ed, and was only fubjected to regulations for its more beneficial exercife, it was unreafonable to complain of its being extinguished. The folicitor, fpeaking of the purity and independence of the British parliament, took this occafion to condemn the fyftem adopted by the French, of allowing falaries to the reprefentatives of the nation. Hence, he afferted, arose the calamities of France. It was a practice which had long been relinquished by this country, and which denoted the prudence of the people and government. He alfo advanced another maxim, which was, that revolutions were always the work of minorities: thefe ufually confifted of fpirited and active individuals, who were not deterred by difficulties, and whofe refolution and perfeverance rendered them indefatigable, and enabled them finally to overcome the majorities that oppofed their defigns. Thefe majorities being compofed of the peaceable and well-affected to government, though acting with loyalty, did not exert themfelves with a fervour equal to that of their antagonists, whofe vigour and animation in purfuing the objects for which they were contending, infpired them with exertions too violent to be refifted by men, who had only ordinary motives to influence them, while the others were prompted by that multiplicity of paffions which actuate men who are ftriving to exalt themfelves above others, and to expel them from the feat of power, in order to Occupy it themselves. From the various reafonings that had been ufed in fupport of the bill, he inferred, that as the laws in force did not fufficiently apply to the numerous meetings and affociations, £2

where the feditious principles complained of were encouraged, laws that might clearly be directed against them, ought of course to be enacted.

In reply to the folicitor-general, Mr. Erikine pofitively denied the bill's confiftency with the principles of the British conftitution. Neither in the reign of Charles II. nor of William III. nor in thofe that followed, though two of them were marked by rebellions, had the miniftry dared to attempt fuch an infringement on the liberty of the fubject; and yet the firft of these reigns was immediately after those commotions that had brought at king to the fcaffold: the fecond was noted for the obftinacy with which the adherents to a dethroned momarch exerted themselves in his caufe, even to the attempting the very life of the prince upon the throne. In the height of the rebellion of 1745, no minifter had ventured to fetter the nation in the manner propofed by the prefent bill. Even the very framers of it, when they fufpended the habeas-corpus-act, and were preparing their materials for the late trials, had abftained from this glaring invafion of national freedom. No plots had fince arifen, corroborated with any proofs, to arm minifters with a juft pretence for fo outrageous an attack on the conftitution; the fundamentals of which were fo materially affected by it; that the right to petition, on which the fecurity of the people against oppreflion effentially depended, would be utterly deftroyed. The bill forbad all difcuffion that was not fanctioned by a magiftrate. Did not fuch a claufe empower migiftrates appointed by, and removable at the will of the crown, to be judges of the nature of the petitions [D2]

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of the people? was it prefumable that fuch perfons would permit a petition, militating against any minifterial measure, to be brought forward in a popular meeting? but whatever the favourers of abfolute powers might advance in fupport of fuch a bill, it took away at once the right inherent in the people to refift a tyrannical government. The public meetings had been charged with fpeaking bold language; but there were occafions that warranted the boldeft language. The people. of England had inalienably the right to defend their liberties to the laft extremity fuch were the fentiments of the great lord Chatham, and fuch were his own. In no fituation would he defert that caufe, and was determined never to die a flave. It was, in the mean time, with the heaviest concern, that he obferved a circumftance pregnant with much calamity: this was the eftrangement of the higher claffes from the lower: this had been the radical caufe of the evils that had befallen France. Previoufly to the revolution there were but two orders of fociety in that country, a haughty and domineering nobility, and a wretched oppreffed multitude. Hence arofe the refentments of the lower claffes, who beheld themfelves tyrannifed over by a profligate court and government, to which, for that reafon, they did not conceive themselves bound to fubmit. Arguing from this weighty precedent, Mr. Erikine warned the poffeffors of power, and the owners of great property in this country, to be ware of the fatal examples before them, and not to abet a law by which the people's liberties muít neceflarily be abrogated, and a fpirit of revenge excited in them which would inevitably break forth foon

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or late. Compulfion, and the dread of force might induce them to fubmit awhile to their oppreffors; but it would be a fullen fubmiffion, and though it might even laft a few years, the remembrance of liberty would ftill furvive, and prompt them in an evil hour for the deftroyers of their freedom, to refume it on fome aufpicious opportunity, and to take the moft fignal vengeance upon its enemies. In corroboration of his fentiments, Mr. Erskine referred to the fpeech of the chief juftice, at the late trials for high treafon at the Old Bailey. "Among the objects of the attention of freemen, faid the chief justice, the principles of government, the conftitutions of particular governments, and, above all, the constitution of the government under which they live, will naturally engage their at tention, 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 science, the first fruit, and the ultimate happiness of tociety; 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." So dangerously was the bill framed, that it was in the power of any one individual prefent at a meeting to occafion its diffolution, by fpeaking a few feditious words, that would inftantly authorife the prefiding magiftrate to put an end to it on that pretence; but was it not clear that for a paultry gratification, a hireling might be found to afford this pretence to a minifterial juftice for executing the mandates of his employer? It was falle that no law exifted to prevent feditious proceedings: a magifirate

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those who thought and spoke as he had done, and who reprobated the meafures, which, after he had fo bitterly complained of them in that fpeech, he had now thought proper to adopt.

A reply was made to Mr. Erikine by Mr. Anftruther and lord Mornington. The first repeated the various arguments adduced in favour of the bill, and the fecond produced a variety of pallages out of feveral publications, in order to prove its propriety. The latter was violently arraigned on this account by Mr. Sheridan.

The bill was defended by Mr. Dundas, who took occasion to obferve, that no member of that houfe had fo frequently diftinguished himfelf by appeals to the people as Mr. Fox, combating minifters in popular meetings one half of the day, and attacking them with equal fervour in parliament during the remainder. He had acted the fame part during the American war to as little purpofe, however, as it would appear he had done at prefent. Mr. Dundas inveighed, with great afperty, against fome particulars in his political conduct and connections, which he exerted himself to describe in the most disadvantageous colours.

These reproaches drew a fevere anfwer from Mr. Fox, who pointed ly reminded him of the maxim held forth by his coadjutor Mr. Pitt, that popular harangues were "the best and moft ufeful duty, which reprefentatives in parliament could difcharge, to their conftituents." In appealing to the public he had done no more than his duty, which enjoined him, whenever the conduct of minifters appeared in a questionable light to inform the people of his fentiments relating to 8

their defigns. The bill he explicitly defined, a daring attempt to overthrow the fundamental principle on which the conftitution flood; the univerfal freedom of dif cullion. With regard to the inef ficacy of his remonftrances against the American war, he readily admitted that he had uniformly, and on all occafions, condemned that war from first to laft, and that all his remonftrances againft it, as the honourable gentlemen had juftly obferved, had been to no purpose. But whether this ought to be made matter of fhame or reproach to himfelf, or of triumph to the honourable gentleman, he left the house, the world, and even the honourable gentleman, to judge.-A deep filence at these words took place for a few moments on both fides of the house, and every eye was turned on Mr. Dundas, who, contrarily to his ufual manner, difcovered, or at leaft was thought to discover, fymptoms of difcompofure. The debate clofed with two hundred and thirteen votes for the fecond reading of the bill, and forty-three against it.

The fecond reading of the bill, for the better fecurity of the king's perfon, was moved in the house of commons on the nineteenth of November; when the question being put, Mr. Fox oppofed it on account of the absence of many members; but the motion paffed by fixty-four against twenty-two.

In the mean time, the public was no lefs occupied than parliament itself, in the difcuffion of the two bills pending in both houfes. The novelty of the meatures proposed, their inimical tendency to the long established ufages of the nation, their direct aim at its liberty, and the daringness of minifters in bringing forward fo undeniable an infringement

fringement of rights, that had been refpected by all preceding adminiftrations: these combined motives excited an alarm, which was felt in every part of the nation. All people, without exception, cordially avowed their loyalty to the fovereign, but as vehemently protefted against the paffing of the two bills, as unconftitutional, and clearly fubverfive of the main foundation of English liberty, the right of the people to affemble and to communicate their fentiments reciprocally upon thofe fubjects, which they thought neceffary to bring into difcuffion, and to frame petitions upon them to the king and the legislature. The determinate fteadinefs and perfeverance of the public on this critical occafion was the more remarkable, that every effort was used by the minifterial party to prevent those popular exertions against the defigns in agitation; but thefe were viewed with fo fufpicious an eye, that every argument in their juftification vanifhed before the difcontent they feemed to have univerfally excited. Numbers even of thofe who did not difapprove the conduct of minifters in other refpects, could not bring themselves to approve the two bills in contemplation, Thofe even who fupported them, as requifite during the fermentation at prefent pervading all claffes, frankly acknowledged them to be contrary to the principles of the English conftitution, the freedom of which, however, unless reftrained by fome temporary regulations, threatened to become licentioufnefs, and to precipitate the public into all thofe miferies that had been fo woefully experienced by their unhappy neighbours, the French. But thofe who thus maintained the neceffity ct thefe bills, pleaded only for a

limited duration of them. As they were indubitably an abridgement of national liberty, they ought, it was ftrongly afferted, to laft no longer than the occafion that gave rife to them. When the difputes of the day, and the feuds they produced were at an end, they ought inftantly to be repealed, and the full exercife of the ancient liberties of the nation, to be restored without the leaft diminution upon any pretence. Thus argued the majo rity of thofe who favoured the bills.

But a far fuperior majority would admit of them on no pretence whatever. They were, it was indignantly affirmed, the component parts of a fyftem that began to unfold itself in too visible a manner not to be perceived, and too alarming a one not to be refifted by every real friend to the liberty of his country. This refiftance was indeed propofed by fome to be carried to the moft refolute extremity; and had not the immenfe power of govenment been prudently weighed, the propofal would, in the opinion of numbers, have been carried into execution: but though a refiftarce of fo dangerous a nature gave way to the cool reflections of the better advised, every other fpecies of oppofition took place againft the two bills in queftion. Meetings and confultations, both private and public, were held every where. Clubs and affociations were formed for the purpofe of oppofing them by every method not liable to the cognizance of the law. Never had there appeared, in the memory of the oldeft man, to firm and decided a plurali y of adverfaries to the minifterial meafures as on this occafion: the intereft of the public feemed fo deeply at fiake, tirat individuals, not only of the decent, but of the [D4]

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