Lord Ellenborough: My Lords, I sub-assured of the support of the right reverend mit to you that it is not customary for any Peer to introduce a speech of his own on the question of order, and to supplant the noble Lord who was in possession of the House.

well as with the noble Earls at the other | the House. I was anxious, my Lords, to side, that the greatest inconvenience must have framed to myself any excuse which attend discussions of this irregular nature; would have justified the giving my vote in but I trust I may be allowed to say a few favour of the second reading; but the words in consequence of one expression more I considered the measure, the more which fell from the noble and learned objectionable did I find it to be, and I felt Lord on the Woolsack; and I ask that in- that it was necessary to mark my sense of dulgence because, owing to causes which I the mischief which must ensue from it, if need not more particularly dwell upon, I passed into a law, by opposing it in that had not the advantage of being present on particular stage. I have done my duty; I the occasion to which this conversation feel that I have performed it strictly in acrefers. When the noble and learned Lord cordance with the dictates of my constates that the Bench of Bishops were in- science, and, having done so, I care little fluenced in their votes on the Reform Bill for what may be said by the noble Lords; by a desire to trip up the Government, I and their censures pass me as idle words, cannot remain silent; and I must declare, or as the echo of those sounds with which on behalf of myright reverend friends,that no we are assailed in our way to the House. such thought ever entered into their minds. During the brief conversation which I had with any of the members of that Bench, preparatory to the debate, I found no such intention expressed by one of them; and I am satisfied that, individually or collectively, they entertained no idea of hostilely opposing the present Administration. So far as the interests of the Church are concerned, my Lords, neither I, nor any of the right reverend Prelates, have reason to complain of the conduct of the existing Government; and, so far from having grounds of complaint on that head, a noble Lord himself has originated one great measure which was satisfactory to us all. My Lords, it cannot be for the interest of the Church that the present Administration should be dissolved, and I am quite sure that in all the history of the country, no votes will ever be found to have been given on purer principles than those which my right reverend friends felt it to be their duty to give on a late occasion. Whether that vote was one of wisdom or not is not for me to decide, but this I will say, my Lords, without fear of contradiction, that the votes of the right reverend Prelates were influenced by none but the purest motives, and by the high considerations which should ever influence that body.

The Bishop of Landaff: You will permit me, my Lords, to say, that it was my earnest desire to have acted as a noble Earl (the Earl of Haddington), who pronounced a splendid eulogium on Mr. Canning, said he should, on the late Debate, and to have voted, if possible, for the second reading, reserving to myself the right of not agreeing to all the clauses of the Bill in its further stages through

The Bishop of Exeter said, he was wholly astonished at the remarks which had been made on the motives of the reverend Bench, from the highest quarters. Noble Lords assumed the right to censure the body of Bishops for the vote they had recently given. This censure came from those, too, who, from their office and station, were bound to sustain the institutions of the country. He defied any noble Lord to state a single instance in the history of the country when any Members of that House had been so vilified and insulted as the Bishops had been within the last week, by a person of the highest station in the realm. They had been accused of voting against the Reform Bill because it was the measure of a liberal Administration. Was this charge an instance of liberality; and did the members of his Majesty's Government by these remarks intend to incite and encourage violence? He did not apologize for his warmth; for he should be ashamed of himself if he could be cool upon such a subject. Had the attack upon the Bench of Bishops been made at a moment of excitement, to that excitement he would have submitted; but upon the mere presentation of a petition, and that a petition of no consequence, one noble Lord had, abused the Church as the great arch-disturber of all order, and another noble Lord had charged the Bishops with being bound together in a conspiracy against the liberties of the country, and against all that could constitute the welfare and happiness of the people. These were the notions that were propagated everywhere against the Bench of Bishops, and noble Lords had, moreover, spoken against them in that House, in a tone of sarcasm, if not of

direct and positive censure, as a body ac- | had said, that those who ought to be tuated by self-interest, at variance with charged with the care of the public peace, the public good. Under these circum- and were bound to support the institutions stances he had thought it his duty to ad- of the country, had actually been the indress their Lordships. stigators of a mob to insult the Bench of Bishops. He could not conceal the contempt, the indignation, with which he heard the charge. He dared the right reverend Prelate to state, if he could, one single syllable of truth to support the falsest and most calumnious accusation which ever had been heard. If any man could be capable of such conduct, no re

rejected the charge as one totally unfounded in truth, and as having no one colour of foundation. He denied that he had ever done anything but what he was obliged to do in the discharge of his duty in that House-nay, so far from encouraging proceedings such as the right reverend Prelate had described, he was one of the very first that would exert the full power of Government to protect those whose votes were hostile to him. He called upon the right reverend Prelate to state his proofs. He had shown for the Bench all the respect he had sincerely felt; but he now repelled, with scorn and indignation, the aspersions which the right reverend Prelate had endeavoured to cast upon his character, and he called upon him to support what he said by proofs.

Earl Grey said, he should be guilty of injustice to himself and other noble Lords, if he permitted this most unprovoked at (tack to pass without notice. What the right reverend Prelate had uttered was the most intemperate, and the most unfounded insinuation that he had ever heard from any Member of that House. Whether the right reverend Prelate had meant him per-proof could be sufficiently severe. He sonally or not he knew not, but whomever he might mean, he could never suffer such an insinuation to pass unnoticed, or without reprobation. The right reverend Prelate had said, that every man who had spoken from that side of the House had spoken in a tone of sarcasm or reprobation of the recent conduct of the Bishops. He (Earl Grey) asked if such an observation were true, and if it could with truth be applied to the very few words which had fallen from him. He appealed to every noble Lord, whether there was anything in what he had said at all like what the right reverend Prelate had attributed to him. Did he not reprobate the discussion altogether-did he not state it as his opinion that the discussion was altogether inconsistent with the orders of the House-and had he not done all he could to stop it? The Bishop of Exeter, being called On what ground, then, would he ask, upon to produce proofs of what he had could the right reverend Prelate make an asserted, was not unwilling to admit that, attack so intemperate, and so utterly with- although he had charged the excitement out any pretext or foundation? He asked which existed against the Bench of the right reverend Prelate whether it had Bishops throughout the country to the ever been his (Earl Grey's) custom to say language which had been held in that anything whatever offensive to the Church, House, he had not meant to bring any or anything that was not in support of it? charge against the noble Earl. He would But, said the right reverend Prelate, he now, however, proceed to prove the truth had heard from a person holding the of what he had asserted. Irregular as it highest situation of Government, frequent might be to refer to the Debate that had attempts to degrade, insult, and villity the recently taken place, yet, under the pecuChurch. Whether the right reverend Pre- liar circumstances of his case, he hoped late alluded to him or his noble friend on for the indulgence of their Lordships in the Woolsack he knew not, but of this he being allowed to refer to the proceedings was perfectly sure, that against neither in question. It must be within the recolcould the observation or statement belection of every noble Lord who heard made with any justice or with any truth. The right reverend Prelate was not content with this want of truth, but he had uttered it with all the appearance of a spirit that but little became the garment that he wore. It was the grossest injustice he had ever heard. But the right reverend Prelate had even gone much further. He

him, that in the first night of the Debate upon the Bill, the noble Earl, in stating the case to the House, without any one thing to excite him from the Bench of Bishops, had thought himself justified in calling upon the Bench seriously to, take to mind what would be their condition in their country, if there were to be found a

nisters-because for once they had thus voted upon the greatest question agitated since the Revolution, when the Bishops had acted in defiance of the Crown. Where would their Lordships have been, where would the country have been, but for the Bishops at the Revolution? The present was the first occasion upon which the Bench of Bishops had opposed the present Ministers, and yet for opposing them this once they were charged with deserving all the mischief with which they had been threatened.

Earl Grey wished to ask the right reverend Prelate, why he had not made the serious charges he now brought forward, when the words he imputed to him were fresh in the recollection of the House, and when he could have made those charges in a regular manner. For his part, he thought that the right reverend Prelate's proofs corresponded very little with his assertions. The right reverend Prelate charged his Majesty's Ministers with having purposely done all in their power to encourage tumult and excite the mob to acts of popular violence.

narrow majority of lay Lords against the Bill, and if it were to be discovered that the Bishops had voted with that narrow majority. The noble Earl had put this in a way to show that he expected that the Bench would be induced by the fear of odium to vote with Ministers. To call upon any set of men-to call upon one of the great States of the realm, as they were termed by the sages of the law, and by the law itself to call upon them by way of a menace of popular indignation, had the tendency-a tendency which the noble Earl, perhaps, little suspected-of exciting the odium of the people. Had not that odium been excited, and was not the Bench of Bishops exposed to its effects? The noble Earl had assumed the character of a prophet, and had told the Bishops "to set their houses in order." It was true that the noble Earl did not conclude the sentence. He left that for themselves to do, but it was impossible not to know that he referred to where the prophet had threatened destruction. The noble Earl, in the same speech, had taken special care to remind the Bench of Bishops that certain important questions were in agitation, which might take the turn that would prove favourable or unfavourable, according to the conduct of the Bench on that night. What were these questions? Where were they in agitation, but in the councils of which the noble Lord was at the head-he hoped so, at least, for he Earl Grey: The right reverend Prelate hoped that the noble Earl did not delegate in his anger was not likely to recollect his superiority to inferior minds. If the what words he did use. He certainly noble Earl meant that schemes of confis- understood that the right reverend Prelate cation were contemplated-if the noble had most positively charged him, or Earl meant that the bold among the mul- charged the Ministers, with having encoutitude would be encouraged, and that the raged and excited the people to acts of multitude would be goaded on to more violence. He could not misunderstand immediate execution-then he (the Bishop the words which had been used. The of Exeter) could, indeed, conceive that the right reverend Prelate had attacked him conduct of the Bishops that night might for having used a tone of warning to the have the effect of driving the multitude to Bench against the consequence of their such purposes. Had he said anything but votes. He at the very time had disclaimed what the proofs he had adduced fully all intention to intimidate or menace, but substantiated? The language of the noble he had certainly submitted to them, what Earl had an evident tendency to implicate might be the consequence of the rejection the Prelates with the people, and to make of a measure, in favour of which the public them be regarded by the people through- feelings were so strongly excited throughout all the country as their foes. The out every part of the empire. He had people already pretty well echoed the never meant that the Bench should surnoble Earl's suggestions, for they read the render their right of voting according to Debates, and the same language was re- their judgment; all he had meant was, peated by the Journals. The Bishops that they should look calmly upon the were threatened to be driven from their consequences which might follow from stations because they did not vote for Mi-their opposing the Bill. He had intro

The Bishop of Exeter: Most solemnly do I declare that I do not think I have used any such words. Upon my honour and conscience I did not use those words. I am quite sure that I never accused his Majesty's Government of exciting the people to outrage.