty to intimate to them what were the ufual modes of determining upon fuch a fubject. He then explained the orders and customs of Parliament, remarking, that it had always been an established regulation, that the gentleman accufed, fhould be heard in his own defence, prior to any motion or question upon the subject. The laft perfon tried on fimilar grounds was that great and powerful Minifter, Sir Robert WalpoleAfter a few more obfervations on the customary proceedings of the House, he asked Mr. Mortlock if he had any thing to say in his own defence? Mr. Mortlock by nodding, intimated a negative to the interrogatory, and retired. Sir Francis Baffet obferved, that rifing in exculpation of the honourable gentleman (Mr. Mortlock) he could venture to affure all present that nothing could be more distant from that gentleman's mind than to offend the House in any manner whatever. He thought that making a ferious matter of the fubject was contrary to the dignity of the House, as the grounds of crimination did not come immediately under the jurifdiction of Parliament. He therefore moved, "That "the confideration of the charge against Mr. Mortlock should "be poftponed until that day three months." Mr. Drake contended, that the honourable Baronet on the oppofite fide had treated the matter with levity, by mentioning that a farther examination was below the dignity of the House he was of a different opinion, convinced that whenever there appeared a breach of privilege, by the tranfgreffion of any member, it became the Houfe to inquire into the caufe of complaint, Lord |