rized the magiftrate to commit to immediate imprisonment whomever they thought proper to charge with feditious language, or behaviour, in any popular meeting. This they afferted was to constitute them, at once, judges and jury. The earl of Moira took pointed notice of an expreffion that had been used by the earl of Westmorland. The words of that nobleman were "fend the people to the loom and to the anvil, and there let them earn bread instead of wafting their time in feditious meetings." This, faid lord Moira, was degrading men below the condition affigned to them by the Almighty, who certainly could not have intended that any part of mankind should be doomed merely to work and eat like the beasts of the field. They too were endowed with the faculty of reasoning, and had certainly the right to use it. Strong and cogent arguments were produced by lord Thurlow, to prove that the government of England could not, in justice to the nation, fetter it with new laws, merely to prevent the poffible consequences, in this country, of those principles, the importation of which, from France, was apprehended. Af ter fignifying his general disapprobation of the bill, he pointed out its variations from the provifions of the acts of Charles II. and George I. respecting feditious proceedings. By the latter, known by the name of the fiot-act, people unlawfully assembled did not, however, expose themselves to capital punishment, unless they perfifted in acting in a diforderly and tumultuous manner during a whole hour after the act had been read to them. But, by the present bill, if people were affembled, in order to take a subject relating to the public into confideration, and con tinued together, however peaceably to the number of twelve perfons, an hour after proclamation made, they were adjudged guilty of felony, without benefit of clergy; and the presiding magiftrate was authorized to use violence, even to death, in apprehending them. This claufe was so unjustifiable, that he thought himfelf bound to oppose the bill, were it folely from this motive. The lord chancellor made a long and elaborate reply to lord Thurlow's objections, without advancing, however, any thing new in fupport of the bill. The question for its going into a committee was carried by one hundred and nine votes againft twenty-one. The house of lords went, accordingly, into a committee upon the bill, on the eleventh of December, when the duke of Norfolk opposed the claufe extending the operation of the bill to three years, and moved that it should be limited to one. He was feconded by lords Scarborough, Darnley, Radnor, and Romney. But the term of three years was fupported by lords Grenville, Spencer, and Mulgrave, and voted by forty-five to eight. On the fourteen of December, 1795, the bill was read a third time and finally paffed. No law, enacted by the British legiflature, was ever received by the nation with fuch evident and gene ral marks of ill will and difapprobation as these two celebrated bills, on which the public bestowed the appellation of the Pitt and Gren ville acts, in order to fet a mark upon their authors, and hold them out to the odium of the people. These two acts were confidered the most restrictive of any that have been pafled by an English parliament since the reigns of the Tudors; a family of which the remembrance membrance is far from being agreeable to the people of England; notwithstanding that it produced an Elizabeth, whose tyrannical disposition and maxims tarnished the luftre of all her great qualities. The defpotifm of that house was indignantly recalled to notice on this occafion, and the severity of the two acts in question, compared to the most arbitrary and oppreffive proceedings of the fovereigns of England, previous to the commencement of the seventeenth century. It was owned, at the same time, by every candid mind, that if, on the one hand, there was danger to be apprehended, from measures tending to defpotism, there was on the other, danger in allowing an unrestrained freedom of haranging the populace; a freedom that tended to anarchy and confufion. If, on the one hand, it be the nature of power to mount, with hasty steps, into the throne of defpotifm, it seems to be infeparable from liberty, on the other, to push its claims beyond a just and reasonable degree of freedom. Amidst a scarcity of grain; an accumulation of taxes; an unsuccessful, not to say unnecessary, war; difficulties abroad; distresses at home :when the elements were troubled, and a storm so greatly threatened, filence was imposed on the ship's crew, and each man was fixed to his particular station. The danger to be apprehended from the operation of those laws did not confist so much in any immediate reftraint they might impose on a reafonable freedom of discussion, and presentation of petitions to the legiflature, whether for the redress or the prevention of grievances, as in the tendency they had to enervate the fpirit of liberty. The consequences of many, nay most, innovations are not prevented at first: otherwise they would, in many instances, be immediately resisted. By the time that pernicious innovations are perceived, custom and habit have rendered them less odious and intolerable. Precedents, growing into authorities, rise into absolute dominion, by flow degrees: by acceffions and diftant encroachments, each of which, fingly confidered, seemed of little importance. The vanity of refiftance at last breaks the spirit of the people, and disposes them to unreserved fubmiffion. Their political importance being wholly gone, they are degraded, more and more, and subjected to greater and greater oppressions and insults. It was observed by many, even of those who were disposed to admit the temporary expediency of the two unpopular and odious acts, that the greater part by far of our new laws have a reference, either to public revenue or to the security of the monarchical part of the constitution: and that few, of any extenfive operation, are of the class that may be denominated popular and paternal. The only alleviation that accompanied the two acts, was the time limited for their duration. This kept upthespirits and hopes of the people, that however their representatives might have been prevailed upon to fufpend the exercise of those privileges, on which the national freedom depended, they were too wife, as well as too honeft, to trust them in the hands of the executive power, any longer than they might be convinced was requisite for the fermentation of the times to subside, and for the people to revert to their former temper. CHAP. CHAP. III. In the House of Commons, Regulations respecting the Sale of Flour, and the Making of Bread.-Motions by Mr. Lechmere and Mr. Whitbread, reSpecting the Causes of the Scarcity of Wheaten Flour, and the Hardships incident to the Labouring Poor - Negatived. -Bill for Encouraging the Cultivation of Waste Lands.-Motions for the Support of the Land and Sea Service. Strictures on the Conduct of Ministry in the War Department.Replied to by Mr. Wyndham.-Debates on the Erection of Barracks.A Statement of the Expences of 1796, amounting from twenty-seven to twenty-eight Millions flerling.---Debates concerning the Terms of the Loan. -Vote approving the Conduct of the Minister on this Subject.-Nezo Taxes. Debates thereon. Meffage from the King, intimating his Difpofition to enter into a Negociation with the present Government of France. -An Address moved, expreffing the Readiness of the House to concur in fuch a Meafure. - Amendment thereon, moved by Mr. Sheridan. This rejected, and the Address carried.-Motion for Peace, by Mr. Grey.Negatived. D URING these parliamentary and popular agitations, the houses were not unmindful of the critical state of the country, through the alarming scarcity of corn that had prevailed for some time. On the thirtieth of October, 1795, the second day of the session, Mr. Pitt moved, that the bill, allowing the importation of corn, duty free, should be extended to another year. He proposed at the same time several regulations relating to the fale of flour, and the making of bread. It was observed by Mr. Lechmere, that no remedy could be applied to the fecurity without investigating its causes; the principle of which he believed to be the monopoly of farms, and the jobbing in corn. Public granaries ought, he faid, to be erected, where every one * It is one of the most pleasing as well as important tasks imposed on the journalist to record, with due approbation, and point out as much as possible, such public counsels and actions as originate in sound patriotifm, and are eminently conducive to the public good. We wish that Mr. Lechmere's obfervation on the baneful effects of monopolization of land had met with more attention, and been made a subject of parliamentary inquiry and regulation. It is with great fatisfaction that we notice the efforts of feeling and enlightened men, who, whether by speaking or writing, recommend attention to the labouring poor. Whoever peruses " Mr. Newte, of Tiverton's Tour in England and Scotland," and "An Essay on the Right of Property in Land," afcribed to profeffor Ogilvie, of Aberdeen, will be abundantly satisfied, that by a due encourage. ment of agriculture and the fisheries, which may be confidered as a species of agriculture, sources of unfailing profperity might be opened to this island, amidst all the possible veerings one might purchase without the therefore moved for an inquiry into intervention of corn-dealers. He the causes of the fcarcity. veerings of commerce, and even under progressive taxes. But the best stimulant to agriculture, according to the just observation and reasonings of the very worthy, as well as ingenious and well-informed authors just mentioned, that could poffibly be devised, would be to invent some means, whereby the actual labourer might be animated with the hope of rifing to the situation of an actual cultivator of the foil; fuch as reftraints on the exceffive monopolization of land; long, and in fome cases perpetual leafes; a judicious diftribution of waste lands, and various contingencies improveable by the legiflature in favour of the peafantry of this country, without injuring the great proprietors of land, but even promoting their intereft in particular. That this is practiable has been experimentally proved by the duke of Bedford, the earl of Winchelsea, the earl of Suffolk, and other real patriots and benefactors to their country. There is a strong temptation to throw different farms into one, in the circumstance, that by this means the landlord avoids the expence of keeping up different farm-steads. In order to counteract this inducement, to the exceffive enlargement of farms, it was wisely enacted, in the reign of king Henry VIII. that the landlord should be at liberty to dispose of his lands as he pleased, but that he must nevertheless keep up in good repair all the ancient manfions and farm-fteads. The preamble to this law, which has now unfortunately become obsolete, is worthy of ferious attention at the present day. It is a melancholy confideration, that the most profperous career of arts, manufactures, and commerce, in any individual nation or empire, (not their migration into different countries,) carries in itself the feeds of corruption. Mechanical arts and manufactures, bringing together great crowds of people into factories and great towns, confining their bodies to close and narrow spots, and their minds to a very few ideas, are prejudicial to the health, the morals, and even the intellectual powers of a people. There is more strength, felf-command, natural affection, and general knowledge and contrivance among tillers of the ground, paftoral tribes, and even savage nations; all of which con ditions of men are accustomed to employ their cares, and to turn their hand to a vast variety of occupations. While the wants of men are encreased by luxury, their natural resources are diminished: they become inactive and slothful, less and less fitted to bear up under hardships, and to adapt their labour to different exigencies and circumstances. They know but one art. The manufacture in which they are employed fluctuates with: the artificial state of fociety, out of which it sprung. The enervated artisan is thrown on the mercy of the public. A fimilar ratio holds with regard to nations; each succeeding generation becomes more luxurious than the last; each becomes less capable of exertion. There is for a long time a curious struggle between the wants and exertions of men and of nations: but the exertions at last yield to the enervating influence of luxury, and hence we may fay of the reign of the arts, what Saliuft observes of political empire, "that it is in the course of things always transferred from the bad to the good." The immenfity of our national debt, which imposes on the hand of industry the fetters of immoderate taxation, added to all these confiderations, casts an air of melancholy over our political horizon. This gloom, however is not a little brightened up by three circumstances. First, there is yet a very large scope in this island for the extenfion and improvement. of agriculture, which breeds a race of men innocent, healthy, and hardy. Secondly, there is still a greater scope for the extenfion and improvement of our fisheries and navigation, which nourish a hardy race of mortals, maintaining great activity and virtue, amidst occafional excesses. While any land remains to be cultivated, cultivation is better than manufactures, not only in respect of the health, happiness, and morals, of the people, but of public revenue. This reasoning is confirmed by the wife economy of America; by the economists of France, and the writings of their difciples in this and other countries. See particularly "The Effential Principles of the Wealth of Nations, illuftrated in oppoûtion to fome False Doctrines of Dr. Adam Smith, and others." After After a long discussion of the causes of the fcarcity, they were found to be of fo complicated a nature, that it proved difficult to remove them. A bill was however brought in to prohibit the manufacture of starch from wheat and other grain; to lower the duties on its importation, to prevent the distilling from it, and all obstructions to its free transportation through every part of the kingdom. It appeared, in the mean time, from the information laid before the committee of inquiry into the high price of corn, that, with an exception to wheat, the harvest had been very productive: thus by mixing four of different grains good bread might be made; a measure the more indifpenfible, that from a variety of causes no fufficient fupplies of corn could be expected from abroad; a bounty of twenty fhillings was however agreed to for every qharter imported from the Mediterranean, until the importation amounted to three hundred thousand; a bounty of fifteen thillings a quarter upon that from America, till it amounted to five hundred thousand; and five hillings a quarter on Indian corn, till it amounted also to five hundred thoufand. The hardships incident to labourers, tradesmen, and manufacturers, were, on the twenty-feventh of November, brought before the confideration of the house by Mr. Whitbread, who observed, that the highest extent of wages to husbandmen was fixable by the magiftrate, but not the lowest. On the ninth of December he brought in a bill to authorife juftices of peace to regulate the price of labour at every quarter feffion. Herein he was fupported by Mr. Fox, Mr. Jekyll, Mr. Honeywood, and other memVOL. XXXVIII. bers; and opposed by Mr. Burdon, Mr. Buxton, Mr. Vanfittart, and Mr. Pitt. The latter was of opinion, that in a matter of this kind the operation of general principles ought to be attended to, preferably to uncertain and precarious reme dies. It was dangerous to interfere, by regulations, in the intercouse between individuals, engaged in the various businessess of society. Many of the distresses complained of originated from the abuses that had crept into the execution of the laws relating to the poor, which required much amendment. They did not fufficiently difcriminate between the unfortunate and the idle and diffipated. All application for relief should be founded upon unavoidable misfortune, and, if poffible, the relief should confift of employment, which would not only benefit the individual applying, but the community itself, by an increase of labour and industry to the common stock. He recommended the inftitution of friendly focieties, to relieve poor families proportionably to the number of their children, and the loan of small fums, payable in two or three years. After a laborious difcuffion of this subject Mr. Whitbread's motion was negatived, as well as that which had been made for the benefit of the actual labourers, or cultivators of the foil, by Mr. Lechmere. The opinion of the public did not coincide with that of ministry. The wages of labourers and of workmen in all fituations ought, it was universally affirmed, to bear a due proportion to the price of the neceffaries of life. This alone would prevent distress, and ultimately diminith the number of poor to be provided for according to law. In order to alleviate the wants of the indigent [E] claffes, |