my country. I made no such profession. I never meant to impute that ignorance to myself, whatever other noble lords may impute to me. I avowed only an igno cording to its importance? If the privilege of political discussion was allowed on matters of trivial concern, how much more ought it to be permitted on subjects of general interest? The ministers might go onorance of those technical parts of the law for a time in the ruinous measures which they have adopted, but he warned them of the danger of driving a once free and high spirited people, to those rash and violent steps which despair alope can dictate. He hoped that the spirit of the people would show itself throughout every part of the kingdom; because he was persuaded that nothing else would save the state from ruin. Lord Grenville said, he should not have risen to offer a single word in answer to the noble earl, had he not mentioned the case of Mr. Burke. To that he must answer, that he was proud to boast of the part he had taken in recommending the pension of that gentleman, and was ready to take his share of responsibility for it. He was glad to have the opportunity of avowing it, and of asserting in that public manner, that a public reward was never more merited for the most eminent services. No man could boast of services to this country and to mankind at large more meritorious; and he was persuaded that the public would feel for that great character a lasting gratitude, for having opposed the shield of reason and sound argument to defend the wise establish ments of our ancestors against the daring inroads of the most pernicious principles ever broached by folly, enthusiasm and madness. The Bishop of Rochester [Dr. Horsley] said:-My lords; The sentiments which fell from me, in a former night's debate, which has excited such a fever in the mind of the noble earl, and has drawn forth such a torrent of his eloquence, I uttered upon the gravest deliberation, and with the steadiest conviction of my mind; and I never shall retract it. My lords, I am sensible that it is perfectly disorderly to allude to any thing that passed in a former debate; and I should not have done it, had not the noble earl compelled me to this irregularity: but when any of your lordships is thus attacked, he generally meets with the indulgence of the House, if, in his own defence, he transgresses the strict rule of order. A turn was given to my expressions, at the time, as if I had delivered that maxim professing at the same time to be little acquainted with the laws of in which none but lawyers by profession can be learned, and in which it is no disgrace to any man that is not a lawyer by profession to be unlearned. This avowal of my ignorance was made in stating to your lordships, the wide difference of my opinion, concerning the second clause of this bill, from the opinions that were advanced by a noble and a learned lord (Thurlow). It was painful to me at the time to express my dissent from his opinions, because he was absent; and I thank the noble earl who has given me the opportunity, now that my noble friend is in his place, to repeat my objections to his argument. I said, that the only point of argument I could perceive in my learned friend's objections to the provisions of the bill was this, that the bill applies the punishment of felony to crimes not felonious. I said, that this seemed to me a technical objection, of which, perhaps, I was not lawyer enough to perceive the force. I observed, that those punishments were not applied by the bill to crimes of simple misdemeanor, except upon the accumulation of the crime by a repetition of it: that it satisfied my mind concerning the justice of the bill, that the punishments were no more than were proportioned to the na.. tural turpitude and malignity of the crimes;-which seemed to me the true measure of punishment; whereas the learned lord had argued as if punishment were rather to be adjusted to the tech. nical denominations of crime. The force of that argument, I said, I was perhaps not enough of a lawyer to perceive. This, my lords, was all the ignorance I took to myself.-The noble earl, who took fire at my assertion that “individuals have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them," said, that "individuals ought not only to obey the laws, but to study them." The noble earl said well: it is the duty of individuals to study the laws, that they may shape their conduct by them: it is the duty of every one who holds a place in this legislative assembly, to study them more particularly; that he may have a full comprehension of the whole system of our laws, a knowledge of the relation of one part to another, and of the general spirit of the whole; humour of the moment,-in a country thus blessed, the individual subject, with the restrictions that. I have stated, "has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them." My lords, it is a maxim which I ever will maintain,-I will maintain it to the death,-I will maintain it under the axe of the guillotine, if, through any insufficiency of the measures which may now be taken, the time should ever come when the prelates and nobles of this land must stoop their necks to that engine of democratic tyranny. My lords, I have heard nothing this night to alter my opinion concerning the expediency and justice of the bill before us. I have heard that it creates new crimes: but when this is said the distinction seems not to be taken between creating new crimes and applying new punishments to old ones. My lords, this is the effect of this bill,-it applies new punishments to such things only as by the existing laws are highly criminal. But it is said, and it has been said upon an authority which I ever must revere upon the authority of my noble and learn that he may be competent to judge of the legality of public measures-of the consistency or the inconsistency of new laws proposed with the laws already subsisting. My lords, this study of the laws of my country I have not neglected. Not affecting any such ignorance,-not putting myself in this branch of knowledge below the level of any noble lord who has not studied law as a lawyer by profession,-certainly not putting myself below the level of the noble duke who thought fit to impute this ignorance to me,-affecting no such ignorance, but assuming and arrogating to myself all that knowledge of the laws which becomes the station I have the honour to hold,-I repeat, under the restrictions with which at the first I qualified the assertion, with the exception of such laws as may have a bearing upon the particular interests of certain persons or bodies of men, who have undoubtedly a right to discuss such laws to meet for the purpose of considering such laws, pending or existing-to use all decent freedom of speech in such discussions to petition to stop the progressed friend, from whom I never differ upon of any such law pending, or to obtain the repeal of any such law existing, which may be to them a grievance, with this restriction, and with the exception of such laws, I repeat the assertion, that "individuals have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them." My lords, the noble earl said, that this was a maxim better calculated for the meridian of Constantinople than of London. Those were not the noble earl's expressions. He said it was a doctrine that would have come with better grace from the lips of the Mufti than from the mouth of an English prelate. My lords, the noble earl is mistaken; the maxim is not calculated for the meridian of Constantinople. The miserable inhabitants under that dismal sky have no law to study or to obey; they have only to obey the changeable will, caprice, or whim, of their tyrant. My fords, it is a maxim not calculated for the meridian of Geneva, or of any other turbulent democracy: in such govern ments, the people have only to obey the uncertain veering humour of popular assemblies. But in this country, where the rule of conduct lies certain and defined in the letter of the statute-book, and in recorded customs, and adjudged cases, an equal rule to all, liable to no sudden change or perversion-to no partial application from the passion or the such subjects without fear and trembling "Set say that from the explanation which they had just heard from the learned prelate, of his extraordinary declaration on a former night, there seemed to be so much variation from what he conceived really to have been said, that he considered the objectionable ground of the reverend prelate's sentiment in a great measure removed, though the impression of the maxim, as first broached, was not altered. He, for one, had not doubted the learned prelate's knowledge of the law; indeed his speech of that evening proved that he understood and knew how to apply it with ad vantage. If the reverend prelate had persistedin asserting in an unqualified manner what he conceived him to have advanced in the preceding debate, he certainly would have moved that his words should have been taken down, and should have thought any man who held such uncon stitutional doctrine ought to be himself placed on the "stepping-stone to glory." The Earl of Lauderdale was glad to see that the reverend prelate had not so for forgotten his duty, as to disdain to give some explanation of what was at least inadvertently uttered. are the springs of human actions? Have The Duke of Bedford said, that feeling himself particularly called upon, he must The Earl of Abingdon said, he should give his hearty opposition to the bill, because he thought it an unnecessary infringement upon the liberty of the people He wished to ask the reverend prelate, whether vox populi was not vox Dei? He would prove it was; and that God Almighty always inspired the people upon such occasions, and would do so still: he would prove this by authors as old as Methusalem. If the bill passed, resistance to it might be deemed rebellion, but if the compact settled by the Bill of Rights was broken, the government might happen to be in a state of rebellion against the people. His lordship added, that the arguments he had heard that day, appeared to him to be calculated to enforce the exploded principle of passive obedience and non-resistance, and that all who maintained such doctrine, whe ther bishops or lay peers, were damned beyond all possibility of redemption, by revolutionary principles. The House divided: Contents, 41; Duke of Bedford, Lord Chedworth, Earl of Guilford, and Protest against the Passing of the Treasonable Practices Bill.] The following Protest was entered on the Journals: "Dissentient. 1. "Because we conceive this bill to be founded on a false pretence. It recites a daring outrage on his majesty's person, (which we feel with the utmost horror), and purports to provide farther remedies against such practices, whilst, in reality, it affords no additional security whatever to his majesty's person, and leaves us to regret, a deep and irreparable injury to the laws and constitution of our country, by making the compassing, imagining, inventing, and devising the levying war a substantive treason; thereby departing in a most dangerous and unjustifiable manner from the statute of the twenty-fifth of Edward the 3rd: the salutary provisions of which we cannot be tempted to abandon, by the example of temporary statutes, whose doubtful policy stands in opposi. tion to a law, in which the wisdom of our ancestors has been so repeatedly recognized by the legislature, and so strongly confirmed by the permanent experience of its benefits. 2." Because the free discussion of the administration of government in all its branches, by writing, speaking, and meeting, for the purpose of representing grievances to any of the three branches of the legislature has afforded the best protection to the liberties of the people, and is the undoubted inherent right of Englishmen. Yet this bill erects into a high misdemeanor, the exercise of this most valuable privilege, and inflicts, in certain cases, the *pains and penalties of transportation for the offences which it creates, a punishment in the case of misdemeanors, thus generally constituted, as unprecedented in the history of our laws, as it is unnecessary and unconstitutional. 3. "Because the extension of the treason laws, and the creating new misdemeanors, is an alarming encroachment on the security of the subject, and affords no additional protection to his majesty's person and government; for the state of every king, ruler, and governor of any realm, dominion, or commonalty, standeth and consisteth more assured by the love and favour of the subjects towards their sovereign, ruler, and governor, than in the dread and fear of those laws with rigorous pains and extreme punishments, which have at all times disgraced our code. History, however, shows us, that by suc Debates in the Commons on the Seditious Meetings Bill.] Nov. 10. The order of the day being read for taking into consideration his Majesty's late Proclamations, Mr. Pitt rose. He said, that the circumstances upon which he meant to ground the proceedings of that night, had made so deep an impression on the mind of every gentleman in that House, as well as on that of every man in the country, that it would not be necessary for him to make any comments on them. The public had seen with becoming indignation, that a virtuous and beloved sovereign had been attacked in the most criminal and outrageous manner, and at a time too when he was in the exercise the greatest and most important function of kingly capacity, when he was going to assemble the great council of the nation that great, and indeed only resource against every national evil. The first impulses of every man's mind, after an attack so immediately directed against the life of the king of these realms, must be those of horror and detestation of the wicked, the diabolical wretches, who, in contempt of the respect and reverence due to the sacred character of their sovereign-in contempt of the whole legislature, by a kind of concentred malice, directed a blow at once at its three branches, in attempting to assassinate a mild and benignant monarch, who was the great cement and centre of our glorious constitution. In contemplating this calamity, the House would feel that some correction must be given to the laws, at present in force against such crimes; means must be found to repress the spirit which gave birth to so daring an outrage, and to prevent such unprecedented consequences of sedition, and of sedition too leading to assassination by the most despicable, as well as the most dangerous of all modes of attack, against the vital principles of the state, in the person of the sovereign. which he hoped would soon be laid before them for their concurrence. His motion, therefore, was not directed to alter or enforce the laws of the king's safety, but to prevent those meetings, to which all the mischiefs he had mentioned were attri butable. If, under this first impression, every man should think himself called upon (as he was sure would be the case), by the loyalty and allegiance he owed to the sovereign office, and by affection to the person of the sovereign, by the reverence due to religion, by self-preservation itself, and the happiness of society at large, to The meetings to which he alluded, were, apply a remedy to those very alarming he said, of two descriptions; under the first symptoms, another impression would of those descriptious, fell those meetings arise out of it, equally forcible, and which, under a pretext (to which they equally obvious, namely, that they would by no means adhered) of petitioning pardo this business but by halves, and act liament for rights of which they affected carelessly and ineffectually, if they di- to be deprived, agitated questions, and rected their attention only to that sepa-promulgated opinions and insinuations rate act, and not to those very mischievous and formidable circumstances, which were connected with it, in point of principles, and which produced it in point of fact. hostile to the existing government, and tending to bring it into disrepute with the people. The other description, though less numerous, not less public, nor less dangerous, were concerted evidently for the purpose of disseminating unjust grounds of jealousy, discontent, and false complaints, against the constitution; of irritating the minds of the people against their lawful governors; and of encouraging them to acts of even treason itself. In these meetings, every thing that could create faction, every thing that could excite disloyalty, every thing that could prepare the minds of those who attended for rebellion, was industriously circulated. Both these required some strong law to prevent them; for, if the arm of the exe cutive government was not strengthened by such a law, they would be continued, if not to the utter ruin, certainly to the indelible disgrace of the country. In endeavouring to lead the attention of the House to the remedies which appeared to him most likely to be efficient to this purpose, he would not advert to legal distinctions, but to prudential principles. If the House viewed the separate act with that eye of horror he conceived they must, and if, viewing it so, they felt the conviction, that a repetition of such enormities should be prevented immediately; the next point that would impress itself upon their minds, as arising from the two former, was, that they should adopt some means to prevent these seditious assemblies, which served as vehicles to faction and disloyalty, which fanned and kept alive the flame of disaffection, and filled the minds of the peoAs to the first of those descriptions, ple with discontent. He had the most no one would venture to deny the right indubitable proof to support him in say- of the people to express their opinions ing, that this sentiment pervaded not only on political men and measures, and to that House, but all the kingdom; and discuss and assert their right of petitionthat in no one instance which had ever ing all the branches of the legislature; occurred, were the Commons called upon nor was there any man who would be more loudly by the wishes and prayers of farther from encroaching on that right an anxious community, than they were at than himself. It was undoubtedly a most this time by the whole people of England, valuable privilege, of which nothing should to avert the ruin with which those assem- deprive them. But on the other hand, if blies menaced the country, by preventing meetings of this kind were made the their further proceedings. In full hopes mere cover or the pretext for acts which that the House felt the force of these were as inconsistent with the liberty of impressions as forcibly as he did, and the subject as it was possible to imagine would agree to some such measure as he any thing to be; if, instead of stating had alluded to, his motion of that day grievances, the people were excited to would go to that object. It might, per-rebellion; if, instead of favouring the haps, occur to gentlemen, that a law should be previously made for the protection of his majesty's person; but he informed them, that the other House had now under its consideration a bill to that effect, [VOL. XXXII.] principles of freedom, the very foundation of it was to be destroyed, and with it the happiness of the people; it was high time for the legislature to inter pose with its authority. [T] |