Having said this much upon the treason
part of the bill, which he thought the
least objectionable, he proceeded to
remark upon the clause respecting misde-
meanor. And here also it was con-
tended, that the bill did not go to create
any misdemeanor, which he positively
denied; because, the judge would have
it in his power to say to the jury, "Do
you find that these words and sentences
were spoken with a design to excite the
hatred and contempt of the people against
the House of Commons as at present
constituted?" and if the jury should find
such a design to be proved, the court
would have nothing to do but to claim
the right of explaining the law, and, under
the legal construction of the act, to enforce
its penalties. Upon this principle a meet-
ing could not be held for petitioning for a
reform in parliament, without incurring
the penalties denounced in the provisions
of the act. With regard to the penalty
of transportation for the second offence,
he did not think that the arguments which
he had adduced on a former night had
been answered. He had then asserted,
what he was not now disposed to retract,
that the same offence ought never to be
punished with different penalties, parti-
cularly when there were different shades
and degrees in the offence.-Gentlemen
on the other side had pleaded the power
of his majesty to pardon, as an extenua-
tion of the severities of the act.
privilege he considered as absolutely
necessary in a government similar to that
of England; but there was a wide dif-
ference between this privilege when
applied to general and to political crimes.
It was notorious, that this privilege of the
king was controlled in its exercise by his
ministers. In cases of felony he would
trust the compassion of any minister, but
in state prosecutions he would be back-
ward in trusting any minister, because
these prosecutions were connected with
circumstances in which ministers were
particularly interested. Far less would
he trust the present ministers, who had
sanctioned the iniquitous and cruel sen-
tences of the court of justiciary in Scot-
land; sentences not less execrable than
any which had been passed in the reigns
of queen Mary, or of Charles 2nd. It
was said that sedition was the reigning
crime of the day: if it was, it looked ill
for administration; because popular dis-
content was the usual, and indeed, the
natural consequence of ministerial mis-

This

conduct and he ventured to predict, that if the present system was obstinately pursued, still more alarming consequences would ensue. Such laws as the present bills would constitute against sedition, were to him objects of abhorrence, because they were novelties unknown to the English constitution. He was more and more convinced of the rectitude of his opinion, when he reflected on the detestable system of criminal law practised in Scotland; the iniquitous and cruel sentence of the court of justiciary, in which part of the kingdom, his majesty's ministers had not only sanctioned, but elaborately defended. The trial of Mr. Muir, and the other unfortunate gentlemen who suffered a similar fate, he could never think of without abhorrence. The sentence was an eternal disgrace to the court; and the Scotch judge who had affirmed, that no punishment was too severe for the man who was guilty of sedition, that the wretch ought to be exposed to wild beasts

that judge merited the universal execration of mankind, and it would entail lasting disgrace on the present times, as nothing more harsh, brutal, and unfeeling was to be found in the arbitrary and oppressive reigns of Charles 2nd, and queen Mary. In the bill before the House, the abominably intolerant spirit of the Scotch court was attempted to be established. The proceedings were a national disgrace, and were not excelled in the barbarous code of the most barbarous ages. Had Mr. Muir's case been submitted to an English jury, he would uudoubtedly have

the verdict of the Jury on the Trial of Mr. *Lord Swinton, in giving his opinion upon Muir, made use of these words :-" If punishment adequate to the crime of sedition were to be sought for, it could not be found in our law, now that torture is happily abolished.. The sole object of punishment among us is only to deter others from committing like crimes in time coming. In this view I concur in the proposal that has been made of transportation for fourteen years, which is a mild considering the danger of the times. By the punishment, considering the offence, and Roman law, which is held to be our common law where there is no statute, the punishment was various, and transportation was among the mildest mentioned. Paulus, 1. 38. Dig. de Pœnis writes, Actores seditionis et tumul

tûs, populo concitato, pro qualitate dignitatis, aut in furcam tolluntur, aut bestiis objihave chosen the mildest of these punishciuntur, aut in insulam deportantur.' We ments." See Howell's State Trials, Vol. 25, p. 234.

an

been acquitted: but, whether totally knees to beseech his majesty not to enacquitted or not, he never would have force against Mr. Reeves a sentence of been consigned to the sufferings which he transportation.-A good deal had been had experienced. The noble and gene- said respecting his majesty's refusing his rous spirit of Englishmen would have assent to these bills. His own wish was, revolted at such excessive and over- that that prerogative of the crown might strained punishments. And it ought remain dormant and quiescent. It was a never to be forgotten, that, notwithstand-prerogative which, he believed, would ing the grand jury found the bills against only be a favourite, while it was not atthe persons tried at the Old Bailey, the tempted to be exercised. He trusted, petty jury acquitted them.-Mr. Fox that if the bills should pass, they would condemned the unlimited power which meet with a speedy repeal. He rather the bill was about to repose in the execu- trusted that the people would petition his tive government. By the infamy of spies majesty to dissolve parliament, which was and informers, both he and his country- their undoubted right, if ever parliament men were exposed to the indignation of had acted in such a way as to require an the court party for the time being. He interference of that kind. He rejoiced, deprecated such unconstitutional that on the present occasion, the spirit of power, and bestowed unbounded praise the people had shown itself to be alive: on our ancestors for their wisdom in and he hoped, that the display which had resisting any appearance of such abomi- been made of the energy of the public nable encroachments upon the liberties mind, would be attended with the happiest of the people. If the detestable spirit effects. The bills formed a crisis in the of the Scotch law respecting sedition history of the country; inasmuch as they were established in this country, then were a departure from the whole system farewell to all liberty of speech! fare- of the principles of the constitution. The well to the familiarities of conversa-present bill was modelled upon an act of tion! The servant who stood behind Charles 2nd. The people of England had, kis chair, if wicked enough, might betray him, and, seduced by those in power, might give information which would en danger both his liberty and his life. The abandoned maid-servant* of Mr. Muir kad acted in a similar manner: violating the confidence reposed in every servant by a master, she communicated to the friends of government the honest, undisguised expressions of Mr. Muir's mind. All that he had frequently expressed was, a wish for a reform of the abuses which he daily saw; and no good man could lay his hand upon his heart, and deny the rectitude of his mind, when provoked by such a system as sullied the country which gave it birth. Mr. Fox said, that even if Mr. Reeves should be found guilty of the libel on that House, which had lately engaged their notice: if he should be found to have recommended and circulated another infamous libel against the constitution, written by Arthur Young; and if he should also be found to have published at different times libels against the protestant dissenters, marking them out as a description of people who ought to be exterminated, he would even go upon his

Mr. Fox alluded to the evidence of Anne Fisher on the trial of Mr. Muir. See Howell's State Trials, vol. 23, p. 146.

in his opinion, committed a worse offence, by the unconstitutional restoration of that monarch, than even by the death of Charles 1st. It was a measure which originated in a period when the parliament gave up to the king the disposal of the military force, and surrendered the liberties of the people at the foot of the throne. There was one clause in the act of Charles 2nd, which showed the spirit of those times. By this clause it was made penal to say the king was a papist. And why? Because such was the precise fact. It was rather inauspicious in the present moment, that it should be thought necessary that a bill should be adopted to prevent people from telling the truth. No man would say that George 3rd, was a papist. But what was the object of the present bill? By this bill men were forbidden to speak of the defects of government, and of those abuses which were growing up from day to day, to destroy the spirit of the constitution. If ministers had not been conscious of the existence of those defects, they would not have forbidden men to discuss them. He had somewhere read, that after the defeat of Brutus and Cassius, a decree had been passed, that Augustus, who was then raised to the highest dignities of the state, should not be called a boy,-"puer, ne

vested in him by the constitution of putting his negative on these bills. What! does the hon. gentleman think it would be decorous to go to his majesty with his advice to reject bills, offered to him by the other two branches of the legislature, as a testimony of their concern for the safety of his royal person, and which comprehend a salutary enactment in support of their own constitutional rights: The right hon. gentlemen who spoke last would advise his majesty not to put his negative on the bills, but immediately to dissolve parliament. It certainly is one of the prerogatives of the crown, to dissolve parliament; but there was a time when that right hon. gentleman was not quite so well convinced that such

majestrati populi Romani detractaret." Augustus passed no such decree at the latter end of his reign: nor did Tiberius, at any period, feel such a decree to be necessary. The present was a law against proclaiming the defects of the constitution, at a period when the government were every day bringing on fresh abuses The bill was itself an intolerable grievance. This is the last opportunity, (said Mr. Fox), that I may have to state my sentiments with respect to these bills. I feel it therefore incumbent upon me to declare, that my objections still remain unimpaired. The one is calculated to prevent the liberty of speech; the other the liberty of writing and publishing. If these bills be carried into effect, and if their influence extend to the national cha-dissolution was an unquestionable exerracter, other nations will be enabled to say, that England, which has conquered others, has at last made a shameful conquest of herself.

Mr. Pitt rose and said :-After the many important discussions, which for some days past have successively engaged your attention, it would ill become me to occupy much of your time at this advanced period of the debate; but having had so large a share in bringing forward these bill, it is necessary that I should sbortly advert to the arguments advanced against them by gentlemen on the other side. And first, I will take notice of the general objections, before I enter into the detail of the measures. There is one circumstance, in which I agree with the right hon. gentleman who has just sat down, namely, that these bills form an important crisis in the history of this country. The question is no less than whether the King, Lords, and Commons, invested with the constitutional power of the country, and acting for the protection of the whole, shall unite to repel the attacks of those, who have proclaimed themselves the enemies of the constitution, and who, under the pretence of exercising its privileges, are busied in carrying on their hostile designs. There are two reasons from which I am apt to think that this crisis is determined. On this day a boldness of language and vehemence of assertion have been employed in arraigning the bills, which go beyond the bounds of parliamentary usage. One gentleman has called these,"infernal" bills. Another hon. gentleman has said, that if he was entitled to demand an audience, he would beseech the king to exert the power

cise of a just prerogative; on the contrary, when the voice of the people was heard from all quarters, about twelve years ago, against a particular public measure, that right hon. gentleman not only questioned the constitutional right to dissolve parliament in such circumstances, but branded the dissolution which took place, as perfectly unconstitutional. If his majesty should have advisers who would give such counsel, I shall only say, that they will not be those who are in the habit of giving his majesty advice, and are responsible for the advice they give.

A strong proof to me that the crisis to which I have referred is determined, is the different language which I now find to be held by the right hon. gentleman. He has no longer any hopes to prevent the bills from being enacted, but he trusts to the people in order to have them speedily repealed. I am glad to find the right hon. gentleman is become so far a convert to the system of moderation, that he looks to see how many he can bring to concur with him in endeavouring to procure the repeal of the bills, if they should pass into laws, and not with how many he may think it prudent to resist their operation. I am glad to find that the doctrine of resistance, on which so much stress was laid in an earlier stage of the business, is not at this time uppermost in the mind of the right hon. gentleman. I trust that the avowal and justification of this doctrine will not produce that impression which such a principle is calculated to make on violent and unenlightened minds. Should their ignorance be misled and their pas sions inflamed, dreadful indeed may be

the consequences on their future conduct. | the bill, but also the seditious speeches
I trust that the danger incurred to the and publications of evil-disposed persons.
public peace, will operate as a warning In opposition to the right hon. gentle-
to gentlemen how they rashly broach doc- man, I maintain, that the provisions of
trines in the heat of debate, which may the bill are calculated to give greater se-
produce the most pernicious effects.-Icurity to his majesty's person and govern-
shall first advert to that part of the bill,
which affects the existing law of treason;
and secondly, to the particular species of
misdemeanor to which the bill is calcu-
lated to apply. First, the bill makes a
conspiracy to do any thing that may tend
to the king's death, to maim or to do him
any species of bodily injury, to restrain
and imprison his person, or to seek to
make him alter, by force, the measures
of his government, a substantive treason.
These, by the 25th Edw. 3rd, are only
made overt acts, of compassing and ima-
gining the king's death. By the present
bill they are made direct and substantive
treasons. By the other part of the bill it
is made treason to levy war, to overawe
the legislature. the right hon. gentleman
has asked, might not the people attempt
to influence the decision of the legislature
by the force of opinion, by the violence
of praye? He forgets that the bill does
not preclude the people from any peace-
able and legal mode of bringing forward
their opinion, in order to influence the
sentiments of the legislature: that it does
not interfere with their right, or prevent
them from carrying to their representa-
tives, in decent and orderly language,
their sense of public measures. The
treason described by the bill attaches only
to those who levy war in order to over-
awe the legislature. Will the hon. gen-
tleman contend, that levying war has any
connexion with that mode of expressing
opinion, which is intended to influence
the proceedings of a legislative body?
The right hon. gentleman objects to the
preamble, which, by the by he seems not
to have attended to. He said, that he liked
no preamble, which did not state truth.
He affirmed, that the preamble made the
attack on his majesty the foundation of
the bill and contended, that though the
bill purported to be for the security of
his majesty's person, and the preservation
of his government, it did not, in fact,
tend to give to either any additional secu-
rity. If the right hon. gentleman had
gone farther, and read the latter part of
the preamble, he would have found, that
it was not so narrowed and confined as he
has described; that it stated not only the
attack on his majesty, as the ground of

ment, and that the grounds stated in the
preamble, are commensurate to all the
objects which the bill has in view. In all
times, when the person of the sovereign
has been supposed to be endangered,
a law of this nature has been passed.
We are not now, for the first time,
bringing forward a speculative act, of the
probable consequences of which we can
not pretend to judge, but we are adopt-
ing the salutary precautions of former
times. Acts, of which this is a trans-
cript, were passed in the reigns of queen
Elizabeth, and of Charles 2nd. Eliza-
beth has been reproached as an arbitrary
princess. It is certain that her life was
threatened from many quarters. But
how far is the charge that this act is a
weak and inefficient measure, consistent
with the description which has been given
of her character? If she was an arbitrary
princess, it surely is not likely, that
where her own preservation was concerned,
she should adopt measures inadequate to
the purpose. The parliament of Charles
2nd has been accused with making many
sacrifices to the throne. It is not there-
fore probable, that in the excess of their
loyalty, they should have neglected to
put a sufficient guard around the king's
person. Thus does the reasoning of those
gentlemen, so far at least as concerns the
efficacy of the measure, retort upon them-
selves. Such laws having passed in dif-
ferent periods of our history, and having
in no instance been found insufficient, we
have a well-grounded presumption that
they are calculated to afford security to
the person of the sovereign. They apply
directly the penalties of treason to that
species of offence against the person of
the sovereign, to which, before, they
could only have circuitously been brought
to attach. They constitute substantive
treasons, acts which before could only
have been brought to prove the criminal
intention. But an instance yet fresh in
our memories, will best illustrate the pro-
position. Supposing the person who
threw the stone at his majesty to have
been discovered and brought to trial, he
would not have wanted an able and elo-
quent advocate to have pleaded, "that
by throwing the stone he had no inten

right of petitioning, have employed a language which sufficiently shows how far these were their real objects. They have declared that the 558 gentlemen of St. Stephen's chapel may go about their bu siness. They have taken every opportu

lative body, of expressing their contempts of its authority, and of showing how much they are disposed to usurp its functions, and, if possible, to annihilate its existence.

tion of seriously injuring the person of the sovereign; that he was actuated by no deliberate, malicious purpose; that he was carried away by the impulse of the moment that he meant by throwing the stone, only to mark more strongly that sentiment of indignity to his majesty,nity of vilifying the character of the legis which excited the clamours of disapprobation among the surrounding multitude, and to express his own feelings of resent ment from the continuance of the war." It is possible even that such a defence, dressed up with ingenuity, and enforced with the eloquence with which it would not fail to be supported, might induce an honest jury to pronounce a verdict of acquittal. The intention of this bill is to cut off the possibility of such a defence being made in extenuation of such an act, to remove from the offender all hopes of escape by subterfuge and evasion, and by making the remedy more simple, to diminish the danger. But it was said, why not make a new declaratory law? It was necessary that the present should be an enacting and not a declaratory law, because it only made that which was already treason by the 25th Edw. 3rd treason under another branch, and to be laid in a different manner in the indictment. As to the present bill making treasons, which were not before known to the law of England, in contradiction to so injurious an assertion let me refer to the writings of lord Hale, and sir Matthew Foster. These venerable judges have given a history of the different statutes of treason, accompanied with their own comments. The object of the present bill is clearly to define the true meaning of the old law, which is now only to be drawn out of a long series of judicial expositions. It is in order to guard against all ambiguous and doubtful interpretation, at a time when it may be necessary to provide against a positive and immediate danger. Must not such be felt to be the case when a daring attack has so recently been made on the person of his majesty, and when the instance of the precise danger against which the bill is directed, has happened under our own eyes, and at the door of parliament? The bill also makes an attempt to overawe the legislature high treason. Need I prove the necessity of such a precaution, at a moment when there exist societies hostile to the authority and existence of parliament? Those societies, meeting under the specious pretext of parliamentary reform, and the

The right hon. gentleman has said, that he had never found that the lives of princes had been safe in proportion to the sanguinary laws and the severe punishments which had been instituted for their protection. I must remark that the pre-. sent is no new sanguinary law, that it creates no extraordinary severity of punishment. If the right hon. gentleman thinks that the person of the sovereign is not rendered safer by the punishments which the law has devised for his protection, this argument goes to repeal all the existing laws of treason. But he chooses to appeal to the example of former periods of the history of this country. He asks, whether, notwithstanding the excessive loyalty of the parliament and the extreme vigour of the laws, there were not some real plots in the reign of Charles 2nd, besides the sham plots that were brought forward to serve a particular purpose? That in the course of that reign the parliament made many shameful concessions, I am ready to admit; but I can by no means allow that it was a blind indiscriminating spirit of devotion to the monarch which gave rise to the act of which this bill is the counterpart. Neither can I allow that those persons who were concerned in effecting the Restoration, left principles altogether out of their view, though, perhaps, they neglected to employ some precautions which it would have been wise and proper to have adopted. In order to prove that some regard was had to principles in the act of the restoration, it is only necessary to refer to the history of the times, and to the persons concerned in that event. The earl of Clarendon and those who were connected with him, were not men entirely indifferent about the English constitution, or likely to be parties in a transaction, where its principles were entirely left out of contemplation. But with respect to this particular act, we have the sanction of the venerable name of serjeant Maynard, who was one of the persons then employed in framing the bill