and to raise L400,000 more on
mortgage. The report was received, and the resolution for the proposed
advance carried.

MOTION RESPECTING THE DUTY ON THE LEEWARD ISLANDS.

On the 9th of June Mr. Creevey called the attention of the house to a
grievance under which the Leeward Islands were oppressed, by what was
called the four and half per cent. duty. He held petitions in his hands
from five of these islands, setting forth their distress, stating their
utter inability to bear such a tax, and throwing themselves on the
liberality of parliament. Mr. Creevey proposed the abolition of this
impost; an impost on which were saddled so many pensions granted to the
aristocracy. He thought it hard that these five islands should maintain
so many ladies and gentlemen in England. He was, he said, the last man
to interfere with the private arrangements of the royal family, but
the king had given pensions to two of his sisters at the expense of the
unfortunate Leeward Islands, and why these islands were singled out for
such a purpose he could not conceive. Then there were pensions of L500
each to the Misses Fitzclarence; and there were also gentlemen high in
office who condescended to allow the Leeward Islands to support their
families. Right honourable gentlemen, he continued, could not say
that they were ignorant of the colonies; their own acts proved their
knowledge of the fact. They could support the colonies and urge their
distress in a particular way; they could tax East India sugar, and the
consumer of West India sugar in England; but they could not abate that
tax out of which their own pensions were derived. Mr. Canning, who
received one of these pensions, replied at great length, objecting
to this motion as affecting the right of the crown to this branch of
revenue, and its right of appropriating the same in any manner deemed
suitable by his majesty's government. With respect to his own case, to
which Mr. Creevey had made allusion, he remarked:--"It was true that
many years ago he had held an office; on retiring from which, by uniform
practice, and that sanctioned by law, he be-came entitled to a pension
of L1200 per annum. He had waived his claim to that annuity; and it was
true that such right was afterwards commuted for a pension of half the
amount for a person who had direct claims on him for protection. It was
certainly open to parliament to deliberate on particular instances in
the disposal of this fund, and he wo