abufed. The object of the bill was to prevent the perverfion of an important right, and to fuperfede the neceffity of ftronger reftrictions upon it than the bill was meant to impofe. The fecond part of the bill was intended to remedy the abufe of debating in public meetings, to prevent private intereft from prompting difcuffions of public grievances, and to put a stop to that traffic by which an uncandid and unfair examination of abufes, a turbulent fpirit of difcontent had been raifed and encouraged, to ferve the peculiar purpofes of individuals. His opinion was, that the provifions in the bill "were not fo extenfive in their operation as they ought to have been;" and this was the only defect he could fee in it. The framers of the bill, however, had been guided by the best of motives. He argued ftrongly in favour of the bill, on account of the liberty it allowed to call any number of the people together to petition for the removal of grievances, or any other legal purpofe, only with the precaution of giving previous notice to a magiftrate. The attendance of a juftice of the peace, he contended, would rather aid and fupport the difcuffion of any moderate question than impede it; be caufe, without fuch attendance, it would be easier for any enemy to the bufinefs before the people to excite the rabble to difturb the ineeting and breed a riot, than'when fuch precaution was taken. How then could the bill be reprefented as fubverfive of the best privileges of the people of England, or as ftabbing the principles of the conftitution? Mr. folicitor enlarged on the great impropriety of public functionaries being paid by the peo.. ple," which, he faid, had produced

all the anarchy in France, and was a principle which the British conftitution had long abandoned. He laid it down as a maxim, that all revolutions were effected by minorities; and that the active perfevering fpirit of a few would always triumph over the peaceable difpofition of the many. After enlarging on the delinquency of Mr. Yorke, and all his ufual topics, he concluded a fpeech of confiderable length by afferting, that the exifting laws were undeniably defective, as they did not reach the focieties from which the evil originated; he therefore fupported the fecond reading.

Mr. Erfkine, in the beginning of his fpeech, referred particularly to what had just been advanced by the folicitor general, who had afferted that the prefent bill was ftrictly confonant to the principles of the conftitution. An act of this defcription, faid Mr. Erfkine, was never thought of in the reign of Charles the Second, after the horrors and confufion of the former reign; fuch an act was never attempted in the reign of king William, when the government was newly established, during a difputed fucceffion, or in the two rebellions that raged in the fubfequent reigns; it was an act which even the prefent miniftry, never thought of paffing, when they fufpended that grand palladiumof English liberty, the Habeas Corpus act; nor when they had the reports of committees, ftating the exiftence of treasonable plots, upon their table. The learned folicitor, he faid, defended the neceffity of paffing the prefent bill without any fresh reafons or new plots; instead of adducing new evidence, he had trodden again the dull track that he had trodden fo frequently before, and had travelled back again to the

meeting

meeting that had been held near Sheffield, in which Mr. Yorke, it had been afferted, made a fpeech highly feditious. In contradiction to the affertion of the folicitor general, that the right of the fubject to petition the king was not taken away by the propofed bill, Mr. Erfkine faid he would maintain pofitively and diftinctly, that the bill, if it could be reduced to practice, would abfolutely destroy the right of the fubject to petition. It was a maxim in law, when any thing was prohibited by law, the means by which fuch thing might be done were alfo prohibited. According to the enactments of the bill, no fubject was to be difcuffed which the magiftrates did not approve of; thus thofe magiftrates "who were appointed by, and removable at, the will of the crown (fuch as fleriffs, &c.) were to be judges of the nature of the petitions of the people." The magiftrates, who reprefented his majefty, he contended, would therefore never permit the people to meet for the purpofe of petitioning against a measure of high prerogative, or in any cafe where the king might be fuppofed not to confult the happinefs of the people. He would fay again and again, that "it was the right of the people to refift that government which exercifed tyranny." It had been faid that bold language had been held at public meetings; it was certainly bold to fay that the people had a right to refift, and that they ought to rife; but there were fome occafions which rendered the boldeft language warrantable.

With the fanction of the fentiments of the venerable earl of Chatham, he would maintain that the people of England fhould defend their rights, if neceffary, by the laft

extremity to which free men could refort. "For my own part," said Mr. Erfkine, "I fhall never cease to struggle in fupport of liberty. In no fituation will I defert the cause. I was born a free man," continued he, and folemnly appealing to his Creator, “I will never die a flave!"

In the whole of the late proceedings and events, he obferved, one of the most fatal circumftances had been, that the higher orders of the people feparated themselves too much from the lower orders. This had been one of the causes of the revolution in France. Under their arbitrary monarchs, there were literally but two claffes of the people; a pampered, profligate, proud nobility, and a low, miferable, and abject rabble; no intermediate clafs, no knowledge, no virtue.

France had an unreformed church, an unreformed ftate, a profligate defpotifin, and the most profound fuperftition. He urged the neceflity of preferving the British conftitution pure, in order to prevent a revolution. He defied the whole-profeffion of the law to prove that the bill then before the house was confonant to the principles of the conftitution. The conftitution was abrogated and annulled by it. Our ancestors were content to wait till fome overt act appeared, which was the fubject of punishment. But, under this bill, the determination of a magiftrate was to interfere between the people and the affertion of their rights, and the complaint of their grievances. Depend upon it, faid Mr. Erskine, the people of England will not and ought not to fubmit.

Mr. Erskine then read a paragraph from an address to the jury at the Old Bailey upon the late trials for

high treafon, which fhewed that no confpiracy had exifted, and that the opinion of the judge had not been as reprefented. The chief juftice fays

"All men may, nay, all men muft, if they profefs the faculty of thinking, reafon upon every thing which fufficiently interefts them to become objects of their attention; and, among the objects of the attention of free men, the principles of government, the conftitution 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 fcience, the firft fruits and the ultimate happinefs of fociety; and therefore it feems to follow, that human laws ought not to interpofe, nay, cannot interpofe, to prevent the communication of fentiments and opinions in voluntary affemblies of men."

Mr. Erskine next commented upon the preamble and feveral claufes of the bill, and contended that it was in the power of any one man, by going to a meeting and fpeaking a few feditious words, whether appofite to the subject or not, to afford a warrantable reafon for a juftice to diffolve the meeting; any fpy (and magiftrates had their fpies) with half a crown in his pocket, might go, and, by uttering feditious expreffions, afford his paymafter the power of putting an end to all difcuffion, and to the meeting. He faid the law of the land was fully adequate to all the purposes of good government without the introduction of the prefent measure. In any public meeting,

when a breach of the peace was committed, a magiftrate, by the exifting law, was entitled to interfere; and, in his fupport, was authorized to raise the poffe comitatus, if neceffary; and alfo, by the Riot Act, he had the power of difperfing tumultuous affemblies.

He then alluded to fome fentiments which were formerly uttered by Mr. Burke when fpeaking of the American war, which he thought peculiarly applicable to the prefent time. That great man reprefented Englishmen as contending for an imaginary power; "We begin," faid he, "to acquire the fpirit of domination, and to lofe the relifh of honeft equality. The principles of our forefathers become fufpected to us, because we see them animating the prefent oppofition of our children. The faults which grow out of the luxuriance of firedom appear much more fhocking to us, than thofe vices which are generated from the ranknefs of fervitude."

It appears from hence, faid Mr. Erfkine, that the word equality is not a word of new coinage, and introduced into the dictionary only three years ago; but a word of long and ancient ufage, and ftamped with fuch an authority as that of Mr. Burke. It was his opinion, that the higher ranks did wrong in thus feceding from the lower. If the latter had fwerved from their duty, it would be better for the former to rally them 'round the principles of the conftitution, and lead them back to their duty, than thus to make, as it were, a feparate cauf: against them. Let thofe higher ranks recollect what must be the certain confequence of a conteft between them and the lower ranks. He contended, that, if the propofed

measures

measures were adopted, it would indicate to France, that this country was in a convulfed state; and as we had expected better terms from them on account of their being in a convulfed state, so they, on the fame ground, would be induced to expect better terms from us, if they fuppofed England to be in a ftate of confufion.

"Good God!" faid Mr. Erskine, "because a king, whofe morals make him dear to every man in the nation, was going down to his parliament during a war which had fnatched the bread from the mouths of the poor, because, in the crowd that furrounded him, there was one man, mifcreant enough to offer an outrage to that king, for which act he might be punished by the ftatute of Edward the Third, are the whole people of England, on that account, for the crime of one man, to be deprived of their most valuable rights and privileges?"

The learned advocate then went into a legal argument, to prove that the offences re-capitulated in the prefent bill might be punished by the exifting laws, and that thofe laws were amply fufficient. The 13th of Charles the Second was admitted to be the precedent of the bill. Under that act 100,000 perfons might meet, and fign any petition to the king or the parliament voluntarily; but the act prevented perfons from hawking about petitions to perfons to fign, who might not know that any grievances exifted. It also provided that not more than ten perfons fhould prefent any petition to the king. It authorifed magiftrates to interfere when an overt act of tumult took place, or to require fecurity if danger to the peace was apprehended; but it never prohibited a meeting to be

held. It did not forbid voluntary communication, but prohibited tumultuous petitioning; whereas the bill then before the house prohibited petitioning upon grievances which actually exifted. He then alluded to a reform in parliament, and obferved that the language of Mr. Pitt once had been, that we had loft America by the corruption of an unreformed parliament; and that we fhould never have a wife and honourable adminiftration, nor be freed from the evils of unnecessary war, nor the fatal effects of the funding fyftem, till a radical reform was obtained." But the fame right honourable gentleman was then attempting to brand with the imputation of fedition all who employed the fame language which he himself had once held, or who expreffed their difcontent at the fatal measures which in that speech he had himfelf predicted.

Mr. Anftruther rofe, and replied to feveral arguments made ufe of by Mr. Erfkine, and ran over nearly the fame ground of reafoning as the folicitor general had done. Lord Mornington defended the fame fide of the question, in a declamation of confiderable length, which, as ufual, confifted of tedious readings from a variety of pamphlets and political publications.

Mr. Sheridan faid, that, when he had made his motion for a commit. tee of inquiry, he had foretold, that if the right honourable gentleman oppofite would not fuffer him to obtain that committee of enquiry, gentlemen would ftart up with lines and fcraps of pamphlets, with paragraphs and hand-bills, in battle array, against him; and he expected that they would bring up the rear with prints and cuts ftill more alarming and formidable. He

obferved that the arguments made ufe of by lord Mornington to prove the connection between the proceedings of the London Correfponding Society, and the outrage that had been offered to the perfon of the fovereign, neither dazzled his fight nor fatisfied his underftanding. In fact, he did not believe there was any more connection between the two, than he could admit there was any connection between the noble lord's speech and the question in debate. His lordship had affirmed, that a pamphlet published by a certain Citizen Lee was foul treason. "If it was foul treason," said Mr. Sheridan, "why did not the attorney general profecute Citizen Lee?" As to the doctrine of king-killing, he knew the majority of the people held it in univerfal deteftation; but if a fool, a madman, or a traitor, as ignorant as the minifters, believed fuch fentiments were popular, was it to be deemed a fufficient proof of their existence?

Mr. fecretary Dundas defended those who had argued in favour of the bill, and urged the neceffity of its being paffed into a law. With regard to popular meetings, he obferved that Mr. Fox had stood forward more frequently than any other political character in appeals to the people. He had difplayed the most extraordinary willingnefs to refort to them; fo that it frequently happened, that he was without the door of the house, attacking minifters with invective and afperity one half the day, where they had no means of defending themselves*, and, during the other

half, combating them with the utmoft inveteracy within thofe walls. At one time, in order to excite the indignation of the people against minifters for their profecution of the American war, the right honourable gentleman had difplayed his oratorical talents on a flage erected for that purpose in Weftminfter Hall; with as little effect, however, as to the avowed purport of his defign at that time, as there was ground to apprehend would be the cafe with refpect to his exertions on a late occafion. Yet it had happened that he was induced to connect himself with the political conduct of those whom he had reprobated for fo many years with every poffible bitternefs and feverity. Immediately after he had withdrawn himself from the adminiftration of the earl of Shelburne, he again appealed to his favourite popular meetings.

Mr. Fox replied to thefe pointless invectives, that the honourable fecretary had forgotten the conduct which his own particular friend Mr. Pitt had adopted, and thofe eloquent fpeeches he had at that time delivered, in which, harangues to the people were defcribed as "the best and moft ufeful duty which reprefentatives in parliament could difcharge to their conftituents." In anfwer to the charge that he had in a perfonal manner attacked thofe who had no opportunity of appearing in their own defence, he had to fay, that it was the duty of every man, and particularly of every member of parliament, when the conduct of the executive government was called in queftion, to re

prefent