lions; the struggles of rival dynasties; and civil wars both of politics and of religion. But in all our varieties of agitation and convulsion, were we ever exposed to such pests as these of the present day? In our civil wars, there was enough of violence and of blood. But principle was opposed to principle, and honest and upright men might be found on either side. Republicanism was opposed to monarchy, and monarchy was overthrown. But the overthrow of monarchy was not effected for the sake of throwing all government into confusion: they destroyed not in those days for the sake of destruction alone. In religion, independency was opposed to episcopacy, and independency triumphed. But it was still for some form of religion that the contest was carried on: it was not for the destruction of all religious principle; it was not the opposition of mere negation, to God. It was left for the reformers of modern times to endeavour to strip the mind of all reverence for the Deity, in order to prepare the man to become a mere instrument of ruin, a remorseless agent of evil.

The discipline I have said, is well suited to its purposes; it is our business to take care that the purposes themselves shall not be fulfilled.

Sir, the same sense of duty which has now caused Ministers to apply for these bills, would cause them to apply to Parliament for still greater powers, if they should become necessary; but those which we have asked, we are satisfied

will prove sufficient, because we are satisfied that it is only necessary to check the progress of the disaffected for a season, in order that the sound part of the nation may have opportunity to recover and to array themselves, that the first passive impressions of alarm may be converted into determined confidence, and zealous action. The nation is sound at heart: and when once apprized of the nature of the danger, and secure in the vigilance of the Government, we can have no doubt but they will co-operate with the Government, and that such co-operation will be effectual for the safety of the state, and for the preservation of all that they hold dear.

Two of the four proposed laws are almost generally approved. The third is not wholly objected to, though gentlemen reserve to themselves the right of criticising it in its passage through the House. It is only the fourth-the suspension of the Habeas Corpus-that incurs the unqualified disapprobation of some of the honourable gentlemen on the other side of the House.

The Committee has declared, that the ordinary powers given to the Executive Government by the constitution, are not sufficient for the crisis. If new powers are denied to them, Ministers will be left to combat with comparatively less effect, the growing boldness of sedition, encouraged and inflamed by the rejection of these propositions. It is the joint obligation of Ministers and of Par

liament to preserve the constitution. Ministers have done all that it was for them to do: what remains is in the hands of this House; and it is for the House to say, whether or not the constitution shall be guarded by those new outworks which the perils of the times have rendered necessary, against the assaults of furious and desperate men; whether that system of law and liberty, under which England has so long flourished in happiness and glory, in internal tranquillity, and external grandeur, shall be sacrificed or saved.

LORD MORPETH moved for a new Writ for St. Mawes, in the room of Mr. Horner.

MR. CANNING.-Of all the instances, wherein the same course has been adopted as that which my noble friend (Lord Morpeth) has pursued with so much feeling and good taste on this occasion,

I do not remember one more likely than the present, to conciliate the general approbation and sympathy of this House. I, Sir, had not the happiness (a happiness now counterbalanced by a proportionate excess of sorrow and regret) to be acquainted personally, in private life, with the distinguished and amiable individual whose loss we have to deplore. I knew him only within the walls of the House of Commons. And even here, from the circumstances of my absence during the last two sessions, I had not the good fortune to witness the later and more matured exhibition of his talents; which (as I am informed, and can well believe) at once kept the promise of his earlier years, and opened still wider expectations of future excellence. But I had seen enough of him to share in those expectations; and to be sensible of what this House and the country have lost by his being so prematurely taken from us. He had, indeed, qualifications eminently calculated to obtain and to deserve success. His sound principles, his enlarged views, his various and accurate knowledge, the even tenour of his manly and temperate eloquence, the genuineness of his warmth, when into warmth he was betrayed, and, above all, the singular modesty with which he bore his faculties, and which shed a grace and lustre over them all; these qualifications, added to the known blamelessness and purity of his private character, did not more endear him to his friends, than they commanded the respect of

*

But

those to whom he was opposed in adverse politics; they ensured to every effort of his abilities an attentive and favouring audience; and secured for him, as the result of all, a solid and unenvied reputation. I cannot conclude, Sir, without adverting to a topic in the latter part of the speech of my noble friend, upon which I most entirely concur with him. It would not be seemly to mix with the mournful subject of our present contemplation any thing of a controversial nature. when, for the second time within a short course of years, the name of an obscure borough is brought before us, as vacated by the loss of conspicuous talents and character, it may be permitted to me, with my avowed and notorious opinions on the subject of our parliamentary constitution, to state, without offence, that it is at least some consolation for the imputed theoretical defects of that constitution, that in practice it works so well. A system of representation cannot be wholly vicious, and altogether inadequate to its purposes, which sends to this House a succession of such men as those whom we have now in our remembrance, here to develope the talents with which God has, endowed them, and to attain that eminence in the view of their country, from which they may be one day called to aid her counsels, and to sustain her greatness and her glory.

* Mr. Windham, who represented St. Mawes in 1806, died member for Higham Ferrers, in 1810.