subject in the hands of the executive government. There is nothing which they will not say in order to convince the public that they are favourable to peace; and they will be believed in their assertions, pretty much in the same manner as those are who profess to be advocates for the abolition of the slave trade, while they vote for its continuance. Do not let us imagine that we can deceive the public by our professions. They are too much enlightened, and they feel too much to be imposed upon by us. Let us not perpetually talk of wishes for peace; let us do something towards obtaining peace; let us vote for peace. Let us not content ourselves with saying we are friends to peace; let us not trust to ministers; that we have done much too long; now let us act for ourselves! With regard to the particular words of this motion, perhaps had I penned it, I might have chosen other words, because I am of opinion it does not go quite far enough; but upon that score I do not see any thing material to object. I am sure, that if you adopt it more will be done than you can hope to do by confiding in the minister. It desires the king to explain the reason why negociation has not been renewed. I am sure that is necessary in the opinion of all Europe, for the reasons hitherto assigned have been much too equivocal. The minister says, that the French have misrepresented the conduct of our executive government in the late negociation. I do not know that they have not; but an explanation will do us no harm. I believe that Lord Malmesbury was instructed to insist on the French giving up Belgium as a sine qua non. I believe, too, that such is the general opinion of Europe. The minister is always explicit in this House no doubt, since he convinces the majority of it; but with all his command of words, it must be confessed, that, out of this House, no man is more unfortunate in his explanations. The French directory misunderstand him, the contractors for the loan misunderstand him, the bankers misunderstand him, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland misunderstands him, and even the directors of the Bank of England, who takes notes of his conversation, for the express purpose of being accurate, misunderstand him! I wish, therefore, in future, that in all public affairs he would condescend to employ some other person whose knowledge of words is more upon a level with the rest of mankind than his own, in order that men of ordinary capacities may stand a chance of comprehending his meaning. I shall only add, that, above all, the consideration you should have in your minds this night, is the hitherto admirable, if not astonishing patience of the people of England, under all the calamities which the minister has heaped upon them, and the duty which you owe to them, to speak their wishes for peace. The House divided on the question, "That the other orders of the day be now read, Tellers. Mr. Pollen's motion was consequently lost. Mr. Fox's MOTION FOR THE REPEAL OF THE TREASON AND SEDITION BILLS. May 23. HIS day, in pursuance of the notice he had given, THIS Mr. Fox rose and said: - I shall not have occasion, Sir, to detain the House for any considerable length of time in stating the reasons that induce me to call their attention to the memorable acts of the last parliament, a motion for the repeal of which I intimated before the holidays; nor will it be necessary for me to say much in answer to the misrepresentations that have been made on account of my having delayed the motion so long. The circumstances that have recently occurred, particularly the measure of the stoppage of cash payments at the bank, so totally engrossed the public attention, and engaged the time of the House, that I did not think it right to bring forward this discussion, and instead of deferring it by adjournments from week to week, I directly and openly announced it for the present period. I have never, Sir, had but one opinion of the two obnoxious bills, which, at the time they were passed, I conceived to be most portentous to the country, Every reflection that I have made upon the subject, and all the experience that we have had since they were passed, have served to corroborate my original feeling, and therefore it is, that I now rise to move for the repeal of those two laws. With respect to one of the two bills, that which came to us from the Lords, under the title of " a bill for the better preservation of his majesty's person and government against treasonable practices," I shall make but one or two observations, though every part of it continues to excite my heartfelt abhorrence. The first great objection to that act is, that it extends unnecessarily the statutes of treason, and carries them to a length by no means consistent with sound policy as to their avowed object, the king's safety, nor consistent with the tranquillity and constitution of the realm. The memorable statute of Edward III. was found to be sufficient to prevent the crime of treason; and experience has taught us, that all the forced constructions that have been put on that statute have served rather to lower than to heighten its force. Its operation has proved that the life of the king is sufficiently guarded, and every extension of it beyond that great and national object has only served to take away the reverence which its simplicity excited in the hearts of the people. That simplicity impressed upon the mind a sanction which it was impossible to derive from intricate and nice constructions. The people saw, in its noble and generous frame, security for themselves; by the reverence in which it held the sacred person of their king, they saw that, for the security of his person, even the imagination of his death was provided against; and the law was so clearly defined, so short, and so simple, that no danger to the well-meaning could be created by its operation. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth laws were enacted for the preservation of her person and government, for which the turbulence of the times was the apology, but which no person could contemplate without indignation. In the period of King Charles II., similar suspicions were entertained of numbers of persons being disaffected to the government, and some severe and scandalous laws were enacted for the preservation of the king's person. What is the impression that these laws have made upon every person who has attentively considered the history of the times? That they were enacted upon a consciousness that the conduct of the government was such as to provoke disaffection in the minds of the people; and this must always be the effect of rigorous and severe laws. It was made highly penal to say, that Charles II. was a papist. Why? Because, in truth, he was so. No law would, in the present day, be thought necessary for the preservation of the character of George the Third, against the charge of his being a Roman catholic, because any such charge would be too contemptible for notice. His majesty's well-known character is the best protection against such an imputation, and the very enacting of such a law would betray a consciousness that there was ground for the imputation. The laws of Charles II. were made in this spirit; they were received by the people, and have been received by posterity in this spirit; and such laws can never have any other effect than to excite similar suspicions, and to weaken the government which they profess to support. The only other part of the bill to which I shall allude, and which, in my mind, is very important, is the provision with respect to political libels. It enacts, that, upon a second conviction, judges may be enabled to inflict punish ments of a kind so barbarous and inhuman as to shock When you look back to the judgments the heart of man. that have been past in former periods of our history, when you reflect on the prejudices and passions to which our frail nature is subject, when you think on the possibility that judges may be as servile, as corrupt, or as cruel in future times as they have been in past, you will, perhaps, be able to form a just estimate of the character of a law that enables them to inflict a punishment of so dreadful a kind for an offence so indefinite and doubtful as a political libel. You will think with me, that the punishment of fine and imprisonment is fully sufficient to the crime - if crime it be-of publishing the most extravagant political opinion as to the form of governing a community. If this bill had passed a century ago, how many men, whose estimable characters have made them dear to mankind, might have been banished to Botany Bay, and condemned by the barbarous sentence of an inhuman judge to the society of a set of beings whom vice had degraded, and crimes of every nature had expelled from all Would not the writings of rational intercourse with man! Locke, writings that have so greatly enlightened and benefited the country, have probably condemned their author to this horrible exile? But, without going back to a period so distant, can we deny that, in a period much nearer our own times, the violence of factious spirit might have hurried even judges of our own day to the infliction of this detestable punishment if this law had then had existence? In the beginning of the present reign complaints were made of the atrocious character of the public libels then published, and in the heat and fury of zeal, prosecutions were carried on with a bitterness, upon which no person of moderation can reflect without shame and regret. Personal considerations mixed with the motives of public decorum; and though I hope they did not influence either the prosecutors or the judges, yet I submit to the House, whether the temper of the times was not such as to make it highly probable that Mr. Alderman Wilkes, upon his second conviction, might have been doomed to this horrid fate. I am not sure that our nature is so likely to be purified by public situations of trust and power, as to be superior to all base and malignant passions; and I am not sure but that, in the spirit of those times, Mr. Wilkes might I have not the have been the victim of a persecuting rage. honour of that gentleman's acquaintance, nor have I, in the course of our political lives, frequently agreed with him in opinion; but now that the intemperance of the time is past, I submit to the House what must be the feeling of every liberal heart at the idea of condemning a person of such high attainments, so dear to the society in which he lives, so exemplary as a magistrate, and who has shewn himself to be so zealous a defender of the prerogatives of the crown, to a punishment so degrading and so abhorrent. And yet, if the law had existed, would it not have been executed? If it had existed but a few years ago, would it not have been executed in many other instances; if juries could have been found to second the wishes of government? Of the willingness of government to go to the full extent of this inhuman law, Scotfand has given us an indubitable proof. Scotland was said to have had this barbarous law, though it had never been acted upon. It was asserted, that there a law existed of so barbarous a tendency, as to enable the judges to banish a man from all civilized society, and condemn him to live at the extremity of the earth with the most degraded of his species. I am convinced, not merely on the authority of the most learned persons of that country, but on the information that I have been able to acquire for myself, that no such law did exist in Scotland, and that those who acted upon it will one day be brought to a severe retribution for their conduct. But the apprehension of the existence of such a law has displayed to us the character of our government, and proved that we have a ministry capable of condemning their fellow creatures to this monstrous punishment, for the mere exposition of tenets on government different from their own. They made it their boast, that by means of this law they had gained the triumph of political opinion, and the sacrifice of a number of human beings, of enlightened minds and of moral character, for the mere offence of carrying doctrines to excessfor I admit, that in some instances they carried their doctrines to excess. The publication of political opinion; that was the crime. What was the punishment? Death, of the most aggravated, of the most procrastinated, of the most cruel nature. They were sent, not into banishment merely, but sunk and degraded to an association with villany and ignorance and crime; sent to a country where, possibly, their health might be affected by the climate; but that was little in consideration of the despondency of their own feelings. I speak of one in particular- of Mr. Gerald, whose elegant and useful attainments made him dear to the circles of literature and taste; bred to enjoyments in which his accomplishments fitted him to participate, and endowed with talents that rendered him valuable to his country, he, among others, was the object of this persecuting spirit; the punishment to such a man was certain death, and accordingly he sunk under the sentence, the victim of virtuous, wounded sensibility. There may be times of alarm when men, under the influence of terror be |