THE PARLIAMENT.

THE S UPPLIr occupied the House of Commons in Committee on Friday to an unusually late hour. The debate chiefly turned upon the suggestion of the Finance Committee, that the office of Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance should be abolished. The Secretary at War, Sir Henry Hardinge, after stating that the total estimates for the Ordnance, this year, were 1,567,196/.—a reduction upon 1827 of 82,7761.—added, that in the military department of it, this was at far as it was possible to go. We had only one gun to five hundred men ; whereas all other countries had one gun to every three hundred men. In war, one artilleryman was allowed to nine other soldiers—now, one to fourteen. He thought the Finance Committee had been a little I hard upon the Ordnance ; and there was no disposition in the Board to adopt the recommendation as to the abolition of the office of Lieutenant-General. Various authorities were quoted to prove that the duties were arduous, and the office necessary—that they must either be performed by the Master-General or the Lieutenant-General, and when one was absent the other sup- plied his place. 'I here was no objection to reduce the salary of the Clerk of the Ordnance from an average of about 1945/. to 1200/. per annum. The salary of the Lieutenant-General would also be reduced from 1500/. to 1200/. per annum. Altogether the amount of annual reduction in the Ordinance civil departmenL would be about 2093/.,in addition to 9000/. per annum decided upon while the Committee was sitting. In the inspection of accounts alone, 5000/. per annum was saved. Sir H. Parnell now moved, that the salary of Lieutenant-General be reduced from 1500/. to GOO/. Mr. Calcraft maintained that the office ought to be retained, and all the salaries remain without reduction ; and defended his own con- sistency. Sir James Graham thought him open to a much graver charge than inconsistency : he admired his prescience, by which he had foreseen he should be himself a placeman, and had pre- pared the way. Sir George Murray defended the continuance of the office, lest, in case the Master-General were employed upon other service, there should be no one to supply his place. Mr. Stanley ridiculed the idea ; he could not see why, because an officer was wanted elsewhere, that that was a reason for keeping up two offices. The House decided against the suggestion of the Committee of Finance.

THE CIVIL WAR IN PORTUGAL.-011 Monday, Sir James Mackintosh found an opportunity to deliver one of his elaborate disccurses on the law of nations ; taking, for a text, the terms in which the British Government had recently notified the blockade of Oporto by Don Miguel. Sir James contended, that a formal notification was not necessary ; that the effect of the technical language employed, was to elevate an irregular deed of rebel vio- lence to an act of legitimate warfare—to recognize the authority of Don Miguel as "Prince Regent of Portugal," after it had been forfeited by his infraction of the Constitution, to administer which he returned, under a virtual treaty with the three Great Powers. This ready acknowledgment of so green an usurpation, was a departure from the unitorm course of British policy ; it was calcu- lated to perplex the minds of the people of Portugal ; and it was the less excusable, since the late disclosure of a correspondence between Lord Beresford and the Miguelite faction had given our Ministers an additional motive for caution.—Mr. Peel instanced cases in the struggles of Greece and Chili, to show that it had been usual to recognize the effective blockade of ports, without implying any recognition of authority. The British Government was not responsible for false inferences that might be drawn, either from Lord Beresford's correspondence, or from this notification: it had made, in the proper quarter, and along with almost all the Powers of Europe, the most decided remonstrances against Don Miguel's proceedings ; but " whatever effect these may have in inducing this young person to abandon his criminal intentions, it is not for Foreign Powers to declare the Government of Portugal dissolved." —Lord 1VIorpeth inquired whether the British Government would act in the same manner, if the Junta of Oporto should declare the port of Lisbon blockaded P—Mr. Peel said he should reply, in the phrase of the Turkish Minister, on a late occasion—" it is not the practice of the Turks to name the child until it is born, and the sex ascertained." The House of Commons laughed, and the Opposition cheered.—Sir James Mackintosh said, that Mr. Peel had made use of Turkish arguments, as well as Turkish jokes.

FOREI ON MILITARY SERV tc.E.—The Birmingham gun-makers complained by petition against the effect of the Foreign Enlistment Act, in preventing the exportation of implements of war, and trans- ferring this branch of trade to other countries. The discussion on the petition led to a more general consideration of the Act, and introduced a lively scene of personal altercation between Sir Ro- bert Wilson and Mr. C. W. \i'ynn Mr. Wynn approved of the Act : he thought that persons who entered into foreign service for mere pay deserved to be regarded in no better light than that of hired murderers. (" Hear, hear !" from Sir Robert It'ilson.) He wourd not say, but that on some occasions, persons belong- ing to one country might engage in the service of another, if their own country was not indisposed to grant assistance to that other country. But he spoke of a class of hired adventurers, who went about from one coun- try to another, offering their services to whoever would employ them at the best bidding—persons who were alike regardless of the duties they owed their own country, and known only for their disposition to excite civil commotion in it.

Sir R. Wilson—" I am surprised at the speech of the right honourable gentleman, as on the occasion of the passing of this Act, he acted as agent to his Majesty the King of Spain."

Mr. Wynn—" Sir, I rise to order. Either this is a bad and miserable attempt to joke, or it is a foul and libellous accusation against me ; and as a member of parliament I throw myself upon the House for its pro- tection."

The Speaker was about to interpose. Sir R. Wilson—" The late Mr. Canning, on introducing the Act, de- clared that he brought it forward at the desire of the King of Spain. This declaration justifies mein denominating all the persons who were engaged in the passing of that Act as agents to the King of Spain. The right honourable gentleman was one of those who co-operated in that act of hostility to the general cause of freedom ; a co-operation which I must own I am not surprised at, because it is conformable with the general conduct of the right honourable gentleman in this House."

The Speaker interposed.

Sir Robert Wilson—" The right honourable gentleman, who appears very jealous and very susceptible of any expression which may at all ap- ply to himself, does not hesitate to apply the terms of hired assassins and hired murderers to persons who possess as much virtue as himself, and who would equally disdain a dishonourable action. Are these epithets to be addressed to men who, from the most generous of motives, and the purest of principles, have drawn their swords in defence of a great gene- ral cause ?" (Cheers.) He was the best judge of his own honour. He did not speak for himself, buy for those who were living, but not there to defend themselves, and for the illustrious dead who had fought in a cause , in which, though the forces of their own country might not be engaged, the feelings and the wishes of their countrymen were engaged. (Cheers.) Mr. Wynn—" I made an express exception between those who engaged in foreign Wars, from a love of plunder and of rapine—young Men, who went about ready to engage in any service that would yield them booty— and those who engaged in foreign service, from a sense of justice, and from honourable motives." (Loud Cheers.) ADDITIONAL CHURCHES BILL.—The Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, wishing to pass this bill, and seeing there was no time for discussion this session, proposed to omit two clauses referring to rates, which had been objected to. A multifarious debate took place : many members contended that the bill should be post- poned altogether, there being no time for its being properly made known. The Chancellor at length consented to postpone the mea- sure if the House consented that it should go into the Committee ; which was agreed to,—the bill being ordered to the Committee, after several scenes of Parliamentary altercation. THE IRISH Uxicev.—In most of the late discussions of the Ca- tholic question, the friends of emancipation have placed con- siderable reliance on a pledge, or understanding, given by Mr. Pitt and Lord Cornwallis to the Catholics at the period of the Union. To show that assurances, of a nature to justify expectations, if not explicitly to bind the parties, had been made, Mr. Maurice -Fitz- gerald moved for copies of the correspondence of the English with the Irish Government at the time. Mr. Peel contended, that nothing calculated to bind either the Ministers of that day, or their successors, to any specific line of conduct, had passed. The motion for correspondence was withdrawn.

THE CU RRE NCY.—In the debate on the Bill for suppressing the circulation of Scotch small notes in England, the Duke of Wel- lington made a speech in praise of experience as opposed to theory. Other peers lauded their own consistency—one for opposing, one for supporting, the Bank Restriction Act of 1797, and another for not saying that the one pound notes were the cause of the panic

in 1825. Lord Ellenborough remarked that these notes were so insinuating, that in order to exclude them, it was necessary not

only to shut the door, but to stop up the key-hole. In other re- spects, the discussion elicited nothing interesting or new. One fact of some importance was, however, stated in a petition against the

Bill from Mr. H. Burgess, of Lombard Street : Mr. Burgess esti- mates the amount of the small-note circulation at five millions, instead of two millions and a half, as assumed by Ministers; and he argues that this will shut up the doors of half the country bankers, and produce the withdrawal of a much larger sum than the mere amount of the small notes. FREE TRADE.—In presenting a petition from five thousand weavers in Lancashire, who want a minimum of wages, Mr. D. W. Harvey spoke against the cold-blooded doctrines of the economists, but seemed to patronize a free corn-trade. The labouring classes were getting worse and worse every day ; nevertheless, Mr. Harvey did not approve of a minimum of wages. Neither did Mr. Hume. Mr. Hobhouse lectured Mr. Harvey for vilifying the philosophic free-traders ; and Mr. F. Lewis defended them.

CLAIMS OF BRITISH MERCHANTS ON DENMARK AND SWEDEN.

—Sir J. Mackintosh, in an elaborate speech, stated to the House the ground on which these claims were advanced. When hostilities clmmenced suddenly in 1807 between this country and Denmark, the Danish government seized the whole of the British property at that time in Denmark ; and in cases where money was owing to a British creditor, on its being paid into the Danish treasury, an acquittance was given for the sum. When the merchants applied to the British Government for redress, they were told, that when peace came to be negotiated, their case should be remembered. By a similar proceeding, all Danish property in our ports was seized as droits of the Admiralty, amounting to upwards ot 1,200,000/. The merchants conceived that some portion of these • droits might have been applied to their relief. No part was so applied. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that merchants trading to foreign nations did it at their own risk ; and that when the peace was negotiated at Kiwi, the case of the merchants trading to Denmark was somehow not introduced to notice. THE BARON DE BODE.—This gentleman, English by the acci- dent of birth, but a Frenchman by family, and an emigrant royalist, claimed, as an Englishman, under the conditions of the Conventions with the French Government in 1815 and 1818, indemnification for the loss of his estates in Alsace, which had been confiscated in the Revolution. The commissioners had rejected his claim, chiefly on formal grounds—such as, that it had not been preferred within the prescribed time ; and their decision was finally confirmed by the Privy Council. Mr. Stanley, at great length, recited the history of the case ; and endeavoured to persuade the House of Commons to appoint a Select Committee to consider it. Mr. Stanley's motion was opposed and negatived. It appears that no evidence had been adduced (possibly none could be ad- duced) to show that the Alsatian estates, for which the Baron de Bode claimed compensation, were British property. LONDON WATER.—A Committee having proved that the inha- bitants of London are, or may be, poisoned every day of their lives, with a filthy fluid which men call water, Sir Francis Burdett wished to refer that Committee's Report to the consideration of another Committee ; but Mr. Peel has got the new Committee appointed to inquire into the " supply " and the "rates," in order to ascertain how the water companies perform their implied con- tracts with the public. He proposed to take the water from the Thames at Teddington, where it is pure, and convey it to a reservoir on the top of Wimbledon Common, from whence it might supply the metropolis. Both Mr. Peel and Sir Joseph Yorke deprecated the interference of Government. Since the subject had been agitated, the Grand Junction Company had purchased 500 acres at Barnes Elms, for the formation of a new reservoir of pure water.

'atm COAL DUTY.—The Duke of Wellington informed the Marquis of Downshire, who expressed great satisfaction to learn, that there had been no increase of the duty on coals imported into Ireland since the Union.

SCOTCH Wnisx.v.—The distillers of London have been com- plaining to Parliament, that they are beaten out of the market by the Scotch, who are enabled to evade the duty through some flaw in the Excise-laws.

TOBACCO.—The merchants in London, trading in unmanufac- tured tobacco, pray for an additional duty on that article.