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writ on the day when it was returnable, the law and the constitution do allow, that this House should leave the returning officer to prosecute and complete the election which he has begun, without issuing a new writ.

The case of Coventry has been quoted, in order to prove the returning officer functus officio; but I deny that that is a case in point. There, the election was interrupted by riots, the poll books destroyed, and the returning officer therefore made (as in the present case) a special return, certifying to the House the reasons why he could not return two members; whereupon the House issued a new writ. But, Sir, between that case and the present, there is a striking difference. Here the bailiff reports to us, that the election is begun, but is not yet complete for certain reasons. In the case of Coventry, the returning officer certified, that the whole election had been defeated; not that he had not had time to decide whom he should return, but that he had all to begin again, which rendered a new writ most undoubtedly proper. The act of parliament on which gentlemen lay their great stress, and which the bailiff is said to have broken, is, as I understand, the 10th and 11th of King William ; an act, as I must insist, applicable only to sheriffs, who were grown at that time extremely negligent in forwarding their writs, which are the aggregate of the precepts they had received in their respective districts from the several bailiffs. It applies to sheriffs, merely as executive, not as judicial officers; enjoining them to make up with diligence the precepts they had received, and to send them to the crown office within a limited time, under the penalty of 5001.; a moiety of which is payable to the person suing for it. Now, Sir, as the right honourable gentlemen has confessed, upon better information, that he should stand no chance of recovering the penalty on a popular action, since he has declined this species of revenge upon the bailiff, which he at first threatened, he has saved me the trouble of contesting that question; and it is indisputably clear, that the present case can by no means come under that act. That act relates, I say, to the executive conduct of the sheriff; the present question re

spects the judicial conduct of the bailiff, who, in order to make up his judgment, has thought proper, under certain extraordinary circumstances, to institute a scrutiny. I am far from thinking that a bailiff has any right to protract his election beyond the day when the writ is returnable, unless from very particular circumstances.-That argument, therefore, that bailiffs, at this rate, may protract the meeting of parliament to what period they please, must fall entirely to the ground. The House must judge of his reasons, must hear them, must examine them, and if they are insufficient, must correct and punish him, if he be worthy of punishment; but if proof be given, that, owing to peculiar circumstances, it was impossible for him to fulfil his oath, and to judge who had the majority of legal votes, I say, then the law and the constitution permit, that he should prosecute what he has begun without a new writ, and take those measures which are absolutely necessary to form his judgment.

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In order to examine more particularly what is the law of the case, we can only ask ourselves, how it stands when similar circumstances occur in the execution of other writs. In the nature of writs, it is agreed, there is no difference. Let us examine, then, the analogy of law upon the subject, and I hope, Sir, I shall not be thought, pedantic, if I should allude somewhat technically to a profession which I once had the honour of belonging to, in order to prove distinctly what is the law upon this point. A very learned gentleman near me has told you that in many instances the court allows an extension of time, in cases where some proceedings have been had upon the writ, but where every thing is not perfected by the day when the writ is returnable. Now, Sir, to bring this point of law more directly into the cognizance of the House, I will state a case: A writ is issued to the sheriff (in an action of debt) called a capias ad satisfaciendum, ordering him to seize the goods of A, and this is followed by another, called a venditioni exponas, and is returnable by a certain day; the sheriff, in prosecution of his writ, seizes the goods, in order to put them up to sale. But *The Master of the Rolls.

we will suppose, that in taking these goods of A, as he is commanded by the writ, the sheriff, through mistake and confusion, lays hold of some goods of B, which are mixed with them, and he has not time to separate the goods of A, which are all he must take, and to put them up to sale before the writ is returnable. What does the sheriff do in this case? Why, Sir, he reports the particular circumstances which prevent his returning the writ to the court, and the court then allows him to go and examine into the goods, or, in other words, they grant a scrutiny upon the circumstances laid before them, not issuing any new writ, but allowing only an extension of the old one. Now, Sir, let the House alter the word sheriff to bailiff, and for dead goods read living, and this is the very case before you.

But if this which I have stated be true, if it be law, if it be the fact in the courts below, arguing as I have a right to argue upon the analogy of the law in every new case, I do implore the House to consider the absolute illegality of our interfering in the office of bailiff, and directing him either to return Lord Hood and Mr. Fox, as was once desired of us, or the illegality even of forcing him to return any two members before those measures are taken, which it is absolutely necessary to take, and which the law therefore enjoins him to take, in order to make his return.

Some gentlemen have talked of the peculiar jealousy of our constituents on matters of election; but, Sir, theirs has never been a jealousy lest this House should be supine in watching its own privileges. The jealousy of the people has always justly been, lest this House should assume privileges of electing members, or of directing their election, which is not for us to do. What was the case of the Middlesex election? Was it not, that the House of Commons determined, by their own authority, to impose on the people a representative who was not the object of their choice? God forbid that this House should again impose on the people any man who is not the object of their choice! But elections without doors take their legal course. It is our office to punish corrupt or partial returning officers; it is our

office to issue new writs; it is our office ultimately to decide election contests: but it is not within the scope of our privileges to direct the bailiffs whom to return; nor to order them, as if they were servants or officers of ours, to make returns in what manner and at what time we please. The right honourable gentleman, indeed, might, with some degree of consistency, propose to the House the assumption of new privileges in matters of election; for, in the case of the Middlesex election, we know that he was the champion of this House against the rights of the people; and it is singular enough that the only two points in which the right honourable gentleman and the noble lord for a series of years agreed, were in their decision of the Middlesex election, which is now so deservedly execrated, and in their execration of Mr. Grenville's bill, which is now so deservedly applauded.

Sir, it has been hinted to the House, that some new law to regulate Westminster elections will be proposed; and the right honourable gentleman, with a degree of ingenuity that is characteristic, immediately exclaims, that we find it necessary to introduce a new law, in order to prevent future parliaments from adopting the bad precedent we have set them. That a new law is wanted on the subject of elections in Westminster, is surely what nobody can deny ; but my opinion is, that, until a new law is introduced, it is better to decide according to the laws existing, than to anticipate new laws, or to pass the bounds of our privileges. I am aware of the difficulties we are all reduced to, in so unheard-of a case as the present: for this House to order a bailiff whom to return, is impossible; neither is it possible for us to punish a bailiff, or even to forbid him from doing that which is absolutely necessary, to the forming of a reasonable judgment, which is not contrary to law, and in which the analogics of law, when the circumstances are compared, completely justify him.

The resolution was negatived,

Ayes....... 117

Noes............ 195

Lord Mulgrave's motion was then, upon a second division, carried, "That the High Bailiff of the city of Westminster do proceed in the scrutiny for the said city with all practicable dispatch."

July 6. 1784.

Mr. PITT rose to open his new system for the government of India. No one, he said, could be more deeply impressed than he was with the importance of the subject on which he was then going to enter: in whatever point of view he considered it, he felt that no subject could possibly be more interesting. In it were involved the prosperity and strength of this country; the happiness of the natives of those valuable territories in India, which belonged to England; and finally the constitution of England itself. India had at all times been of great consequence to this country, from the resources of opulence and strength it afforded; and that consequence had, of course, increased in proportion to the losses sustained by the dismemberment of other great possessions; by which losses, the limits of the empire being more contracted, the remaining territories became more valuable. - He was aware that nothing could be more difficult than to digest a plan, which should at once confirm and enlarge the advantages derived to this country from its connections with India; to render that connection a blessing to the native Indians, and at the same time preserve inviolate the essence and spirit of our own constitution from the injuries to which this connection might eventually expose it. Gentlemen would recollect with a degree of horror, to what dangers that happy constitution was exposed last year, when a bill was introduced into parliament, which would have established a system dangerous to every thing that Englishmen held dear; they would recollect, that the liberties. of this country had nearly suffered shipwreck; the danger, however, was happily over; and the legislature had now an opportunity to consult about the means the most likely to reconcile and secure the interests of the people of this country, of the people of

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