f the alteration being fitting itself, he would not oppose to
it merely the antiquity of the law which it was intended to change. His
own experience, however, and the knowledge acquired from his official
situation, led him to think that justice was most satisfactorily
administered under the present system: he felt unwilling to risk any
change. The clause was lost on a division by one hundred and five
against thirty-six.

CASE OF MR. KENRICK.

In the early part of this session the house considered a charge brought
by Mr. Denman against Mr. Kenrick, a magistrate of the county of Surrey,
and one of the Welsh judges. Evidence on the charge was entered into;
and Mr. Denman moved, that as Mr. Kenrick had shown himself an unfit
person to exercise the judicial functions, an address be presented to
his majesty, praying him to remove that gentleman from the office of
judge of the great session of Wales. The motion, however, was negatived
without a division; and this fact became a powerful argument in favour
of parliamentary reform.

STATE OF THE COLONIES.

During this session cases of great cruelty and injustice, exercised
by owners, magistrates, and judicial courts, against the slaves in our
colonies, were brought before the parliament, and eloquently exposed. At
the close of 1823, and the early part of 1824, a plan of an insurrection
among the slaves on certain plantations in Jamaica had been discovered;
and eight negroes had been executed as implicated in the conspiracy.
The papers connected with these trials had been laid on the table of the
house in 1825; and Mr. Denman now brought the legality and justice
of these proceedings under discussion, by moving a resolution to the
effect, that the house having taken into consideration the trials which
took place at Jamaica for rebellion, conspiracy, and other offences, in
the years 1823 and 1824, deem it their duty to express their sorrow and
regret at the violation of law which took place upon the said trials;
that they lament the manner in which the sentence of death was passed
and executed; and recommend some alteration in the mode of administering
the code of criminal justice affecting the slaves in the said colony.
This motion was prefaced by a speech of great eloquence, analyzing the
evidence upon which the accused had been convicted, demonstrating its
contradictions, its insufficiency, its absurdity, and arriving at the
conclusion that such atrocities, perpet