vision had been made for the fitting accommodation of those persons who had to join officially in the procession, and for facilitating as far as possible their return after the ceremony had been performed; but he thought it would be convenient, if their Lordships agreed to the appointment of a Committee, that that Committee should have in attendance before them on the following day Garter King-at-Arms, from whom they might ascertain what were the precise arrangements made, and then the Committee or any noble Lord would have an opportunity of suggesting any alterations which they thought desirable; and if it was possible to make them within the limited time which remained, he was sure that every person engaged would be ready to pay the utmost deference to the wishes of the House, and would have every disposition to meet them. On Question, agreed to. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Monday, November 15, 1852. MINUTES.] PUBLIC BILLS.-1° Bills of Exchange and Notes (Metropolis). 2° Bills of Exchange and Notes (Metropolis). Reported.-Bills of Exchange and Notes (Metropolis). 30 Bills of Exchange and Notes (Metropolis). THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S FUNERAL -THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF ST. PAUL'S. SIR DE LACY EVANS said, he wished, in consideration of the public anxiety to participate in the coming solemnity at St. Paul's, to ask what number of places had been allotted in the cathedral to the Dean and Chapter during the approaching solemnity? MR. WALPOLE said, he believed that the mode in which the tickets for St. Paul's had been allotted was this :-that all those who attended the funeral, whether as deputations or otherwise, would have places allotted for them, as, for instance, the Members of the House of Lords and of the House of Commons, Privy Councillors, Knights of the Bath, the Trinity House, and so on. Then there would be accommodation for peeresses, foreigners of distinction, ambassadors, and persons of that class. A certain number of tickets would be allocated to the Horse Guards, for officers who had served under the Duke of Wellington; the same provision had been made for the Ordnance, the Artillery and Engineers, and for the Admiralty and naval officers. The total number of tickets for the different public offices, including a certain number allotted to the Lord Chamberlain, would be upwards of 7,000. Then the Dean and Chapter would have the remainder of the tickets, out of which provision was to be made for the city. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman was not aware that at the time of Nelson's funeral the whole distribution of tickets was under the care of the Dean and Chapter. It was very different, however, on the present occasion. SIR JOHN SHELLEY said, he was of opinion that the right hon. Gentleman had not completely answered the question put to him he would therefore beg to ask whether it was true that a large number of seats-something like 3,000-had been reserved for the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's? any LORD JOHN MANNERS said, it was not true that 3,000 seats were reserved for the Dean and Chapter, but 3,000 seats had been reserved for them and the city of London. He might take this opportunity of stating that it was altogether untrue that the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's had made any application for 3,000 or 5,000 tickets-or, indeed, for number whatever. Looking to what had been done on past occasions, the Government had thought it right to offer the Dean and Chapter a certain number of seats. The Dean and Chapter had offered every possible facility; and he took this public opportunity of saying that their conduct on this important and solemn occasion had been marked by the strongest desire to consult the public convenience and public feeling. THE CONVOCATION. MR. J. A. SMITH begged to ask the right hon. Secretary of the Home Department whether any communication had been made by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Government with reference to the present sitting of Convocation, and whether it was intended that it should continue to sit or be prorogued as usual? MR. WALPOLE said, that as far as he was aware, no communication such as the hon. Member referred to had been made to any Member of the Government; certainly none such had been made to him. In answer to the other branch of the question-namely, whether the Convocation was to be allowed to continue sitting, or to be prorogued as usual, he begged to state 147 Bills of Exchange and {COMMONS} Notes (Metropolis) Bill. 148 that the usual course would be observed, and this was intended from the beginning. THE COAL TRADE. MR. LIDDELL said, he wished to ask the noble Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether any communication had taken place between our Government and the Government of France relative to the equalisation of the duties levied on British coal when imported into the latter country? LORD STANLEY said, that the subject to which the hon. Member's question referred was one on which the attention of the Government had for some time past been fixed. The Government was fully aware of the great benefit which would accrue to British interests, and he believed to French interests also, by the establishment of lower rates of duty on British coal imported into France, than those at present enforced; but, under all the circumstances of the case, and considering the nature of our commercial relations with France, it had been thought better not to enter into any negotiations on this subject separately. Communications relative to it had passed between the two Governments, and from those communications it appeared that the Government of France was favourably disposed as was also the Government of this country-to making considerable modifications in the present international commercial system. THE QUEEN'S ANSWER TO THE MR. FORESTER appeared at the bar, and stated that, having presented to Her Majesty the Address of the House in answer to the Speech from the Throne, the Queen had been pleased to make the following gracious reply : "I have received with satisfaction your loyal and dutiful Address. I rely, with confidence, on your co-operation with Me in My endeavour to promote the welfare of all classes of My subjects." BILLS OF EXCHANGE AND NOTES (METROPOLIS) BILL. MR. WALPOLE rose, pursuant to notice, to move for leave to bring in a Bill to make provision concerning bills of exchange and promissory notes payable in the metropolis on the day appointed for the funeral of the Duke of Wellington. This course was taken in consequence of the representations make to him by bankers and members of the commercial interest as to the great inconvenience that would arise from having bills of exchange payable on a day when the streets would be filled with the dense crowds that might be expected to assemble on that occasion, and which would render it impossible for persons engaged in business to pass from place to place. The Bill would provide that bills of exchange and notes falling due on the day of the funeral should be payable on the day before. It was evident that this arrangement could not be injurious to the holders of bills, while the only inconvenience which could result to payers would be, that in the event of their not being prepared to take their up acceptances on the day before their funeral, they would incur certain notarial charges on account of the noting of bills. To obviate this inconvenience, he proposed that the payers of bills of exchange should not be liable to notarial charges, provided their bills should be paid by two o'clock on Friday, the day following the funeral. Leave given. Bill brought in (the Standing Orders being suspended), was read a first and second time, and committed, without observation. On the Question, that it be read a Third Time, MR. MANGLES said, he wished to know whether there was any objection to extending the provisions of the Bill to the whole country? He had reason to know that a wish prevailed generally to have the day of the funeral observed with solemnity throughout the Kingdom. MR. GLYN begged to express the thanks of the commercial public of Lendon to the right hon. Gentleman for having introduced this Bill, and to the House for the disposition which it showed to pass it. The measure was rendered necessary, not so much from a desire to make a holiday of the day appointed for the funeral, as on account of the absolute impossibility of transacting business on that occasion. Whether or not the rest of the country should be placed on the same footing as London on any future similar occasion, was a question which could not now be properly considered; but he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would turn his attention to it. MR. J. L. RICARDO said, it would be desirable to fix the payment of bills peremptorily for Wednesday; otherwise persons in the country-Manchester, for instance-who had payments to make on Friday dependent on the honouring of bills | The House of Commons is called upon to of exchange in London on Thursday, might be subjected to great inconvenience. MR. WALPOLE said, in reference to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles), as to the propriety of extending the operation of the Bill beyond London; that he had considered that point a great deal, and it seemed to him that as the inconvenience to be provided against namely, the obstruction to business likely to be caused from a dense mass of people, would not extend beyond the metropolis, it was useless to make the measure applicable to the whole country. As to the general question mooted by the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Glyn), it was well worthy of consideration whether it would not be expedient to introduce a general Bill repealing former Acts, and giving the Crown power, by proclamation, to place days devoted to any peculiar solemnity on the same footing as regarded bills of exchange as Sundays, Fast days, and Thanksgiving days. MR. J. L. RICARDO said, that as the Bill provided that a bill of exchange paid before two o'clock on Friday should be subject to no notarial charges, it might be assumed that it would be duly honoured if paid under those circumstances. MR. WALPOLE said, that the Bill would make bills of exchange due on the 18th presentable and payable on the day before, in the same way as if the 18th wore a Sunday; but, inasmuch as the presenting of bills on the 17th might subject payers to certain notarial charges, it was provided that in the event of their meeting their liabilities by two o'clock on the following Friday those notarial charges should not be enforced. An HON. MEMBER asked whether it would not be better to make all bills due on the 18th payable on the day after the funeral? MR. WALPOLE, in reply, said, that the point had been fully considered. All the commercial authorities whom he had consulted strongly recommended that there should be no departure from commercial usages. Bill read 3°, and passed. FUNERAL OF THE DUKE OF night to perform a sorrowful but a noble duty. It has to recognise, in the face of the country and of the civilised world, the loss of the most distinguished of our citizens; and it has to offer to the ashes of the great departed the solemn anguish of a bereaved nation. Sir, the princely personage who has left us was born in an age more fruitful of great events than any other period of recorded time. Of its vast incidents, the most conspicuous were his own deeds-deeds achieved with the smallest means and against the greatest obstacles. He was, therefore, not only a great man, but the greatest man of a great age. Amid the chaos and conflagration which attended the close of the last century there arose one of those beings who seem to be born to master mankind. It is not too much to say that Napoleon combined the imperial ardour of Alexander with the strategy of Hannibal. The kings of the earth fell before his fiery and subtle genius, and at the head of all the Powers of Europe, he denounced destruction agaiust the only land that dared to disobey him and be free. The Providential superintendence of the world seems scarcely ever more manifest than when we recollect the dispensations of our day-that the same year which gave to France the Emperor Napoleon, produced also for us the Duke of Wellington; that in the same year they should have embraced the same profession; and that, natives of distant islands, they should both have repaired for their military education to that illustrious land which each in his turn was destined to subjugate. During that long struggle for our freedom, our glory-I might say for our existenceWellesley fought and won fifteen pitched battles-all of them of the highest class concluding with one of those crowning victories that give a colour and a form to history. During that period that can be said of him which can be said of no other captain-that he captured three thousand cannon from the enemy, and never lost a single gun. But the greatness of his exploits was, perhaps, even surpassed by the difficulties which he had to encounter. For he had to WELLING-encounter a feeble Government, a factious TON-THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE. Opposition, a distrustful people, scandalous allies, and the most powerful enemy in the world. He won victories with starving troops, and he carried on sieges without munitions. And as if to complete the fa our lives we see ordinary men who may be successful Ministers of State, successful authors, successful speakers-But to do all this with genius is sublime. Doubtless, to be able to think with vigour, with clearness, and with depth in the recess of the cabinet, is a fine intellectual demonstration; but to think with equal vigour, clearness, and depth amidst bullets, appears the loftiest exercise and the most complete triumph of the human faculties. tality which attended him throughout life in this respect, when he had at last succeeded in creating an army worthy of the Roman legions and worthy of himself, this invincible host was broken up on the eve of the greatest conjuncture of his life, and he had to enter the field of Waterloo with raw levies and discomfited allies. But the star of Wellington never paled. He has been called fortunate, but fortune is a divinity which has ever favoured those who are at the same time sagacious and intrepid, Sir, when we take into consideration the inventive aud patient. It was his own prolonged and illustrious life of the Duke character that created his career-alike of Wellington, we are surprised how small achieved his exploits, and guarded him a section of that life is occupied by that from every vicissitude; for it was his sub-military career which fills so large a space lime self-control alone that regulated his lofty fate. in history. Only eight years elapsed from Vimiera to Waterloo; and from the date of his first commission to the last cannonshot which he heard on the field of battle, scarce twenty years can be counted. After all his triumphs he was destined for another career; and the greatest and most successful of warriors--if not in the prime, at least in the perfection of manhood— commenced a civil career scarcely less successful, scarcely less splendid, than that military one which will live for ever in the memory of men. He was thrice the Ambassador of his Sovereign at those great of Europe; twice was he Secretary of State; twice he was Commander-in-Chief of the Forces; once he was Prime Minister of England; and to the last hour of his life he may be said to have laboured for his country. It was only a few months before we lost him that he favoured with his counsel and assistance the present advisers of the Crown respecting that war in the East of which no one could be so competent to judge, and he drew up his views on that subject in a state paper characterised by all his sagacity and experience; and, indeed, when he died he died still the active chieftain of that famous Army to which he has left the tradition of his glory. Sir, it has been of late years somewhat the fashion to disparage the military character. Forty years of peace have, perhaps, made us somewhat less aware how considerable and how complex are the qualities which go to the formation of a great general. It is not enough that he must be an engineer, a geographer, learned in human nature, and adroit in managing men-he must also be able to fulfil the highest duty of a Minister of State, and then to descend to the humblest office of a commissary and clerk; and he has to dis-historic Congresses that settled the affairs play all this knowledge, and to exercise all these duties, at the same time, and under extraordinary circumstances. At every moment he has to think of the eve and of the morrow--of his flank and of his rear. He has to carry with him ammunition, provisions, and hospitals. He has to calculate at the same time the state of the weather and the moral qualities of man; and all these elements that are perpetually changing he has to combine, sometimes under overwhelming heat, and sometimes under overpowering cold-sometimes even amid famine, and often amid the roar of artillery. Behind all these circumstances, too, there is ever present the image of his country, and the dreadful alternative whether that country is to welcome him with laurel or with cypress. Yet this image he must dismiss from his mind; for the general must think-and not only think-he must think with the rapidity of lightning, for on a moment more or less depends the fate of a most beautiful combination, and on a moment more or less depends the question of glory or of shame. Unquestionably, Sir, all this might be done in an ordinary manner, and by an ordinary man, as every day of Sir, there is one passage in the life of the Duke of Wellington which in this place, and on this occasion, I ought not to let pass unnoticed. It is our pride that he was one of ourselves-it is our glory that Sir Arthur Wellesley once sat on these benches. If we view his career in the House of Commons by the tests of success which are applied to common men, his career, although brief, was still distinguished. He entered the Royal Councils and filled high offices of State. But the success of Sir Arthur Wellesley in the House of Commons must not be tested by the fact that he was a Privy Councillor or a Secretary of a Lord Lieutenant. He achieved here a success which the greatest Ministers and the most brilliant orators may never hope to accomplish. That was a great Parliamentary triumph when he rose in his place to receive the thanks of Mr. Speaker for a brilliant victory; and, later still, when at that bar to receive, Sir, from one of your predecessors in memorable words the thanks of a grateful Senate for accumulated triumphs. Sir, there is one source of consolation which I think the people of England possess at this moment under the severe bereavement over which they mourn-It is their intimate acquaintance with the cha racter, and even the person of this great man. There never was a man of such mark who lived so long and so much in the public eye. I will be bound there is not a Gentleman in this House who has not seen him; many there are who have conversed with him; some there are who have touched his hand. His image, his countenance, his manner, his voice are impressed on every memory and sound almost in every ear. In the golden saloon and in the busy market place to the last he might be found. The rising generation among whom he lived will often recall his words of kindness; and the people followed him in the street with that lingering gaze of reverent admiration which seemed never to tire. Who, indeed, can ever forget that venerable and classic head, ripe with time and radiant as it were with glory? "Stilichonis apex et cognita fulsit Canities." To complete all, that we might have a perfect idea of his inward and spiritual nature -that we might understand how this sovereign master of duty fulfilled the manifold offices of his life with unrivalled ac tivity, he himself gave us a collection of military and administrative literature which no age and no country can rival. And, fortunate in all things, Wellington found in his lifetime an historian whose immortal page now ranks with the classics of that land which Wellesley saved. Sir, the Duke of Wellington has left to his country a great legacy-greater even than his fame; he has left to them the contemplation of his character. I will not say of England that he has revived here the sense of duty-that, I trust, was never lost. But that he has inspired public life with a purer and more masculine tone, I cannot doubt; that he has rebuked by his career restless vanity, and regulated the morbid susceptibility of irregular egotism, is, I think, no exaggerated praise. I do not believe that among all orders of Englishmen, from the highest to the lowest, from those who are called on to incur the most serious responsibilities of office, to those who exercise the humblest duties of our society-I do not believe there is one among us who may not experience moments of doubt and depression, when the image of Wellington will occur to his memory, and he finds in his example support and solace. Although the Duke of Wellington lived so much in the minds and hearts of the people of England-although at the end of his long career he occupied such a prominent position, and filled such august offices, no one seemed to be conscious of what a space he occupied in the thoughts and feelings of his countrymen until he died. The influence of true greatness was never, perhaps, more completely asserted than in his decease. In an age in which the belief in intellectual equality flatters so much our self-complacency, every one suddenly acknowledges that the world has lost its foremost man. In an age of utility, the most busy and the most common-sense people in the world find no vent for their woe, and no representative for their sorrow, but the solemnity of a pageant; and wewho are assembled here for purposes so different-to investigate the sources of the wealth of nations, to busy ourselves in statistical research, to encounter each other in fiscal controversy-we offer to the world the most sublime and touching spectacle that human circumstances can well produce-the spectacle of a Senate mourning a Hero. Sir, I beg leave to move a Resolution "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, humbly to thank Her Majesty for having given directions for a public interment of the mortal remains of his Grace the Duke of Wellington, in the cathedral church of St. Paul, and to assure Her Majesty of our cordial aid and concurrence in giving to the ceremony a fitting degree of solemnity and importance." LORD JOHN RUSSELL: I ask the permission of you, Sir, and the House, to second the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not wish to add a single word to those |