and forty against ninety-one. On the 6th April the bill relating to
the protection of persons employed in the publication of parliamentary
papers was sent up to the lords; and, after making some amendments
in committee, the lords passed it and returned it to the commons, who
agreed to the amendments; and on the 14th April the royal assent was
given to it by commission. On the 15th of April, on the motion of Sir R.
Inglis, Mr. Sheriff Evans and Mr. Howard, jun., were discharged. Messrs.
Thomas Burton Howard, sen., and Stockdale were still left in Newgate;
but, on the 15th of May, on the motion of Mr. T. Duncombe, they were
liberated likewise, and thus terminated this much-agitated and important
question. In the course of the discussion in the commons the ablest
lawyers spoke in favour of the particular privilege of free publication
claimed by the house, as essential to the due discharge of its functions
as a constituent branch of the legislature; but many of them dissented
from the doctrine that it was a breach of their privilege to bring them
under the cognizance of a court of law. Above all, they thought that
having once submitted the case to the court of Queen's Bench, by
pleading in the action, they were bound to respect the judgment of the
court; and if they considered it erroneous, to bring it under the review
of a court of error, in the legal and constitutional mode, and not
proceed by arbitrary imprisonment against officers who merely acted
in their ministerial capacity, and who would have stood exposed to the
process of attachment, if they had refused to obey the writs which the
court called upon them to execute. Sir William Fol-lett, indeed, broadly
stated that the commons were enforcing their privileges in a manner
that could not be maintained; that they were assuming powers which the
constitution did not give them; and that he was not able to vote for any
of the committals which had taken place. He did not deny that the house
was the exclusive judge of its own privileges, and that they had the
power of committal; but he did not think that if a servant of the house
should be questioned for any act done under their orders, that they had
a right to deprive the courts of law of their jurisdiction over that
servant.

AFFAIRS OF CHINA, ETC.

During the last year a serious collision took place between the Chinese
authorities and the British subjects at Canton. This arose out of the
contraband traffic in opium