withstanding the admonition of constant experience, daily proving, in the face of Europe, that they had undertaken what was impracticable, or, at least, what they had not abilities to execute. The connection between the meetings, and the infult offered to the king, instead of being fupported by the least evidence, was totally difproved by every circumftance. But ministers wanted a pretence for depriving the people of that privilege which they moft dreaded, that of expofing their incapacity, their imprudence, or their evil defigns. Which of those imputations lay heaviest on ministry it was hard to decide; but the public, at large, loudly charged them with every one of them. The standing laws were of fufficient energy to reach and to punish conspiracy and fedition. To what end were additional ones to be enacted, unless to arm ministry with powers unknown to the conftitution; and which, from their incompatibility with its nature, must unavoidably affect its destruction. It was, therefore, incumbent upon every friend to the conftitution to oppoie the bill with the firmest perseverance, as the paffing of it would prove the surest ftep towards that uncontroulable fituation, wherein minifters had fo long, and fo vibbly, made every effort to place themselves. After a few other remarks, on each fide of the question, the motion for bringing in the bill was carried by two hundred and fourteen against forty two. The propriety of a call of the house, previously to the decifion of fo weighty a matter, being infisted on by Mr. Fox, he was told, by Mr. Dundas, that he had so little objection to his demand, that, unless it could be made apparent, that a plurality of the people fided with ministry on this occafion, the bill ought certainly not to pass, but he was fully fatisfied of its being generally approved. He had, he faid, been befieged in his office, for months pat, with applications for fuch a bill." It was in concurrence with the defire of a great number of perfons of weight with minifters, that they had been perfuaded to bring it into parliament. The fpeech of Mr. Dundas gave occafion to Mr. Sheridan of making some pointed observations. Minifters, he said, had, in the first instance, grounded the necessity of the bill upon the outrageous behaviour of the populace; but the force of truth had now compelled them to acknowledge, however inadvertently, that this bill had long before been refolved upon thus the profeffions of minifters were unworthy of credit, and their arguments ftood upon no juftifiable grounds; they made the first in defiance of truth, and they used the second with undeniable confciousness of their impropriety. Mr. Sheridan concluded by intimating that ministerial refentment, at their disappointment in the trial of Hardy, and the other members of the corresponding fociety, had, ever fince, been brooding over the means of obtaining revenge. Mr. Maurice Robinson, and Mr. Grey, seconded the motion of Mr. Fox for a call of the house, before a final decifion took place in a bufiness of such universal concern to the nation: the motion was agreed to accordingly, and the call appointed for that day fortnight. In a committee of the whole house of peers, on the eleventh of November, the king's person, and government, was formally read, and produced long and spirited debates on its various claufes. The duke of Leeds moved, that, inftead of the word, government, in the second clause, the words, confifting of king, lords, and commons, should be substituted, as defining, more specifically, the conftitution, than the word, govern vember, the bill for the fafety of an ufurpation of national rights, and made fuch a declaration, in his prefence, he should have imputed it to his ignorance; but to hear it from the mouth of a British prelate, excited his surprise no less than his indignation. ment. The lord chancellor, and lord' Grenville, were of a different opinion; but lord Thurlow afferted the difficalty of defining, with exactness, the terms, government and conftitution; the penalties enacted by the fecond claufe appeared to him unduly fevere. Was it equitable to criminate a man for faying it was an abufe, that twenty acres of land, near Old Sarum, should fend two members to parliament? The laws in existence were, in his judge. ment, amply fufficient to punish every crime, and mifdemeanour, therein alluded to, without needing its affiftance. He reprobated the system of adding new laws and penalties to those already enacted, and condemned the whole of this clause, together with the following one, by which minifters were empowered to profecute difcretionally. Much surprize was expressed by the lord chancellor, at the opinion delivered by lord Thurlow. The enormity of the offences, at which this claufe was pointed, must, he faid, be acknowledged by all who read the publications of the day: they were, in every fenfe, directed againft the existence of the government, and the conftitetion: they explicitly told the people, that they were in no wife bound to submit to their rulers that monarchy was aristocracy an oppreffive institution: they boldly gave the public to understand, that both these branches of the constitution ought to be lopped away, and democracy alone to remain; threatening, at the same time, to lose no opportunity of carrying those purposes into execution. Were fuch flagitious designs, faid the lord chancellor, permitted to be avowed, in the undisguised, infulting, manner they had to long been, to the astonishment and indignation of the fenfible part of the public, what must become of the authority of the state, and of the fafety of all its component members? Was it not evident, that all the evils which had afflicted this nation, in the last century, and all those experienced by France, at the present hour, would be renewed in this country, did not the legislature proceed with expe dition and spirit to put a stop to the dissemination of those principles. that tended, fo manifestly, to produce fuch calamities? The lord chancellor was supported by lord Mansfield, and opposed by lord Lauderdale, who noticed, that instead of encountering the arguments of lord Thurlow, he had described the pernicious tendency of the writings circulated by the democratic faction, which had not been denied, and which were no less deprecated by the parliamentary oppofition to ministry, than by minifters themselves. But the fact was, that we lived in times, when the partiality to one branch of the conftitution, was such, that revilers of the others might go unnoticed and unpunished, while that alone would be fenced and protected by clauses and penalties against those that spoke, or wrote, of it difrespectfully. spectfully. The crown, for instance, most abhorrence that words could might be reprefented as the power utter. The earl, in particular, afparamount to lords and commons, firmed, that had a Turkish mufti and totally, by right, independent of their controul; and the man that had made fuch an affeveration, might, inftead of rebuke and punishment, meet with approbation and reward, while he, that dared to infinuate the contrary, would expose himself to the wrath of government. A time, indeed, might come, when the principles that feated the house of Brunfwick on the British throne, might be reprobated, and held forth as proofs of disloyalty in those who maintained them, while those who pleaded the cause of the prerogative, would be abetted by the whole authority and strength of govern ment. The duke of Bedford was particularly severe on that clause of the bill, which condemned, to a tranf portation for feven years, any perfon convicted of having offended, a second time, against the purport of the bill. He thought the penalty far exceeded the offence, and spoke, he faid, as a man that felt himself liable to incur it. He took this occafion to condemn, in bitter terms, an expreffion that had fallen from bishop Horsley in the warmth of his antipathy to writings published on parliamentary reform. The bishop's reply to the duke's animadverfions was, that the bill referred only to those seditious meetings where the discussion of laws was attempted by persons incompetent to judge of their propriety; nor did he know, "what the mass of the people, in any country, had to do with the laws, but to obey them." An observation of this nature, drew, from the duke of Bedford, and the earl of Lauderdale, the ut 3 It may not be out of place to remark, that these words of the bishop did him confiderable differvice, not only with the public, but with the minifterial party, who were abundantly sensible how much their cause was injured by such immoderate zeal, whether fincere or af fected. The bill, on the division, was carried by forty-five votes againft three. The third reading of the bill took place on the thirteenth of November, when the earl of Lauderdale proposed to extend the operation of it to Scotland, and to substitute it to the laws provided there against the like offences; observing, in support of his proposal, that more feverity could not be requifite in Scotland, where the people were peaccably inclined, than in England, where a strong party was formed against the exifting govern ment. But his proposal was immediately negatived. The bill was again opposed, with great vigour and animation, by the duke of Bedford. He felt, he faid, a folicitude and anxiety on this subject, that compelled him to call forth every exertion, of which be was capable, to bear witness of his abhorrence of that bill, which he confidered as a mortal stab to the English constitution, given, in de spite of every remonftrance, by a ministry, determined to ftrike at every every thing that stood in the way of their proceedings, however the voice of the public might reprobate them, or experience prove them contrary to the welfare of the nation. It was become ufual, he said, to draw precedents from France, by the fupporters of ministerial mealares. He too could, with equal propriety, cite the example of that country in admonition to those who were become the rulers of this. What was it, he asked, that plunged France into those diforders and confufions that brought about the revolution? Surely not the field-meetings of the people, nor the difcuffions in private clubs, bat the profligacy of a vicious court, and the licentious lives of the heads of the French nation, whose immoral characters lost them the efteem and refpect of their country men; but the cause which principally accelerated that event was the iniquitous conduct of their government, and the corrupt fublerviency of fucceffive miniftries to the wicked ambition of those who, unhappily for that kingdom, poffefled the confidence of weak fovereigns, and involved them in contests and wars that drained the refources of the nation, and reduced the people to mifery. Thefe, together with the intolerable oppreffions exercised upon the commonaty, excited that resentment of their wrongs, and that refolution to oppose tyranny, which produced the revolution. True it was, that the perfonal character of the monatch, on the British throne, was highly respectable and exemplary; but the perverlenefs of his minifters, in forcing his people into a war, neither of their choice nor to their intereft, in lavishing their money for its profecution against their re peated wishes for its termination, in creating places and emoluments for the abettors of this ruinous fyftem, and in adopting the fevereft and most unconftitutional measures against all who had the spirit to oppose them: these and other instances of obftinacy, arrogance, and contempt of the people's rights and interests, fully justified him in calling their conduct unconftitutional and corrupt. The duke was answered by lord Grenville, who went over the fame grounds of arguments already urged in support of the bill. He did not deny the duke's affertions respecting the corruption of the French court and government previous to the revolution, the commencement of which had excited the expectation of the people of this country, that the French would henceforth enjoy the happiness of a confiitution fimilar to their own. But the horrible events that ensued owed their caufes to the lawless principles maintained in the clubs and diforderly associations that took place in that unhappy country, and filled it with murder and defolation. Clubs, it was well known, had been inftituted in England, in imitation and upon the fame plan as thofe in France. Like them, they taught principles utterly fubverfive of ancient laws and conftitutions, and inimical to the moral and religious order of things established for centuries. These were certainly most dangerous innovations, and tended evidently to throw this, and any country, count into the most fatal diforders. They ought, therefore, to be refifted, and it would argue fear or imbicillity not to oppose them in the firmest and most effectual manner, by holding out the feverest chafti ements to those who endeavoured to disseminate principles of so pernicious and destructive a tendency. ner, It was with much animal vehemence insisted on by the earl of Lauderdale,, that the safety of ministers was much more consulted by this bill than that of the king. They were conscious, that if the people were fuffered to meet together, their reiterated remonstrances could not fail, at last, to make some impression to their prejudice. The privilege of difcuffing parliamentary transactions had never yet been called in question or thought dangerous. The more important the question brought before the legiflature, the greater was the propenfity as well as the interest of the public to examine and fcrutinize it. If this privilege was allowed in matters of little importance, it ought, indubitably, to hold good in affairs of great and weighty concern to the nation. Ministers had tried how far the law would bear them out in their endeavours to establish the doctrine of constructive treason; but the attempt was so odious, that it failed; the present, however, was an attempt far more invidious, and he doubted not, that if the people of England viewed it in that light, they would exert themselves so powerfully as to fruftrate it, notwithstanding all ministerial arts and efforts in its favour. The debate finally concluded by fixty-fix votes for the passing of the bill and seven against it. The duke of Bedford and the earls of Derby and Lauderdale entered very folemn and spirited protest in oppofition to it. 10 a In the house of commons, the same influence prevailed as in the house of lords. A message from these was brought to the commons, on the 16th of November, informing them, that they had pasled the bill for the king's better safety, and requesting their concurrence. Mr. Pitt, in consequence, moved its first reading, which was carried by one hundred and seventy votes against twenty-fix; the fecond reading was voted by one hundred and fifty-one against twenty-five. It being observed by lord Eardley, that a public meeting had been held on Sunday by perfons who opposed the bill, a transaction which he looked upon as too much in the style of French principles, Mr. Sheridan observed, that the meeting was justified by its object, which was to prepare a hand-bill to diffuade the people from tumult and riot. This In conjunction with Mr. Fox, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Lambton, Mr. Sheridan propofed, that, previously to the discution of the bill, a committee should be appointed to inquire into the particulars of the insult offered to the king. was opposed by ministry as disrespectful in the first stage of a bill, framed for the security of the sovereign, and laid before them by the house of lords; but Mr. Sheridan infifted, that no proofs had been adduced to authorize so harsh a measure, and that ministers had no right to bring forward fuch a bill without the clearest proofs of its neceflity. Minifters were bound, in their own justification, to make it appear to the public that they acted ingenuously and upon fair grounds, the cafe being of such im portance and magnitude, that no fufpicions |