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 Fj'ench Reports of Parliamentary Debates 267 The date of Friday, May 2j, given in the report as being that of the debate, is erroneous. May 16/27, 1751, was not a Friday, but a Thursday. According to the Journals of the House, the succession of the debates was as follows: on Monday, May 13/24, the bill, which had been already carried in the House of Lords, was read for the first time ; and it was resolved, that the bill be read a second time on the next day. On Tuesday, May 14/25, the bill was read for the second time ; resolved, that the bill be referred to a Com- mittee of the Whole House. On Thursday, May 16/27, the Com- mittee of the Whole House met, with the Lord Chancellor Pelham in the chair. On Friday, May 17/28, the House met again ; resolved, that the Lord Chancellor report upon the amendments on the fol- lowing Monday.' It is then on Thursday, May 16/27, or on Fri- day, May 17/28, that the debate on clause 14 must have taken place. No report of the debate is to be found in the Parliamentary History, which gives but the debate of May 13/24- and a speech delivered by William Beckford on May 20/31. The report of the debate is taken from the London Magazine for 1751 (pp. 249-259, 297-307, 345-354), Beckford's speech from the Gentleman's Maga- zine. In Almon and Debrett's Debates and Proceedings of the British House of Commons from 1^49 to ly^i, 348 et seqq., there is no report of the debate, but only a " list of the members who spoke for and against the establishment of a Council of Regency ", without any reference to clause 14 and to the interesting debate on its sub- ject of which the French document gives us some account. In other instances, a report at the Affaires fitrangeres, if it will not bring to our notice any really unknown fact, will enable us to complete and correct a defective text. The debate of February 8/19, 1735, on the number of seamen, has come to us in one version, which is identically the same in the London and the Gentleman's Magazines.^ In the report, which is detailed enough, the arguments for and against the increase of the navy are laid out in three speeches : the first speech expounds the government's and the ma- jority's arguments in behalf of an act for raising the number of sea- men from 20,000 to 30,000; the second one expresses the objections urged by the opposition ; and the third one is a reply to the ob- jections. None of these speeches is put in the mouth of any person in particular ; the names of the members who took part in the debate are in a list at the beginning of the report, with a mere ^Journals of the House of Commons, XXVI. 229, 231, 236. 'Parliamentary History, XIV. 1000-1057. "Ibid. IX. 691-719; London Magazine, 1735, pp. 457-470; Gentleman's Maga- zine, V. 507-522. AM. HIST. REV., VOL. U. — iS.