proposed an amendment, which the governor had refused
to adopt. It had been said, he observed, that this code
was the necessary result of a guarantee given to the
Maltese; but he could discover no other guarantee than
that of 1815, when Sir T. Maitland, on taking possession
of the island, promised the Maltese, in the fullest manner,
the free exercise of their religion. These alterations
of the code, however, went far beyond this pledge,
containing enactments which he characterised as
iniquitous, monstrous, arbitrary, persecuting, and
contrary to the whole spirit of British law. He moved a
resolution condemnatory of the amended code, and an
address to her Majesty, praying that her Majesty will
take the facts into consideration, and withhold her sanction
from the amended code until the subject should
have received the mature consideration of parliament.—
Mr. T. Chambers seconded the motion.—Mr. F. PEEL
thought the speech of Mr. Kinnaird was in some respects
injudicious, since it was calculated to awaken religious
differences that were subsiding. He had likewise fallen
into several inaccuracies. The code of 1837, which he
had eulogised (but which had never been acted upon),
was marked by much more narrow and illiberal features
than the present. Mr. Peel explained the circumstances
which had led to the preparation of this ordinance.
The state of the criminal law rendered imperative the
attempt to codify it, and the opportunity was taken to
mitigate the provisions of the existing law, and bring it
more into harmony with that of England. The code
had been prepared not without great consideration, and,
although he admitted that it was severe, its distinguishing
characteristic was that it recognised, if not toleration,
at least the principal of perfect impartiality and equality
towards all denominations in the island. Malta was a
Roman Catholic country; elected members had been
admitted into the legislative council, and religious
excitement was in a fair way of being allayed; under these
circumstances, he thought the best course was for the
government to allow the code, which might be in some
degree modified, to come into operation.—Mr. I. BUTT
contended and endeavoured to show, that the government
were not aware of the full effect of certain parts of
the code, some of which, he said, appeared to have been
insidiously introduced, and he strongly recommended
the suspension of the amended code until next session.
—The motion was likewise supported by Mr. Pellatt,
Mr. Newdegate, and Mr. Warner, and opposed by Mr.
Hume and Mr. J. Fitzgerald, who replied to the objections
of Mr. Butt.—Lord J. RUSSELL observed, that as
Malta, when it came into our possession, was a Roman
Catholic country, and as we had promised that the religion
of the Maltese should be maintained and respected,
punishment must be awarded against those who openly
insult that religion. Some of the objections alleged
against the code he thought were not well-founded;
there were others, however, which, in his opinion,
deserved the consideration not only of her Majesty's
government, but of the law officers of the crown in this
country. Believing, therefore, that this code required
further consideration, he promised that the whole matter
should be reconsidered, with a view to secure every
respect for the Roman Catholic religion in Malta, and, at
the same time, full civil and religious liberty to all her
Majesty's subjects.—Mr. Kinnaird thereupon withdrew
his motion.

On Tuesday, Aug. 16th, Lord J. RUSSELL made his
promised explanation respecting the state of the Negotiations
on the Subject of the Difference between Russia
and Turkey. He should not enter, he said, upon the
defence of the government, which had not been attacked,
the house having considerately left in the hands of the
government the conduct of these negotiations. With
respect to the production of papers, he had not found
that it had been usual in such cases to lay papers on the
table while the negotiations were still pending, nor until
they were brought to some issue. He then proceeded
to give an outline of the transactions as they had
occurred, without referring to documents which were of
the nature of secret papers, but glancing at incidents
generally known to the house and the public. When
the present government entered upon office, his attention
had been called to the question of the Holy Places,
and he wrote to Lord Cowley, our ambassador at Paris;
but at a later period he had been informed by the
Russian minister in England, that the Emperor of
Russia was satisfied with the concession made to him
upon that matter, and he felt satisfied that nothing
would happen to disturb the relations between Russia
and Turkey. Lord John then adverted to the arrival of
Prince Menschikoff at Constantinople, in March, and to
the incident between him and Fuad Effendi, the Turkish
minister for foreign affairs; to the request of Colonel
Rose, that the British fleet should proceed from Malta
to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, and to his
withdrawal of that request. On the arrival of Lord
Stratford at that capital, in April, he was informed by
the Turkish minister that certain demands had been
made by the Russian ambassador, a compliance with
which, the Sultan's government considered, would not
be compatible with its independence; at the same time,
the Turkish minister had sent in reply not a simple
negative, but a note calculated to put an end to the
dispute. Prince Menschikoff, instead of treating this
note as a basis for further negotiations, withdrew from
Constantinople, a step which he (Lord John) considered
was to be regretted. It appeared to him that the
withdrawal of the Russian mission, aided by the preparations
made by Russia—a strong naval and military force
having been advanced to the frontiers of Turkey—was
a most unfortunate step, calculated to create great
alarm. Her Majesty's government had, in consequence,
thought it necessary to give directions that the British
fleet should proceed from Malta to the neighbourhood
of the Dardanelles, and a French fleet took the same
course, the two governments of England and France
having acted entirely in concert, in order to obtain a
solution of this question compatible with the independence
and integrity of the Porte, and not derogatory to
Russia. The next step was that the Emperor of Russia
directed his army to occupy the principalities of Moldavia
and Wallachia, issuing a declaration, that this was
not to be considered an invasion of the principalities or
an act of war, but only as a guarantee of peace, and a
pressure upon the Turkish government to obtain those
securities to which Russia was entitled. It was considered
by both England and France that, looking at the
interests at stake, it was desirable that the Turkish
government should forego its right to regard the act as
a casus belli, and that it should not decline to enter into
further negotiations, of which the ambassadors of the
two powers endeavoured to gather up the threads.
When the Russian government had occupied the
principalities Austria changed her views upon the subject,
and with reference to the treaty of 1841, deemed it
necessary that there should be a conference of the
powers; and the Austrian minister for foreign affairs
having adopted a proposition of the French government
as the groundwork of a proposal to Russia, the note
containing it was finally arranged and settled to the
satisfaction of the four powers on the 31st of July. To
this note the Emperor of Russia had given his adhesion.
Supposing the matter of this note to be fully arranged,
there would still remain the evacuation of the
principalities; and it was quite evident that no settlement
could be satisfactory that did not include their
immediate evacuation, which, according to the declaration of
Prince Gortschakoff, was to follow the satisfaction
obtained from Turkey. He must ask the permission of
the house to say nothing more upon this head, and
request that the mode of obtaining the end in view
might be left in the hands of the executive government.
He thought there was now a fair prospect that, without
involving Europe in hostilities, the independence and
integrity of Turkey—which he had always said was a
main object of her Majesty's government—would be
secured. That object was one which required the
vigilant attention of the government, and it could only be
secured by the union of England and France, and a
constant and friendly communication between them.—
Mr LAYARD considered that there had been a want of
that energy and decision in these transactions which
would have been infused into our proceedings by Lord
Palmerston—the transactions, in his opinion, involving
a great principle. He dwelt in much detail upon the
indications of artifice on the part of Russia in her
conduct towards Servia, Wallachia, and Moldavia, and