decide the most important subject ever, offered to their consideration, upon vile scraps, and paltry passages from pamphlets, collected by rummaging old book shops, and turning up the dirt of every stall in London? Good God! in what place was it that he spoke? To whom did he address himself? How would the members face their constituents, after sacrificing every thing held valuable by their ancestors, if they should agree to make that sacrifice without all the proofs, which the nature of the case would admit? What might convince them, might not have the same effect upon others. They should consider that they were all of them the servants of the people of England. They voted and acted in that House not in their individual capacity, but as agents and attornies for others; and they would not perform their duty, if they could not satisfy the reasonable inquiries of their constituents. This measure, he was satisfied, would create that disaffection and encourage those plots, the supposed existence of which was made the pretext for its adoption. He deprecated nothing more than a revolution; but he believed it was not impossible that the people might be driven to some violent remedy, rendered by circumstances plausible, if not necessary. He apprehended little from the temper and discontent of the people, except this bill provoked their anger and their indignation. It might create discontents, and render a remedy desperate as theirs would be whenever they were driven to it, both plausible and necessary. The British nation was a grateful nation; and let gentlemen who heard him, recollect whether they had ever seen a poor labouring man unthankful in his return for their bounty. It was not in the nature or the heart of Englishmen. If government were bounteous, they would not find the people dissatisfied.

Such an accusation, he hesitated not to declare, a gross calumny. If ever there was a country in which these classes were united; in which, from the humblest cottager to the monarch on the throne, all ranks of society were cemented and connected by one continued chain, each giving assistance to the others, it was the country in which we lived. The union of these orders appeared from the connexion between master and servant, landlord and tenant, and, above all, from the innumerable charities that were every where established, from the parochial rates, and from various other benevolent institutions, which would prove to the people that they were under the peculiar care of those whom Providence had placed over them. This very calumny against the higher orders of society formed a part of that dangerous system, against which they were called upon to protect the country. The hon. gentle man who spoke last had stated several facts to the House; he would not dispute the powers of eloquence with which that hon. gentleman had dressed them; but he would assert that they had no exist ence but in his imagination. He did not mean to say that the war had not occa sioned some calamities. But he begged leave to say distinctly, that whatever were the calamities of the war, and the evils resulting from the scarcity, it could not be proved that they had given rise to the opinions he so much reprobated as mischievous and baneful. What was the state of the country in 1791 and 1792? Where then was either war or scarcity? The nation was in the most happy and flourishing condition. Yet was it not equally true, that then, as at present, these principles had broken out, and ma nifested their operation in a progressive course of sedition? It was evident, therefore, that these were but pretexts, tendMr. Secretary Dundas said, that so far ing to inflame and agitate the humbler from feeling that the rights, liberties, and classes of the community. The wants of happiness of the people would be invaded the lower orders had received the best by the bill, he was convinced, that they alleviations from the attention of the could not be effectually preserved to wealthy in their own districts. Among them, if some such measure as the pre-other arguments urged against the bill, it sent was not immediately adopted. In had been contended that the Bill of Rights his opinion, if some measure was not was invaded by it. He denied that there adopted, the House would criminally neg-was any thing in that memorable and salect the safety of the constitution. He reprobated the idea of a learned gentleman, who had charged the higher orders of the people with intending to separate heir interests from those of the lower. [VOL. XXXII.]

cred declaration of our liberties, more than in any act of parliament, which barred them from taking the present measures; nothing that prevented them from revising, altering, or suspending its pro[2]

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visions, as the weighty exigencies of the With regard to popular meetings, a right times might demand. Perhaps there was hon. gentleman (Mr. Fox) had stood forsomething in the riot act that was not ward more frequently than any other po strictly reconcileable with the bill: the litical character in appeals to the people. Habeas Corpus too, in its suspension, He had displayed the most extraordinary stood upon a similar footing with the pre- willingness to resort to them; so that it sent measure. By the Bill of Rights they frequently happened that he was without were allowed to wear defensive arms: the door of the House attacking ministers there was no doubt of it; a man might do with invective and asperity one half of the so; and yet the government had since, day, where they had no means of defendby the authority of salutary and well- ing themselves, and during the other half timed statutes, disarmed whole districts combating them within those walls with in the northern part of the kingdom; and the most determined inveteracy. At one he never could allow himself to forget time, in order to excite the indignation of that the restriction of this privilege had the public against ministers, for their probeen extended throughout whole coun- secution of the American war, the right ties. Venerating, as he did, almost to hon. gentleman had displayed his oratoidolatry, those ancestors to whom we were rical talents on a stage erected for that indebted for the Bill of Rights, supremely purpose in Westminster-hall, with as little valuable as that recognition of the rights effect, however, as to the avowed purport of the people was, it was obtained by the of his design at that time, as there was demand of the Houses of Parliament, and ground to apprehend would be the case it had been obtained by the parliament with respect to his exertions on a late oconly. He saw now, however principles of casion. Yet it had happened, that he was action far different from those which go-induced, no doubt from conscientious moverned the illustrious leaders of that glorious Revolution, actuating and impelling those gentlemen who continually profess their admiration of that event. The great patriots of that day were accustomed to look for the safeguard of their liberties, their property, and their religion, only from the energy and wisdom of parliament; whereas, the modern doctrine was that every good was to be expected from popular assemblies. It was objected to the bill, that it prevented the right of petitioning; so far from preventing the right of petitioning, it in fact secured it by directing it to its proper channel. Whatever good had been done by petitioning, he would venture to assert, had been entirely done by petitions under the protection of established laws, and not by tumultuous meetings; such meetings might produce anarchy, but they could never be advantageous to the constitution. If gen tlemen would reflect on the cases in which petitions had tended to secure the liberty of the people, they would find that they had not originated from popular conventions irregularly held, but from legal assemblies called together by constituted authorities. The petitions presented on the Excise bill and the India bill, were sufficient proofs of this. He deprecated the idea of insinuating suspicions of improper conduct in magistrates, and said it tended materially to weaken the necessary authority of men in public situations.

tives to acknowledge the virtues, and connect himself with the political conduct of those whom he had reprobated for so many years with every possible bitterness and severity. Immediately after he had withdrawn himself from the administration of the earl of Shelburne, the right hon. gentleman had again appealed to his favourite popular meeting, at which no doubt, many individuals were vehemently assailed, who had no means of defending themselves; a line of combat neither candid nor fair. Let the House recollect the associations in the year 1780; associations, which, though, commenced without any settled design, proved fatal in their consequences. Had the bill before the House existed at that time, would the lives, liberty, and property of Englishmen have been so dreadfully violated, as they were in consequence of the meeting held in St. George's-fields? An unfortunate, but deluded, nobleman had then the audacity to say, that, unless the House of Commons acceded to the object of their petition, he would require their assent at the head of 100,000 men. Since, then, they had experienced such a lamentable instance of the dangers resulting from popular meetings; since they had seen the evils which threatened the constitution, from such combination, would they hesitate to pass a bill which could, in no view, be said to take away the right of the subject, and which only directed it to

a proper object? They ought to take | had not their share of it. If any good care how they played with the prejudices could come of these self-constituted meetof a mob: they were not safe weapons to ings it would be by placing them under sport with. Nothing could be more dan- the eye of the legislature. Indeed, he gerous in a legislature, than to hold up had flattered himself, that after the trials the doctrine of resistance to the people. of Hardy and others, the good sense of That it was a rule to be laid down was by the nation would have checked their farno means true; as resistance never could ther progress: but the meetings in St. form a part of government. It must arise George's-fields and Copenhagen-house from the dissolution of government; nor had dissipated these hopes. Meetings of could he avoid noticing the criminal inde- this kind would now therefore be placed cency of imputing arbitrary motives to under the direction of a magistrate actone part of the government, and of call-ing at his peril. To the assertion that ing upon the legislature, which was ministers had denied proof, he replied, one branch of government, to listen to that public notoriety was the best ground imputations upon another. Whatever of proof; and the whole country had demight be the conduct of the right hon.clared that some strong and efficacious regentleman in the years 1782 and 1783, he medy was necessary. He put it to the well recollected, that from 1770 to 1774, wisdom of the House, whether, under all he had not resorted to any means that the existing circumstances it was right the wisdom of parliament did not suggest, that any individual should have the power though when he said this, he was aware of assembling people for any business he that there might be circumstances suited thought proper. Between trusting to the to particular periods of a man's life, and discretion of individuals on the one hand, - maturer age might not choose to adopt and the discretion of the magistrate on the conduct of youth. The right hon. the other, he could not see the smallest gentleman, from his earliest knowledge room to hesitate. of him, had been a friend to the system of popular meetings; but he doubted much whether he had imbibed any good principle from that system, or established any good principle by it. A large as sembly had been convened the other day at which the right hon. gentleman presided, and he had no doubt he had exerted himself with great activity and uncommon powers of voice; but could the 30,000 people, who were reported to be present, have been all benefitted by his greatest exertion of his faculties? He had certainly been much applauded. Had not those, however, who were with him on the scaffold, shared, in that applause? He had always admired the right hon. gentleman's talents, but he seriously thought they might be displayed more usefully than on such occasions. That House he considered as a more proper stage on which that right hon. gentleman might display his abilities. "I know (said Mr. Dundas) he is able to battle us all." If the majority of the 30,000, who attended the meeting, had remained at home in the exercise of honest industry, for the maintenance of their wives and children, it would have been better for society. The food dealt out to them from the rostrum, was not the most wholesome; and, it was to be remembered, that such as it was, the wives of the men present

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Mr. Fox said, that if he possessed much of that vanity, which the right hon. gentleman had been pleased to impute to him, it would have been no small gratification to him to have formed the subject of not merely one or two or three, but at least of four different speeches, which he recollected the right hon. gentleman, considerable in abilities himself, high in situation, and great in power, to have made upon his character and public conduct. several occasions, he remembered to have been publicly addressed from the same quarter, in a similar style of catechism, upon his opinion respecting the extent and mode of reform in parliament, and respecting his sentiments upon the influence of the crown and the proper limits of the royal prerogative. The right hon. secretary had at that time received several hints from his right hon. friend near him (the chancellor of the exchequer), not to push his inquiries too far. On the present occasion, however, he was not fortunate enough to reap the benefit of so kind a hint, and therefore he would answer the different questions in the cate chism, with all the plainness and sincerity in his power. The first inquiry of the right hon. secretary related to his conduct in the famous Middlesex election: in reply to which he was at liberty, to affirm, that while he gave his decided opinion in fa

vour of the sovereignty of parliamentary |sions were against him? Never in any law, he never had uttered any sentiment one instance had he uttered a syllable which was in the least unfavourable to the that went to question the right, or to right which the people indisputably pos-blame the practice, of holding public sessed of expressing their sense of every meetings of the people. He had endeapublic measure. From the Middlesex voured to answer much of the reasoning election the right hon. secretary had pro- that had been urged against him at these ceeded to catechise him upon his conduct meetings; but he had not said a word during the American war, and by talking against the propriety of holding them. of his erecting a stage without doors, he What was the principle of the present bill? seemed to speak with some contempt of To restrain the exercise of free discussion the manner in which he (Mr. Fox) had at all those meetings. acted at certain meetings, that were held The right hon. secretary had asked, at Westminster-hall and other places, what advantages had resulted to the counupon these occasions: he found himself try from those political meetings during accused with having pronounced invec- the American war? He did not mean to tives against persons who were then in arrogate to himself any extraordinary share high authority. The right hon. gentleman in the opposition which he made to that had forgotten the conduct which his right war. It did not become him to say much hon. friend (Mr. Pitt) had adopted, and upon that subject; he trusted he might, those eloquent speeches he had at that however, be pardoned, if he said that the time delivered, in which public harangues popular meetings in question, tended to to the people were described as the most hasten the conclusion of that war. Was agreeable and most useful duty which re- the right hon. gentleman of that opinion, presentatives in parliament could dis- or was he not? What did he think of the charge to their constituents. In answer meetings that were held at Norwich and to the charge, that he had, in a personal at other places? Upon this head the manner, attacked those who had no op- right hon. secretary might have some inportunity of appearing in their own de- formation from one of his present friends, fence, he had to say, that it was the if he wanted any information. Those duty of every man, and particularly of measures went farther than to put an end every member of parliament, when the to the war; they contributed to the corconduct of the executive government was rection of some of the abuses of adminiscalled in question, to represent the cha- tration, since the celebrated bill of Mr. racters and conduct of members in their Burke, which did that gentleman so much true colours. What was the use or the honour, was founded on those measures. value of a popular meeting, upon a politi- Perhaps he should be told, that all the cal subject, without that freedom? At meetings that had any effect (indeed, he meetings held in Yorkshire and other had been told so already), were called by places at that time, such had been the the sheriff, and that all that was said at practice of others. Although he had the meeting at Westminster had no effect, then spoken freely of government, when because it was not a meeting which had he opposed its measures, he was willing to that authority. He wished to know what allow others to oppose him. In the year magic there was in a meeting that was 1784, for instance, the House would re- called by the sheriff, in preference to any collect what had happened. Mr. Burke, other public meeting? So much of the in his emphatical language, had called the subject, therefore, as related to public parliamentary conduct of some gentlemen meetings, he recollected with pleasure the revolution of 1784. In that year, the and satisfaction. Public meetings had House could not have forgotten how he contributed to put an end to the Amerihad been opposed; what invectives had can war and if he had said some things been employed against him, and those in against any of those individuals who adplaces, where, as the right hon. gentleman vised it, he was consoled with the reflechad said, he could not be present to an- tion, that if he had helped to shorten that swer. Did he ever make one unmanly destructive war only one year, he had murmur upon that occasion? Did he contributed to prevent the increase of the ever complain of that invective? Did he number of helpless orphans and mourning ever say one word against the sacred right widows-he had contributed to lessen the of the people to assemble and freely dis-distress of the poor and friendless. Let cuss political subjects when those discus-him not be told, then, that he had acted