society, to debauch from his care and pro- | who married without consent of guardians tection the dearest pledge that he has on that were to be restrained till the man was earth, the sole comfort of his declining eighteen and the girl sixteen. Under the years, almost in infantine imbecility; and Marriage Act, young folks marrying with with it to carry into the hands of his ene- consent of parents and guardians might my, and the disgrace of nature, the dear- marry as early as his learned friend wished. earned substance of a careful and laborious He said farther, that it was to rescue life? Think of the daughter of an honest the young ladies from the influence and virtuous parent allied to vice and infamy. tyranny of guardians and parents that he Think of the hopeful son tied for life by chiefly wished to introduce this clause. If the meretricious arts of the refuse of mer- the committee would agree that young cenary and promiscuous lewdness. Have ladies might be marriageable at an earlier mercy on the youth of both sexes; pro- age, he had no objection to enact that the tect them from their ignorance and inex- young men should wait longer. perience; protect one part of life by the wisdom of another; protect them by the wisdom of laws, and the Care of nature. The House divided: June 20. The House being in a Comthittee on the Bill, Mr. Fox moved a clause, by which persons were declared marriageable without the consent of parents and guardians, at the ages, the woman of 16, and the man of 18, and that all marriages solemnized at an earlier age of each of the parties should be null and void. He said, his own opinion was so strong against fixing the age so high, and in favour of fixing it much earlier, that he could not divide in support of his own motion, should the sense of the committee be taken upon it, but that he bowed to the prejudices of mankind, and merely from a hope that by paying so much respect to them he should secure the safety of his Bill, he had conented to introduce the clause he had moved, and respecting the fate of which the committee would determine as they thought proper. Lord Mahon said he would move as an mendment, to alter the ages to 18 the woman, and 21 the man. Mr. Dunning said, he should vote both against the clause and the amendment, because he thought them both wrong. He was for suffering young women to marry at 15, declaring, that they were as ripe for marriage then as at a more advanced age. Mr. Fox shewed his learned friend that, according to his clause, it was those only Lord Beauchamp called the attention of the House to the scandalous manner in which licences were procured. He said the custom was, for either of the parties to go to Doctor's Commons: that the business was generally left to a proctor's clerk, who acted only ministerially, and must swear the parties, without any power to examine into the truth of what they swore that thus a young woman would make an affidavit that the young man to whom she was going to be married, was of age, and he would do the same, vice versa. So that perjury was frequently committed, and then some time after the marriage, if either party repented, they had nothing to do but to prove that one of them was not of age when married, and the marriage was instantly annulled. Thus perjury was first committed, and a mockery was afterwards made of a most serious ceremony. His lordship wished. that marriage could be put under some such regulation as matters of property. If an estate had been in the quiet possession of his family for sixty years, he was pretty sure it would descend to his heir, but if he had been married ever so long, how could he be assured but that a hundred years hence, it would be discovered, that his marriage was informal in some particular; as had lately been the case with regard to some thousands of marriages, to legalize which he had lately carried a Bill up to the other House of Parliament? He hoped to see a clause introduced, that every marriage which had been solemnized for a limited time, should be declared legal on that account only, and should not remain, as it now was, liable to impeachment, and to be nullified, whenever an error in formality was discovered. Mr. Fox declared, that among the various evils originating from the Marriage Act, the encouragement to perjury stated by the noble lord was not the least. Mr. Courtenay argued in favour of lord Mahon's amendment. The great view of the Bill, he conceived to be, to encourage population; he shewed from reasoning, both physical and metaphysical, that it would have an opposite effect, if young men were allowed to marry so early as 16. He quoted Rousseau in support of his argument, and contended, that if young women married so early in life, they bore children almost immediately, which impaired the mother's health, and weakened her constitution so much that she left off child-bearing very soon, and thus the desired end, the encouragement of population, was defeated. He reprobated the Marriage Act, and said, he never heard of any law having so pernicious an effect as that stated by the noble lord, who had spoken last but one; for it appeared, that if the parties committed perjury, they could be married, which was what they wanted, and if they afterwards told the truth, the marriage was dissolved. Mr. Turner said he need not quote Rousseau; it was enough for him to quote his own grandmother, who had six children by the time she was twenty. He spoke strongly in favour of unrestrained marriages. Earl Nugent stated the case of a man who lived near his house, and who had three big bellies laid to him at one time, each of the females claiming a promise of marriage; at last, he said, he himself paid for the licence for one of them, and the thirty shillings carried the election, the man marrying the one for whom he had purchased the licence. He imputed this, and the various fornications practised by footmen and maid servants, all to the clause in the Marriage Act, which ordained that banns should be proclaimed three Sundays. Mr. Sheridan said, gentlemen were so inveterate against the Marriage Act, that in the heat of their zeal they seemed to argue as if that Act was designed to prevent marriages, when it was undoubtedly true that to encourage marriages of a regular and proper sort, was its real aim and intention. His hon. friend, who brought in the Bill, appeared not to be aware, that if he carried the clause, enabling girls to marry at 16, he would do an injury to that liberty of which he had always shewn himself the friend, and promote domestic tyranny, which he could consider only as little less intolerable than public tyranny. If girls were allowed to marry at sixteen, they would, he conceived, be abridged of that happy freedom of intercourse which modern custom had introduced between the youth of both sexes, and which was, in his opinion, the best nursery of happy marriages. Guardians would, in that case, look on their wards with a jealous eye, from a fear that footmen, and those about them, might take advantage of their tender years and immature judgment, and persuade them into marriage, as soon as they attained the age of 16. In like man. ner, young men, when mère boys, in a moment of passion, however ill-directed, or perhaps in a moment of intoxication, might be prevailed upon to make an im prudent match, and probably be united to: a common prostitute. He was ready to admit, that the Marriage Act had some absurd clauses in it, but he could not agree, that the whole of that Act was so impolitic, or so productive either of mischief or of inconvenience, as to stand in need of a total repeal. After some further, conversation, the Committee divided: For Mr. Fox's Motion, 36: For lord Mahon's Amend ment, 7. June 27. On the order of the day for the third reading of the Bill, The 紀 Sir William Dolben said, that though be he was an enemy to the Marriage Act, and considered the restrictions laid upon the sexes as exceedingly unadvised and re detrimental, yet he was afraid that the re House was now going too far. If the Marriage Act was too severe, the presentk Bill was too loose, and gave more liberty than persons of the green age stated in the clauses ought to be indulged with. The H consequence would be precipitancy of marriage, and all the train of licentious evils arising therefrom. He expressed at wish that some greater restriction were imposed on clergymen, to deter them from marrying young couples without due re gard to the forms prescribed by law. Lord North said, the Marriage Act had produced the most beneficial consequences to the kingdom, by putting an end to that monstrous abuse of marriage which pre-A vailed at the time when the Marriage Acti passed; but some of the evils which the Marriage Act put an end to would revive again. He went into a discussion of the different clauses of the Bill, and objected to them severally. In respect to that which limited the age of the sexes, the women to sixteen, and the men to eighteen, he saw no reason whatever for it; and thought, if the Marriage Act was to be affected with regard to the particular clause of age, it would be better to repeal the clause altogether than to cut off three years of the time limited by the law as it now stood. He observed that 21 was the age at which the law declared men to be capable of taking the direction of their own estates, and he saw no reason why they should be supposed capable of determining with propriety upon their marriage earlier. It had been objected to the Marriage Act, that it was liable to evasion because Scotland was not bound by it, and people had an opportunity of exercising free marriage by taking a jaunt to the North. In respect to that, his lordship said, the Act was defective in a particular, which he considered as the least important and the least necessary of all its various objects. The idea of marrying house to house, and estate to estate, merely for the purpose of accumulating riches, he was as much averse to as any gentleman present. He knew perfectly well, that happiness was not dependent upon wealth alone, and therefore he did not wish to have the ceremony of marriage at all governed by sordid considerations. Besides this, marriages solemnized in Scotland, could not be said to be marriages of a sudden, or concerning which the parties had not sufficient time to consider the consequences. He therefore had not the least objection to the case remaining as it did with regard to Scotland, but he could not by any means think that the Marriage Act ought to be repealed in that degree, which the present Bill, if passed into a law, would repeal it. His lordship added a variety of other reasons against the Bill, and said he could not give his consent to any measure, against which his judgment went so completely as in the present instance. Mr. Fox said, the objections he had heard stated that day were so perfectly new, that he could not be silent, but must ay a word or two in answer to what had been thrown out, both by the hon. baronet behind him, and the noble lord in the blue ribbon. And first, he could not but observe, that it was a little extraordinary that they should have reserved their objections till the present moment. Various opportunities had offered for opposing the Bill, but in all the debates that had occurred upon the subject, neither the noble lord nor the hon. baronet had thought proper to use one of those arguments [VOL. XXII.] which the House had just heard. The hon. baronet had been pleased to attack his Bill, by saying that the clause which allowed of early marriages would encourage licentiousness. This he could not but consider as a very singular objection; early marriages might be liable to objec tion on the score of impropriety or impru dence, or indeed on any other score than that which the hon. baronet had thought proper to mention; for undoubtedly, if he had looked the dictionary through, he could not have picked out a word so little applicable to a clause encouraging early marriage, as the word licentious. With regard to what the noble lord had said on the ground of the clause, which limited the age of persons capable of marriage to sixteen and eighteen, he was ready to agree, that it would have been better to have made no limitation whatever, but to have repealed the clause in the Marriage Act altogether. That had ever been his opinion, but in deference to the judgment of other persons, he had consented to the limitation as it now stood. The noble lord had talked of the good effects of the Marriage Act; he would not say, but there might have been occasion for some regulation respecting those marriage shops which were so common in every part of London when that Act passed, but then consider ing the Act altogether, he was confident there never was an Act more offensive to general liberty, more inimical to popula tion, nor more odiously aristocratical. It had been made an argument, that the Marriage Act had been effectual, and this argument had even been insisted on in the present session, when a Bill was pending in the other House to remedy an evil arising under the Marriage Act, and which that Act, it was notorious, had been found incapable of preventing. It was evident, from that instance, that the Marriage Act was ineffectual; and what was the purpose of the Bill at that time in the other House? It was merely this; the Marriage Act having been proved inca. pable of its intended operation to prevent doubtful marriages, that Bill wisely took away its other and more odious power, the power of punishment where doubtful marriages had taken place. The Marriage Act therefore was no longer to be boasted of as an adequate preventative. It had been found to be ineffectual in its best and most just object, and what he wanted by his Bill was, to take away its worst object, that of inflicting merciless punish[2 E] ment. As the Act now stood, the law respecting marriage in Great Britain contradicted the religion of the country. The Marriage Act was totally inconsonant with the genius of the people, and was opposite to every principle of our constitution. He wished therefore to make the law of marriage conformable to our religion, and to remove those fetters, which an arbitrary, unnatural, and aristocratical statute had imposed on the minds of the youth of both sexes. The noble lord had said, that marriage was still free in Scotland, and that marriages there solemnized could not be said to be precipitate marriages, or marriages not sufficiently considered; surely the noble lord forgot, that when they talked of Scotland, they must consider it as it stood relatively with regard to the geography of all England. Though it must necessarily take some time to go from London or Middlesex to Scotland, certainly the case was otherwise with regard to the counties of Cumberland and Northumberland, and the persons resident therein. After arguing this for some time, he said the Marriage Act was not merely odious in his eyes, but odious in the eyes of the bulk of the people with out doors. It ever had been so, and it was impossible it should be otherwise; on the present occasion, he flattered himself, he should divide with a majority against the noble lord's opinion, and that for this reason; the House rarely failed to speak the sense of the people at large, whenever a question came before them upon which they could vote freely, and where none of those considerations mixed in the business, which were supposed to influence men's minds on points where politics interfered. Sir W. Dolben observed, that the hon. gentleman, the patron of the Bill, had said, if he had looked the dictionary through he could not have found a word so little applicable to the clause authorising early marriages, as the word licentiousness.' It happened a little unfortunately for the hon. gentleman who made this remark, that he never had applied the word licentiousness' to the clause in question. What he had said was merely to suggest, that if the clause passed as it stood, precipitancy of marriage would be the inevitable consequence; and in many cases, that would be the source of much serious inConvenience. tlemen seemed most to object; and he gave notice of his intention then, in order that those who approved of the principle of the Bill, but nevertheless disliked ticular clauses, might still vote for the third reading. 43. par The House divided: Yeas 75; Noes The Bill was then read a third time. Lord Mahon moved, that the ages stated as the proper period for marriage, be altered from 16 and 18,. to 18 the woman, and 21 the man. Lord Beauchamp strenuously opposed the amendment. The House, he con ceived, had acted a most laudable part, in endeavouring to emancipate the people from the operation of an Act, which was not only extremely oppressive in many particulars, but also extremely absurd in others. Nothing could be more absurd, than making 21 years of age the period, at which both the sexes should have a right to marry according to their own will and inclination. Common sense shewed that there ought to be a difference between the ages of the man and of the woman, and he appealed to the usage of the world, whe ther, if a good match offered, a father would refuse to accept it because of his daugh ter's nonage? He said, from the age of 16 to the age of 18 were the two best years of a woman's life: for that therefore, and for various other reasons, he hoped the House would not adopt the amendment. The Amendment was negatived. Lord Mahon proposed a second, which was, that to the clause enacting, that if marriage should continue unquestioned for five years, it should be legal, there should be added, " or during the life the parties." This was adopted. He then offered a third, namely, changing the term of five years, stated in the Act, as the time of cohabitation after marriage, which should bar enquiry into the forms of that marriage, to 20 years cohabitation; and he justified this amendment by stating, a a possible case, that a man might be mar ried at an ale-house when he was drunk, and know nothing of it the next day. In which case, such a man's marrying again would be an act of felony, and all the chil dren by the second marriage would be bastards. His lordship recommended this motion to the attention of the young members; because, he said, they were most likely to fall into the predicament he had Lord Mahon said, he meant on the third described; and to the old members, be reading to move two or three amendments, cause he trusted their wisdom and expethat would alter the clauses to which gen-rience would teach them, that the case he had stated, was likely to happen, and ought to be guarded against. Mr. Fox opposed the amendment, though he owned he saw that what, the noble lord had said, was within the scope of probability. But upon a case barely possible, he could not think it became parliament to adopt such an amendment. The Amendment was negatived. The Bill was passed and carried up to the Lords, by whom it was rejected on the motion for the second reading. Debate in the Commons on the Public Accountants' Bill.] June 11. On the motion for going into a committee on the Bill for paying into the Exchequer the Balances in the hands of Public Account ants, Mr. T. Townshend desired to be permitted to give his reasons why the House should not in his opinion go into the committee, nor proceed farther in the Bill; or if they did go into a committee, to shew them why some clauses should be inserted which had not been thought of by the noble lord in the blue ribbon. It might be imagined that being a public accountant himself, he was interested in the rejection of the Bill. He assured the House that he was not, and that for this reason his balance amounted to the small sum of 12 or 13,000l.; and this sum he had deposited in the Bank of England long since, there to remain till he could get his accounts passed. He had never made the least advantage of the balance that remained in his hands, either by having it at interest or otherways, nor would he ever do so. To him, therefore, it was a matter of the most perfect indifference, whether the sum was to be paid into the Exchequer the next day, or on that day ten years. He had been frequently praised; and as often laughed at on this account. Some gentlemen had called his conduct disinterested, and others silly. Sincerely to speak his own opinion, he did not think that he deserved either the one or the other. He had done what he thought his duty, and no more; nor did he state the circumstance now to gain any credit from it. He laid claim to none. It was merely a matter of opinion, and he did not mean in the least to insinuate any thing against those accountants, who, from entertaining a contrary opinion, had acted in a different manner. The sole reason of his mentioning it was to convince the House, that what he should say against the present Bill did not arise from interested motives; and that he was perfectly unconcerned as to its operation with respect to himself; he spoke for others; for public accountants, their representatives, and descendants, who were not there to speak for themselves; whose families might be deeply injured if the Bill should pass without some provision being made to save them from the impending danger. A public accountant, he observed, was a man the most unfortunately circumstanced of any officer in the public service. If he went out of office, it was not in his power to force the officers of government to pass his accounts, and grant him a quietus; it lay entirely with them, and though he should use the utmost dispatch in expediting his accounts, still they might delay to pass them. He of consequence lay at the mercy of the auditors of the Imprest and Treasury. What was the consequence? In his own case, if he wished to sell an estate, where was his title? He could not dispose of any part of his property, because he could not execute a conveyance sufficient to save the purchaser from an extent of the crown. The Bill took away the very feeble security remaining to a public accountant, that his accounts might be past at all; while a large balance remained in his hands, the lords of the Treasury had a stimulus' to quicken them, because as matters stood at present, the balance could not be obtained till those accounts. were settled. But should this Bill pass, the case would be different; then, a public accountant would be deprived of his only security, and he would have no chance of obtaining his quietus. Let the House consider what a dreadful situation the family of a public accountant would be in when he happened to die, and his affairs fell into the hand of representatives perfectly ignorant of the nature of his accounts; in such a case, they might be harassed with extents, and the whole fortune of the accountant would lie at the mercy of administration. Such was the situation of a public accountant, and he well remembered the extreme anxiety felt by the late earl of Chatham before he could obtain his quietus, which was in the year 1769, thirteen years after he had been paymaster.-He reprobated the Bill, as a violent measure of a negligent, indolent minister. He said it was the only proposition which the noble lord in the blue ribbon had founded on the reports of |