Dispensing Power

In conclusion, my Lord, I am inclined to think Your Lordship will find the

following charges, against the Duke of Portland, but too well established.

1. That he has not only assumed, but concurred in the exercise of, a

dispensing power, by advancing positions tending to warrant him in

defeating — and defeating accordingly — the the sole

object of the Act of 1794, by which a Penitentiary establishment was

required to be set on foot: and, in so doing, has been guilty of an illegal

exercise of legislative power, amounting in its effects to the repeal of an

imperative law of Parliament.

2. The he has assumed and exercised the power of punishing

Convicts, by a mode of punishment of his own choice, in cases in which that

mode of punishment was, by Parliament, expressly forbidden to be employed:

and, in so doing, has been guilty of another

illegal exercise of legislative power, amounting in its effects to the

enactment of a positive imperative law, as well as to the repeal of a

prohibitive law. —

3. That, in another instance, he has assumed at any

rate (whether in any and what degree he may have exercised

it, being matter of enquiry) a dispensing power, viz: that

of defeating one of the declared objects of another Act — the

Act of 1779 — in so far as the confinement of Convicts of a

certain description on board the Hulks, is among the modes of

punishment, the choice of which is therein committed to the respective

Courts: and, in so doing, has been guilty of

another illegal exercise of legislative power, amounting in its effects

to the repeal of a corresponding portion of another imperative law.

4. That —