cording to my opinion.

[Footnote 21: A member of the House of Commons had used this term as
applied to the Duke's remarks on this subject, a few nights previously.]
* * * * *

I cannot help thinking that it is extraordinary that, in the year 1839,
after nine years of liberal government,--after nine years' enjoyment of
the blessings of liberal government,--your lordships should be
discussing whether or not the amount of destruction completed within a
peaceful town within her majesty's dominions is equal to the mischief
done to a town which is taken by storm. And yet this has been clearly
demonstrated to be the case. It is clear, my lords, that in peaceful,
happy England, which carried on a war for twenty-two years, and which
made the most extraordinary efforts to maintain that war, as she did,
with circumstances of glory and success attending her arms in all parts
of the world,--in order to avoid as it was hoped, these miseries, and so
that no such disasters as these might ever approach her shores,--in this
same happy and peaceful England, after nine years of liberal government,
here is a town plundered, and its peace destroyed; and yet I am accused
of exaggeration, because I say I never knew any town, taken by storm, to
be so ill-used as this fine town has been. I confess I am not at all
surprised, however, at the conduct of the noble lord who so liberally
applied the term "exaggeration" to what I said, when I reflect who are
the followers and supporters of that noble lord.

_July 22, 1839._

* * * * *

_Legal redress against Magistrates._

I apprehend that, according to the law of England, any individual is at
liberty to complain of the conduct of a magistrate, and proceed against
him in a court of law. No one has ever doubted that, in this country,
every individual has a right so to complain of, and to proceed against,
the magistrates, when the magistrates misconduct themselves. It is in
accordance only with the _Code Napoleon_,--with the code of laws of that
high priest of liberalism, the Emperor Napoleon,--that the consent of
the council of state should be given, before a justice misconducting
himself can be tried and punished. Hitherto, in this country, the
practice and the law have been different on that head; and I hope we
shall hear no more of such proceedings. But follow out the system laid
down in the letter from the Home Office, and the result will be that no
man--- part