A grossly illegal act has been committed--not a mere technical error, or one having reference to small or nice points of law, but an illegal act of great magnitude, and relating to points of the most grave importance--an act so clearly illegal, that no man capable of understanding the first principles of justice can doubt of its impropriety. It is impossible that the people of this country can suffer any man to be driven into banishment without trial, or that they can allow him, afterwards, to be condemned to death, without having been convicted of any crime but that of returning to his own country. [Footnote 20: The Earl of Durham, governor-general of the Canadas, had issued an ordinance, transporting to Bermuda Dr. Nelson and seven others, guilty by confession of high treason, and subjecting them to death if they returned to Canada. Lord Brougham, actuated, as was asserted by some, by personal feeling against Lord Durham, protested against this act in the face of the country. His speech on the occasion was one of the most powerful he ever delivered. It is scarcely necessary to add that Lord Durham immediately and precipitately resigned his governorship.] _August 9, 1838._ * * * * * _Inadequacy of our Navy._ There is nothing more certain than that, if you come to be entirely dependent for corn on the countries bordering on the Baltic, you would have the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Russia (as has been known before), levying a tax upon the exportation of that article of food to the Thames, and elsewhere in this country. * * I entirely agree with the noble and learned lord on the expediency of avoiding any interference with foreign powers on the subject of commercial matters; but I confess that I cannot view the state of our commercial relations, and of our position in the world generally, in connection with these commercial pursuits, with any degree of unmixed satisfaction. On the contrary, I do deplore the state in which we find ourselves placed in many parts of the world, particularly as it has been described in the course of the evening by my noble friend (Viscount Strangford). What I attribute that state of our commercial relations to, in a great degree, is, the extreme weakness and tottering condition of our naval establishments. I do not mean to complain of the distribution of our naval establishments; though, at the same time, I by no means intend to unsay what I have said in respect to the expeditions to Spain, which I cannot approve of; but I repeat my expression that I consider our naval establishments to be in too weak and tottering a condition to answer the purpose for which they were intended, which was to give protection to the commercial interests of the country in all parts of the world; for the commerce of England does extend to all parts of the world. There is not a port, not a river, which is not visited by the ships of her majesty's subjects; and her