rce from Spain and Portugal, where their presence was necessary.
On these grounds government proposed this additional force, which was
granted without a division. Mr. Hume, however, endeavoured to make a
compensating saving, by moving a reduction of five thousand men in
the army estimates; and when this motion was negatived, he moved a
proposition which was directed against the foot-guards as being costly
troops, maintained rather for show than use, and enjoying, for the sake
of the aristocracy, prerogatives which were degrading to the rest of the
army: this motion was also negatived.

DISCUSSIONS ON THE COLONIES, AND ON OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS.

At this period unfortunate differences prevailed in the Mauritius
between a part of the inhabitants and the government authorities, and
between one part of the population and another. They were said to
have originated in the desire of the white population to evade some
requirements of the law for the emancipation of the negroes, and were
believed to have been aggravated on the one side by indiscretion, and on
the other by the honest determination of the colonial judges. More
than one judge had been recalled; and the consequence was, that their
successors, who did not pursue the same course, and the governors of the
island were denounced as being guilty of abusing their powers to
prevent the due execution of the emancipation act. Mr. Roebuck took the
discontented inhabitants of the Mauritius under his protection. On the
15th of February he moved, that a select committee should be appointed
to inquire into the administration of justice in that colony. In
supporting his motion, he said, that the mother country had declared
slave-trading to be a felony, and that an order in council was passed,
in consequence of a resolution of that house, to the effect that no
governor, judge, or registrar of slaves, should hold any species of
slave property, either directly, in trust, or mortgage. He charged the
whole body of these functionaries with holding slave property. He
also charged Sir C. Colville, the late governor, with speculating and
creating debts in slave property; and Chief-justice Blackburne, the
officers of the supreme court, and nearly all the functionaries of the
island, with the same gross violation of that order in council. Proof of
the fact, he said, was to be found in the despatches of government; and
he entered into a long statement of mal-administration in that colony.