ELSEWHERE.

mainprize, under his Majesty's fign manual, in any place of confinement situate in Great Britain or For though the act of treason, according to the proposed bill, must be committed in America, the Crown lawyers and the King's friends maintained, and cafes were quoted to prove, that fuch treasonable act might be perpetrated by persons who had never been out of the kingdom, if its operation could be subsequently shewn to extend to America. Thus was the Habeas Corpus Act, that great bulwark of British liberty, completely annihilated by a vile and infamous construction of law, which left it in the power of the Crown to apprehend on the flightest suspicion, or pretence of suspicion, any individual against whom the vengeance of the Court was meant to be directed; and to convey them beyond the seas to any of the garrisons in Africa or the Indies, far from all hope or possibility of relief. The alarm occafioned by this bill brought back the Members of the Oppofition to the House, and a most refolute, vigorous, and animated resistance was made to it in every stage of its progress. At length the Minifter, who really appears not to have been thoroughly apprized of the nature of the bill, and of the dreadful extent of the powers vefted by it in the Crown, frankly and explicitly disavowed as to himself all design of extending the operation of the bill beyond its open and avowed objects. He said, "that the bill was intended

Q2

intended for America, and not for England; that, as he would ask for no power that was not wanted, so he would scorn to receive it by any covert means: and that, far from wishing to establish any unconftitutional precedent, he neither fought nor wished any powers to be vested in the Crown or its Minifters which were capable of being employed to bad or oppreffive purposcs." He therefore agreed to receive the amendments proposed; the principal of which were in substance: 1. That the claufe empowering his Majesty to confine fuch persons as might be apprehended under this act in any part of his dominions, should be modified by the infertion of the words, " within the realm;" and 2dly, That an additional clause or proviso be inserted, " that nothing in this act shall be construed to extend to perfons refident in Great Britain." These conceffions gave extreme offence to the leaders of the High Prerogative party, who had zealoufly defended the bill in its original state, and who now exclaimed, " that they were deferted by the Minifter in a manner which fecined calculated to difgrace the whole meafure, to confirın all the charges and furmifes of their adverfaries, and to fix all the odium upon them." And it was indeed sufficiently evident from the whole conduct of the business, that the Minifter, on this as on other occafions, was not admitted into the inmost receffes of the Royal

Cabinet.

On

On the 9th of April 1777, a message was delivered by the Minifter from the King, in which his Majesty expressed his concern in acquainting the House with the difficulties he labored under from the debts incurred by expences of the Civil Government, amounting on the 5th of January preceding to upwards of 600,000l. And the House on this message resolving itself into a Com mittee of Supply, the Minister moved, "That the fum of 618,00ol. be granted, to enable his Majesty to discharge the debts of the Civil Government; and that the sum of 100,000l. per annum, over and above the sum of 800,000l. be granted as a farther provision for the same," This gave rife to a vehement debate. It was affirmed to be a measure of the grossest impropriety and indecency to bring forward fuch a demand in such a season of national distress and calamity; when burdens are accumulated upon burdens, to tell a people already finking under their load, that the grandeur of the Crown is not fufficiently supported; and that an increase of taxes is necessary in order to increase its splendor! But even this plea, however inadequate to the justification of Minifters, was far remote from the truth. It was notorious that the debt had been incurred in carrying on and fupporting a system of corruption; in obtaining that baneful and unbounded influence which had swept every thing before it; which had Q3 brought

brought the nation to the brink of destruction, and had deprived us in a very great measure of all the benefits derived from a limited government. The harsh and stern voice of Prerogative was indeed no longer heard; but the danger was much greater from the filent progress of a malady, which, though flower, was far more certain. They said, that the debts of the Crown had been not many years fince discharged without account, to the amount of more than half a million. What is the consequence? Another and larger demand is made, and a vast annual increase asked, without even the wretched security of Minifterial promise, that new debts will not be contracted, and new augmentations demanded. They observed, that, on a comparison of the expenditure of the last eight years, with a fimilar period terminating the reign of the late King, the excess of the article of Pensions would be found to amount to 213,000l. and that the increase in the article of Secret Service was yet more enormous. In two lines only, the sums of 171,000l. and 114,0001, were charged for secret services, issued under the direction of the Secretavies of the Treasury. That money should be entrusted to the Secretaries of State, for the purpose of procuring foreign intelligence, must doubtless be acknowledged neceffary; but that the fubordinate officers of the Treasury, who can have no public connection beyond their own office, should be the avowed

2

avowed irresponsible agents for the unlimited difposal of the public money, was indeed alarming; and left no room for doubt as to its design or application. Above half a million was stated under the head of the Board of Works, though no one could conjecture on what palace, park, garden, or royal work of any kind the money had been expended; nor were any vouchers produced by which the House could form a judgment of the propriety of any branch of the expenditure. It appeared only upon the whole, that under every head the expence was infinitely increased, while the external fplendor of royalty was in the same proportion diminished. The accounts laid upon the table stated the annual allowance for the privy purse to be raised from 48,000l. in the late reign to 60,000l. and, what was much more extraordinary, it appeared that the Queen's privy purse was fixed at 50,000l. although Queen Ann, reigning as Sovereign in her own right, had contented herself with an allowance of 20,000l. - Such nevertheless was the unlimited complaisance of Parliament, that the demands of the Minister were granted almost without the formality of a divifion*,