duty of the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means "to attend to all public "bills that come before the House, to watch "their various stages, and to be present every day in the House, from its meeting "to its rising, for the purpose of doing his daty with respect to them." Your Jordship knows very well, that he does not so attend; but, supposing he does; what have you described here more than it is incumbent upon every member to do? Is it not the duty, the bounden duty, of every member" to attend to all public bills?" Aye, and to all private bills too. And what sort of a servant of the people must he be, if he be not in the House every day that his health will permit him? My Lord, my Lord! the sorrowful truth is, according to this the speech published under your name, that, out of 658 members of the House of Commons, not one is to be found willing constantly to attend to his duty there, without a large annual remuneration! And this truth, my lord, is proclaimed to the people, at the moment when this same House of Commons are daily calling upon them for new sacrifices, and expressing their regret that such sacrifices are indispensible to the safety of the country!The proposition for calling the members alternately to the Chair, in the Committees of Ways and Means, your lordship is represented to have answered by the common observation, that, "what is every body's business is nobody's business." And, is this really the case, my Lord, in the House of Commons? Is a saying which has grown out of a general observation of the conduct of menial servants and others the lowest and least trust-worthy of mankind; is this saying, my lord, applicable to the representatives of the people; each of whom, be it recollected, makes his constituents a solemn promise to serve them with fidelity, and whom, collectively, the king calls his faithful Commons? What, my lord, is it nobody's business to attend to the passing of bills, unless they are paid for it? Is this really so; or have the printers misrepresented the speech of your lordship But, if the arguments of your lordship, which I have already noticed, are calculated to excite my surprise and regret; what shall I say of your answer to the proposition for letting the duty of Chairman be performed by the junior ords of the Treasury, or other paid persons, who have little or nothing to do? What is your argument in answer to this?" If the "hon. gent. thinks there are any servants "of government, who have no business attached to their offices, let him move for the abolition of those offices." "And," it might have been added, "let him look at our majority!" Ah, my Lord! This is the old Pitt way of reasoning. It was with arguments like this that the Roses and the Lougs so often gave a lumping and triumphant answer to the speeches of your deceased friend; and truly sorry am I to see you following, in this instance at least, so directly their steps. It was fine encouragement, too, for Mr. Biddulph to make a motion of this sort, when you had quashed his present motion (exactly of the same tendency) by an order of the day!—My lord, I hope to see the day, when order of the day will not be so powerful a gentleman as he is now; and, having no room to comment further upon the subject at present, I will conclude with saying, that, until that day comes, I, for my part, care very little, as to public matters, what days may come; being fully convinced, that no good to this country can possibly arise, while propositions like those of Mr. Biddulph are stifled by an order of the day, I will just add an expression of my earnest hope, that that gentleman will proceed as he has begun. He will have both INS and OUTS against him; but, he will have the people with him. HANOVER.- When I took my motto, it was my intention to have shown, by the aid of a valuable correspondent, how injurious the interests of this Electorate had been to England, and to have pointed out the in fluence of it during the late negociation. Want of room compels me to defer the intended remarks upon this subject. In the meanwhile, I beg leave to refer the reader to the article whence my motto is taken, and also to an admirable article upon the same subject, which he will find in the COURIER newspaper of Tuesday last, the 30th ultimo. The last sentence of that article is the very best I ever read in a newspaper. I honour the writer of it, and I beg the publisher of it to accept of my thanks.. THE SHERIDANS and PLAY-ACTORS must wait till Mr. Homan has closed. My letter to him, which will be found immediately below, will explain how things stand with him. If he should want 5 or 6 columns more, however, he may have it. But, when he had taken up one letter with tracing back his high blood; and, if this was the mere spreading of his canvass, according to his own scene-painting expression, the reader will allow that I had but too much ground for alarm. He may take 6 columns more; that is to say, about forty pamphlet pages in the whole; but, he must close next week, or his letters must wait for convenience of insertion. **Errata. In the last week's Register, p. 990 line 17 for throw read thaw; page 995 line 39 for controvert read counteract.. SIR, When I promised to insert every word that you might send for insertion, in defence of the Sheridans (or, rather, if information be correct, every word that they might write in their defence), I must certainly have been understood, as not speaking sequence, however, of the private communication I have since received from you, I am led to understand that you do not mean to allot ne a place in your next paper. I do not repine at this, as I certainly conceive it will be an advantage to nie to have a sight of your long and loudly threatened letter on the Play-Actors' Dinner, before I resume my subject-for the ensuing Saturday I will, without fail, submit to you my pretensions to occupy the five columns which you are pleased very handsomely (I speak it sincerely) to allot to my attack on yourself, At present I shall only repeat that you were wrong in your suspicion as to the persons who have either a knowledge of or have participated in what I write. You must be apprized by Mr. Wright who the only per son is with whom I communicate. The only tainly not meant to be private or confidenother point in your communication, certial, upon which I shall say a word, is the following passage in your letter to me of the 28th Dec. "I must beg of you not to libel "too grossly anybody but myself;" to this I answer publicly, that I am not conscious of having libelled either you or your friends, and can only repeat what I communicated to you in my private letter," I hold myself per 1st Jan. 1807. FREDERICK HOMAN. To Wm. Cobbett, Esq. without some limit, both as to room and time; and, therefore, upon perceiving that you have begun a series of letters to the Electors of Westminster, I think it right to apprize you, that I will set apart ten columns for you, leaving you the next two numbers to choose as to thne; or, if you please, you may send five columns for each number. That this is quite time and room enough for any defence that can be made for the personally accountable as a gentleman forsous in question, you must, I think, readily every thing which falls from my pen," allow; and it will be easily perceived, that, indignation, I shall always feel myself reand without affecting to suppress feelings of at a moment like the present, when impor-sponsible for any thing to which my name tant discussions are going on, in parliament as well as out of parliament, that I shall run is attached. I have the honor to be, Sir, some risk of incurring the dissatisfaction of your's, most respectfully, my readers by suffering so large a space to be occupied by remarks upon such a subject. Go on, Sir. You shall not be interrupted. Complete your defence. It shall have a week to do execution. And then you shall hear me in answer. As I perceive you are disposed to be extremely free with the characters of the opponents of the Sheridans, I must beg of you not to libel too grossly any body but myself. Of me you may say just what you please; but, I cannot suffer my Register to be a vehicle of abuse of my friends, especially if they are also distinguish ed friends of their country; and, moreover, this would be quite superfluous to Mr. She ridan, who has the whole of the venal daily prints at his back.I am, Sir, &c.Botley, Dec. 29, 1806.WM. COBBETT DEFENCE OF MR. SHERIDAN. Sir, I sincerely acknowledge that you act with fairness and magnanimity in having admitted my last letter to a place in your Register although seat so late, and in your proinsie to continue a similar indulgence. In con WEST-INDIAN SUGAR ESTATES. SIR,I am glad that parliament has at last taken into its consideration, the rumous condition of the persons concerned in much of which commodity has of late not West-Indian estates which produce sugar; returned to the producers of it a price adequate to the mere expense of manufacturing it from the cane, and importing it hither, purchasing the land on which the cane grew, without including the previous expense of planting and cultivating that land, erecting works for the manufacturing processes, and paying the salaries and wages of the persons necessarily employed in superintending and transacting the incessant, various, and complicated business of a sugar estate. Much sugar has, I believe, within the last two months been sold for 50s. or less per cwt, the charges payable in this country on the same are, duty 27s. interest. on ditto 6d, freight 9s. 6d., landing, warehousing, cooperage, insurance from fire 1s. Od., insurance on the voyage, duty and commission on the same 2s. 3d., commission and brokage on the sale 1s. 6d. Total 42s. 6d. leaving the proprietor 7s. 6d. per cwt., or about three farthings per lb. I know that many notable housewives suppose, that be cause they pay more than they used to do for their sugar, the gains of those who produce that sugar must also be greater than they were If, indeed, the money gains of sugar growers had of late years very considerably increased, they would only have partaken, as in reason and justice they ought to have partaken, of the general effect of the astonishing quantity of taxes imposed, and of the other various incidents by which the exchangeable value of money has during the last thirty years been so exorbitantly depreciated. But the fact is, as you Mr. Cobbett, and all persons in the least conversant with the subject very well know, and has been proved times without number, even the nominal gains of the sugar grower, not only have not in the least advanced, not even have they kept stationary; but for many years they have been most grievously diminished, and of late they have either been converted into a loss, or at best reduced to nothing; insomuch, that if the conduct of a sugar estate required nothing but mere agricultural labour, or if the buildings and machinery upon it were capable of being converted to other purposes, there cannot be a doubt, that a vast deal of the land heretofore destined to the growth of sugar, would either have been employed otherwise, or not cultivated at all. But every sugar estate containing 300 acres of sugar cane land, has on it buildings and machinery, which have cost from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds, and which are inapplicable to other purposes, than that of sugar manufacture. Rather, therefore, than at once immediately abandon the whole of their capital, and condemn themselves to ruin without the possibility of recovery or mitigation, sugar planters have - continued to cultivate their estates without profit, and even at a loss, in the hope of some relief either from the course of general events, or from the interposition of the 'legislature of their country. To the other causes of British West-Indian calamities, have lately been added Buonaparte's vigorous efforts to exclude from the Continent every particle of their produce. It is very easy to talk of the inefficacy of such prohibitions, and of the irresistible power of commerce to evade them. It is much more easy to advance such propositions, than to prove them. From a document put into my hands by a person upon whose information I believe, I may inost safely rely, I can prove o the most incredulous, that Buonaparté had succeeded to a most alarming degree in tle attainment of this his favourite object, even before he had enforced his prohibitions with the severity and to the extent to which they have just now been carried. On the 5th of July last, there remained in the public wac houses of the port of London 81,020 cwts. of sugar. Between that day and the 10th of October following, there were landed 855,332 cwt. Within the same period there were exported only 11,600 cwt, and on the 10th of October there remained in the sante public warehouses 393.499 cwt. Ja de Morning Chronicle of this day (Dec 31) is represented that Lord Temple yesterday stated in the House of Commons, that there were in the port of London not less than 80 or 90 thousand hogsheads of sugar. A hog shead of sugar on an average weighs about 14 cwt. If we take the medium of Lord Temple's quantities (85 thousand hogsheads) it will appear that there are not less than 1,120,000 cut. of sugar in the port of London (and I imagine that not above two-thirds of last year's crops have been yet received). It is evident, therefore, both from the smallness of the export, and from the magnitu e of the quantity on hand, that Buonaparté bys not undertaken an impracticable measure. It is evident also, that in consequence of Lis having thus damned try this great outlet, by which the excess of um suportation of sugr used to be carried off, a vast ettantity of that commodity must remain' useless, and be to tally lost to the country, unless some mode of consumption can be adopted, to compensate that which has been lost. The breweries and distilleries offer steha mode of consumption with circumstances of considera-ble advantage to the nation at large, and without any circumstances of detriment. And by availing ourselves of this resource, we shall not only avoid great part of the evil which Buonaparte hoped to bring upon us by his exclusive system, but we shall cause the evils of that system to be most acutely felt throughout the countries under his dominion; and thus make his curse 1er coil upon his own head observe that a member for a corn county (Mr. Baker) seems to be apprehensive, that the introduction of sugar into breweries and distilleries will be injurious to the landed interest, by diminishing the price of corn. Unless the proposed measure be executed in a most careless or bungling manner, no danger of that kind need be apprehended. It is very notorious, that for long the past the corn produced in this kingdom has been much | luxury of selfish individuals, but from the less than the quantity required for its con- sage and patriotic administration of public Stumption. I have not at this moment by money by the officers employed for victual facts, which Mr. Brooke's motions disclosed, I understood a check was promised to be applied to such proceedings of the victualling officers; and that they were ordered not to buy French brandies, unless they should be threepence a quart cheaper than British West Indian rums. How far this has been carried into effect I know not. (I perceive the victualling offices still advertise for both articles); but this I know, that the promise itself exhibited a most contemptible contrast to the vigorous hostility of our arch foe. It is not in this way that Buonaparté attacks us. It is not by the despicable ped. dlery of threepenny preferances, that he thwarts our commerce, and assails our resources. He excludes our productions out of every port from the Adriatic to the Baltic. And our revenge is a threepenny preference of our own spirits over his! Wines and brandies are now almost the only remaining staples of France; and for both, particularly the latter, this country is a principal market. By excluding it, we should add in an imi-. nent degree to the distresses of the enemy. And it is indisputable, that we ourselves should not suffer the slightest inconvenience from the measure; for if our own distillers were encouraged by the promise of a permanent market to direct their science and practical skill to that object, they could produce from sugar a spirit not to be distinguished from the choicest cogniac. All chymists know, that the basis of all distilled and fermented liquors is sugar and substances are fit or unfit for the production of such liquors, as they abound or are deficient in saccharine matter. M. Beaume a celebrated Freneh chymist in his work entitled Mémoires sur la meilleure Manière de construire les Alembigues. Paris, 8vo. 1778, me any public documents on this subject;ling the navy. In consequence of the gross but the deficiency is undoubtedly very con siderable: and there is most satisfactory evitence, as Mr. Malthus has well stated and explained, that it every year grows greater. From the accounts of imports and exports parliament may easily ascertain what has of late been the average annual deficiency; and from the excise office accounts of the quantity and strength of the wash for making corn spirits, parliament may obtain a pretty near approximation to the quantity of corn used in the distilleries. Few people, I believe, will doubt that the former-the quantity of corn imported-is greater than the latter, the quantity of corn used in the distilleries; or, in other words that if not a single bushel of corn were used in distillation, we should still be under a permanent necessity of importing corn. Now, this being the case, it is most manifest, that parliament possesses the power of keeping the price of corn at that height, which shall be judged necessary to afford the owners and occupiers of land a sufficient rent for their estates, profit on their capitals, and salaries for their time and labour. Parliament has only to prohibit importation when the price of corn is beneath this height; and the thing is done. On the expediency of diminishing our dependence on foreign, and they may be hostile nations, for the staff of life, I shall for the present say nothing; but, I hope, Mr. Baker will by this time be satisfied, that, unless parliament be much more negligent of the landed interest than we can suppose it will be, as long as such active vigilant and intelligent champions of that body as his most respectable colleague and himself have seats in the House of Commons, he need not entertain any apprehension, that the price of the quartern loaf will ever be lowered one single farthing below its reasonable price by the rivalry of sugar. But there is another rivalry, to which I will take this opportunity of calling the attention of Mr. Baker, and of every friend to their country. I mean the rivalry of foreign brandies, parti cularly French. How much of the national wealth was expended to enrich our enemies by the purchase of this article, was long ago repeatedly suggested in your valuable work; and more particular information on the subject was last year laid before the House of Commons, on the motion of Mr. Brooke : and lamentable was it to see, that a most enormous portion of this expenditure proceeded not from the unthinking or unfeeling says THE ARMY. SIR,At the bottom of page 906, in 29] JANUARY 3, 1807.—Sinecures and your last Saturday's Register, you state upon calculation that an army of 200,000 men, with the proportionate number of officers yon have assigned it, and with the increased rate of pay you have there given to each class of officers, would cost a sum far short of 4 millions per annum. I must greatly misunderstand you, Sir, if this is not an error, which I think the following statement, calculated upon your own data, must demonstrate. L 200,000 men at 201. per annum each man, amounts alone to 200 battalions with 10 ensigns in each, at 7s. per diem, amounts 4,000,000 255,500 438,000 730,000 100,000 200,000 80,000 £5,503,500 But, Sir, whatever error there may be on your side, or on mine in this calculation, every man, and particularly every officer in the army, bearing about him the common habits, and the common feelings of a gentleman, must thank you for entering in the ingenious manner you have done, into an elucidation of the causes of that enormous portion of our expenditure, so grossly and so shamefully abused, which give to idle drones, and nerveless loungers, the means of supporting immense establishments, whilst the men of adventure and of courage, who offer their lives to the ravages of climates, and to the swords of their enemies, are drooping in penury and wretchedness, scarcely able to preserve themselves from the horrors of a goal. Indeed, Sir, I have heard from good authority, that there are now in the King's Bench prison alone officers of all ranks, sufficient to furnish above three regiments of the line.--I am, Sir, your obedient servant.-A. C.--December 15, 1806. SINECURES AND PENSIONS. SIR, I have just read with much satisfaction your observations in the Register of Saturday last, relative to the abolition of sinecure places. Such a measure at such a time as this would give real strength to the country, not merely by the saving it would occasion in the public expenditure, but by the strong attachment and gratitude it would excite in the people towards a government who would consent to it. But, Sir, it is too much to expect that government or any party in the state will bring forward such a measure, unless the people themselves will be at the trouble to give some proof that they desire it. I hope, therefore, you will recommend petitions to the House of Commons, and public meetings to be held for the purpose, or, if public meetings (unless for party views) require more exertion in the people than can be expected from the apathy of the times, let a few respectable individuals frame a petition, and advertise it for signature. After considering your excellent observations and illustrations, both of the utility and practicability of such a measure of reform, I have only to suggest one remark upon this topic. I would not wish the abolition of sinecures to be indiscriminate and universal, but would continue either the whole or part of the sinecure to the holder in every instance where he could prove to the satisfaction of a committee of the House, that he has no other provision, or but an inadequate provision for a comfortable support suitable to his rank in society. In that case I would continue the sirecure during the life of the holder. Let petitions to parliament be framed upon this principle, and for this object, and presented without delay. They will be no doubt a great treat to our new members, and an amusing novelty to the old. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, D. W. Dec. 15, 1906. MR. CANNING'S AMENDMENT, As published in the Courier News-paper of the 22d December, 1900. 1. To assure his Majesty that it is with increased affection, attachment and loyalty, that his Majesty's faithful Commons meet his Majesty in this ninth Parliament of His Majesty's assembling. And that, amidst all those evils and pressures of war, and those tremendous and unparalleled successes of a formidable and unrelenting enemy, which render the present crisis peculiarly awful and alarming, the first and most fervent prayer of his Majesty's faithful Commons is, that it may please Divine Providence to grant to this favoured country the prolongation of a life and of a reigu, the value and the blessings of which each succeeding year teaches us more. highly to appreciate.-II. And to express to his Majesty our unshaken determination to |