The Attorney General moved the third reading of this Bill.
Sir S. Romilly: stated, that an Act of the 28th of the King, making the same offence, or nearly the same offence, felony, was already on the statute book; and asked whether there was any intention to repeal that Act on passing the present?
The Attorney General: said, the same objection might have been urged last year to the temporary measure, which was then made to the permanent one. He had no objection to the repeal of the former Act, which he believed, however, was not the same as the present.
A Member, whose name we could not learn, said, that in the case of the King v. Cator, where the offence was seducing artificers out of the country, it had been decided that a subsequent Act against any offence virtually repealed a former one.
Sir S. Romilly: thought that this might be true, where the offence was altered from a misdemeanour into a felony; but not where a more severe punishment was demanded against the same description of offence.
The last speaker replied, that the case he had alluded to was of this description. The punishment had before been 100l. fine, which was increased to 500l.—The Bill then passed.
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