ed, and was only fubjected to regulations for its more beneficial exercife, it was unreasonable to complain of its being extinguifhed. The folicitor, fpeaking of the purity and independence of the British parliament, took this occafion to condemn the fyftem adopted by the French, of allowing falaries to the reprefentatives of the nation. Hence, he afferted, arofe the calamities of France. It was a practice which had long been relinquished by this country, and which denoted the prudence of the people and government. He alfo advanced another maxim, which was, that revolutions were always the work of minorities: thefe ufually confifted of fpirited and active individuals, who were not deterred by difficulties, and whose refolution and perfeverance rendered them indefatigable, and enabled them finally to overcome the majorities that oppofed their defigns. These majorities being compofed of the peaceable and well-affected to government, though acting with loyalty, did not exert themfelves with a fervour equal to that of their antagonists, whofe vigour and animation in pursuing the objects for which they were contending, infpired them with exertions too violent to be refifted by men, who had only ordinary motives to influence them, while the others were prompted by that multiplicity of paffions which actuate men who are ftriving to exalt themselves above others, and to expel them from the feat of power, in order to occupy it themselves. From the various reafonings that had been ufed in fupport of the bill, he inferred, that as the laws in force did not fufficiently apply to the numerous meetings and affociations,

where the feditious principles complained of were encouraged, laws that might clearly be directed against them, ought of course to be enacted.

In reply to the folicitor-general, Mr. Erikine pofitively denied the bill's confiftency with the principles of the British conftitution. Neither in the reign of Charles II. nor of William III. nor in those that followed, though two of them were marked by rebellions, had the miniftry dared to attempt fuch an infringement on the liberty of the fubject; and yet the first of these reigns was immediately after those commotions that had brought a king to the fcaffold: the fecond was noted for the obftinacy with which the adherents to a dethroned monarch exerted themselves in his caufe, even to the attempting the very life of the prince upon the throne. In the height of the rebellion of 1745, no minifter had ventured to fetter the nation in the manner propofed by the prefent bill. Even the very framers of it, when they fufpended the habeas-corpus-act, and were preparing their materials for the late trials, had abstained from this glaring invafion of national freedom. No plots had fince arisen, corroborated with any proofs, to arm minifters with a juft pretence for fo outrageous an attack on the conftitution; the fundamentals of which were fo materially affected by it, that the right to petition, on which the fecurity of the people against oppreflion effentially depended, would be utterly deftroyed. The bill forbad all difcuffion that was not fanctioned by a magiftrate. Did. not fuch a claufe empower migiftrates appointed by, and removable at the will of the crown, to be judges of the nature of the petitions

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of the people? was it prefumable that fuch perfons would permit a petition, militating against any minifterial measure, to be brought forward in a popular meeting? but whatever the favourers of abfolute powers might advance in fupport of fuch a bill, it took away at once the right inherent in the people to refift a tyrannical government. The public meetings had been charged with fpeaking bold language; but there were occafions that warranted the boldeft language. The people of England had inalienably the right to defend their liberties to the last extremity fuch were the fentiments of the great lord Chatham, and fuch were his own. In no fituation would he defert that caufe, and was determined never to die a flave. It was, in the mean time, with the heaviest concern, that he obferved a circumftance pregnant with much calamity: this was the eftrangement of the higher claffes from the lower: this had been the radical cause of the evils that had befallen France. Previously to the revolution there were but two orders of fociety in that country, a haughty and domineering nobility, and a wretched oppreffed multitude. Hence arofe the refentments of the lower claffes, who beheld themfelves tyrannifed over by a profligate court and government, to which, for that reafon, they did not conceive themselves bound to fubmit. Arguing from this weighty precedent, Mr. Erfkine warned the poffeffors of power, and the owners of great property in this country, to be ware of the fatal examples before them, and not to abet a law by which the people's liberties muft neceffarily be abrogated, and a fpirit of revenge excited in them which would inevitably break forth foon

or late. Compulfion, ard the dread of force might induce them to fubmit awhile to their oppreffors; but it would be a fullen fubmiffion, and though it might even last a few years, the remembrance of liberty would ftill furvive, and prompt them in an evil hour for the de ftroyers of their freedom, to resume it on fome aufpicious opportunity, and to take the moft fignal vengeance upon its enemies. In corroboration of his fentiments, Mr. Erfkine referred to the fpeech of the chief juftice, at the late trials for high treafon at the Old Bailey.

Among the objects of the attention of freemen, faid the chief justice, the principles of government, the conftitutions of particular governments, and, above all, the conftitution of the government under which they live, will naturally engage their attention, and provoke fpeculation. The power of communication of thoughts and opinions is the gift of God, and the freedom of it is the fource of all science, the first fruit, and the ultimate happinefs of lociety; and therefore it seems to fol low, that human laws ought not to interpofe, nay, cannot interpofe to prevent the communication of fentiments and opinions in voluntary affemblies of men." So dangerously was the bill framed, that it was in the power of any one individual prefent at a meeting to occafion its diffolution, by fpeaking a few feditious words, that would inftantly authorise the prefiding magiftrate to put an end to it on that pretence; but was it not clear that for a paultry gratification, a hireling might be found to afford this pretence to a minifterial juftice for executing the mandates of his employer? It was falfe that no law exifted to prevent feditious proceedings: a magiftrate

had

rican war.

had it always in his option to dif folve a diforderly affembly, when it was evidently accompanied by a breach of the peace; and by the riot-act he was explicitly empowered to difperfe meetings held on unlawful purposes. Mr. Erfkine next proceeded to expofe the change of fentiments in the English on matters of government. Mr. Burke had, he faid, already taken notice of this alteration fo long ago as the Ame"We begin, his words were, to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relifh of honest equality: the principles of our forefathers become fufpected to us, becaufe we see them animating the prefent oppofition of their American defcendants. The faults which grow out of the luxuriance of freedom, appear much more fhocking to us than thofe vices which are generated from the ranknefs of fervitude." Thus, faid Mr. Erskine, neither the idea, nor the term of equality, were ftrangers to our language till lately, as fome time fervers would infinuate. It were wifer in the higher ranks to cherish this idea, than to affect a feceffion from the commonalty, and to hold it beneath their dignity to make one common caufe with them. The great ought ferioufly to weigh the confequences that muft certainly enfue from a conteft between them and the little. K would indicate a spirit of difunion in this country, of which the French would not fail to avail themfelves; far worse would be the conditions of a treaty with them in fuch a cafe, than if they found us united in difpofition and interefts. Mr. Erfkine, reverting to the motives al leged in fupport of the bill, faid, because, while the fovereign was going to parliament, at a time when

a complication of calamities had rendered the poor defperate, a few wretches were guilty of outrages to him, for which they might have been punished by ftatutes long exifting, the whole nation is at once to lose the privilege on which it juftly fets the higheft value. The ftatute enacted in the thirteenth of Charles II. was, he obferved, the acknowledged precedent of the prefent bill: by the tenour of that ftatute one hundred thousand individuals might affemble in order to concert together a petition: the only prohibitions contained in that act, were, to hawke the petition about for those to fign, who might not know of the grievances complained of, and that more than ten perfons thould prefent the petition to the king. It alfo empowered magiftrates to interpofe their authority when overt acts of tumult took place, and to require fecurity against any breach of the peace; but no meeting nor communication of thoughts were forbidden: tumultuously petitioning was the only thing forbidden. How different, exclaimed Mr. Erfkine, was this act from the bill now depending, which even prevented men from petitioning. He concluded by animadverting on the language once ufed by Mr. Pitt himself, on the fubject of parliamentary reform. "We had loft America, were the. minifter's words, through the corruption of an unreformed parliament, and we should never have a wife and honourable adminiftration, nor be freed from the evils of un-neceffary war, nor the fatal effects of the funding fyftem, till a radical reform was obtained." But the man who had spoken thefe true and memorable words was the fame who now charged with sedition all [D3]

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thofe who thought and spoke as he had done, and who reprobated the measures, which, after he had fo bitterly complained of them in that fpeech, he had now thought proper to adopt.

A reply was made to Mr. Erfkine by Mr. Anftruther and lord Mornington. The firft repeated the various arguments adduced in favour of the bill, and the second produced a variety of paflages out of feveral publications, in order to prove its propriety. The latter was violently arraigned on this account by Mr. Sheridan.

The bill was defended by Mr. Dundas, who took occafion to obferve, that no member of that houfe had fo frequently diftinguifhed himfelf by appeals to the people as Mr. Fox, combating minifters in popular meetings one half of the day, and attacking them with equal fervour in parliament during the remainder. He had acted the fame part during the American war to as little purpose, however, as it would appear he had done at prefent. Mr. Dundas inveighed, with great afperty, against fome particuJars in his political conduct and connections, which he exerted himself to defcribe in the most disadvantage, ous colours.

Thefe reproaches drew a fevere anfwer from Mr. Fox, who pointedly reminded him of the maxim held forth by his coadjutor Mr. Pitt, that popular harangues were "the best and most useful duty, which reprefentatives in parliament could dif charge to their conftituents." In appealing to the public he had done no more than his duty, which enjoined him, whenever the conduct of minifters appeared in a queftionable light to inform the people of his fentiments relating to

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their defigns. The bill he explicitly defined, a daring attempt to overthrow the fundamental principle on which the conftitution ftood; the univerfal freedom of dif cuffion. With regard to the inefficacy of his remonftrances against the American war, he readily admitted that he had uniformly, and on all occafions, condemned that war from firft to laft, and that all his remonftrances against it, as the honourable gentlemen had juftly obferved, had been to no purpose. But whether this ought to be made matter of shame or reproach to himfelf, or of triumph to the honourable gentleman, he left the house, the world, and even the honourable gentleman, to judge.-A deep filence at thefe words took place for a few moments on both fides of the house, and every eye was turned on Mr. Dundas, who, contrarily to his ufual manner, difcovered, or at least was thought to difcover, fymptoms of difcompofure. The debate closed with two hundred and thirteen votes for the fecond reading of the bill, and forty-three against it.

The fecond reading of the bill, for the better fecurity of the king's perfon, was moved in the houfe of commons on the nineteenth of November; when the queftion being put, Mr. Fox oppofed it on account of the abfence of many members; but the motion paffed by fixty-four againft twenty-two.

In the mean time, the public was no lefs occupied than parliament itself, in the difcuffion of the two bills pending in both houfes. The novelty of the meafures propofed, their inimical tendency to the long eftablished ufages of the nation, their direct aim at its liberty, and the daringnefs of minifters in bringing forward fo undeniable an infringement

fringement of rights, that had been refpected by all preceding adminiftrations these combined motives excited an alarm, which was felt in every part of the nation. All people, without exception, cordially avowed their loyalty to the fovereign, but as vehemently protested against the paffing of the two bills, as unconftitutional, and clearly fubverfive of the main foundation of English liberty, the right of the people to affemble and to communicate their fentiments' reciprocally upon thofe fubjects, which they thought neceffary to bring into difcuffion, and to frame petitions upon them to the king and the legiflature. The determinate fteadinefs and perfeverance of the public on this critical occafion was the more remarkable, that every effort was used by the minifterial party to prevent thofe popular exertions against the defigns in agitation; but thefe were viewed with fo fufpicious an eye, that every argument in their juftification vanished before the difcontent they seemed to have univerfally excited. Numbers even of thofe who did not difapprove the conduct of minifters in other refpects, could not bring themselves to approve the two bills in contemplation, Those even who fupported them, as requifite during the fermentation at prefent pervading all claffes, frankly acknowledged them to be contrary to the principles of the English conftitution, the freedom of which, however, unless reftrained by fome temporary regulations, threatened to become licentioufnefs, and to precipitate the public into all those miferies that had been fo woefully experienced by their unhappy neighbours, the French. But thofe who thus maintained the neceffity of these bills, pleaded only for a

limited duration of them. As they were indubitably an abridgement of national liberty, they ought, it was ftrongly afferted, to last no longer than the occafion that gave rife to them. When the difputes of the day, and the feuds they produced were at an end, they ought inftantly to be repealed, and the full exercife of the ancient liberties of the nation, to be restored without the leaft diminution upon any pretence. Thus argued the majo rity of thofe who favoured the bills.

But a far fuperior majority would admit of them on no pretence whatever. They were, it was indignantly affirmed, the component parts of a fyftem that began to unfold itself in too vifible a manner not to be perceived, and too alarming a one not to be refifted by every real friend to the liberty of his country. This refiftance was indeed propofed by fome to be carried to the moft refolute extremity; and had not the immenfe power of govenment been prudently weighed, the propofal would, in the opinion of numbers, have been carried into execution: but though a refiftance of fo dangerous a nature gave way to the cool reflections of the better advised, every other fpecies of oppofition took place against the two bills in queftion. Meetings and confultations, both private and public, were held every where. Clubs and affociations were formed for the purpose of oppofing them by every method not liable to the cognizance of the law. Never had there appeared, in the memory of the oldest man, fo firm and decided a plurality of adverfaries to the minifterial measures as on this occafion: the intereft of the public feemed fo deeply at ftake, that individuals, not only of the decent, but of the [D4]

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