ROEBUCK, JoHN ARTIICR, English politician, was b. at 3Iadras'in 1801, but passed his youth in Canada. At the age of 23 he came to England, and was called to the bar at the Inner temple in 1831. He challenged the suffrages of the electors of Bath as a radi cal reformer in 1832, and represented that city until 1837. He was again elected in 1841, and held his seat until the general election (1847). In May, 1849, he was returned for Sheffield, which he represented till 1868; and for which he was again returned in 1874. In 1835, when the executive government of Canada and the house of assembly of lower Canada were at variance, the latter body appointed Roebuck their paid agent in England —a position which involved him in a serious quarrel with the press. He was next the central figure of a parliamentary "scene," on the occasion of a too plentiful crop of election petitions and election compromises subsequent upon a general election. He made out such a case that, in defiance alike of Whigs and tories, he obtained a commit tee to inquire into election compromises. His next great appearance was at the meeting of parliament in Jan., 1835, when he gave notice of a motion for inquiring into the con dition of the army before Sebastopol. To the undisguised joy of the nation, Roebuck carried his motion by an immense majority, and the administration of the earl of Aber deen was shattered to pieces. The Sebastopol committee sat, and the inquiry exercised great influence in the subsequent reconstruction of the war department, and the reorgan ization of our military, commissariat, and medical systems. In 1855 he became a can
didate for the chairmanship of the Metropolitan board of works, with a salary of £1500 per annum, but was only third on the poll. On the annexation of Savoy and Nice in 1860 Roebuck indulged in the sharpest invective against the emperor Xapoleon. He became a director of the Galway steam-packet company, and offended his constituents by defending a contract which they regarded as savoring of a political job. He went to Vienna to obtain some commercial concessions for a company with which be was connected, and returned with strong pro-Austrian sympathies, volunteering a defense of Austrian rule in Venetia, which jarred upon public feeling. During the civil war in America he displayed a strong leaning toward the cause of the confederates. In the debate on the war between Germany and Denmark, Roebuck declared (1864) that the English fleet ought to have been sent to defend Denmark. He warmly supported the earl of Beaconsfield's policy during the Eastern crisis in 1877-78, and iu 1878 was made a member of the privy council. Roebuck is fearless and unmeasured in attack, not toe charitable iu his judgments, fond of personalities, but is regarded as an honest and true hearted Englishman. He is the author of a work on the Colonies of &ngland, the History of the 'Wag Ministry of 1830, and in his earlier years contributed much to the Westmin ster and Edinburgh Reviews.