38

TREASON AND SEDITION BILLS.

illegality of ship-money, or of various other acts of that prince? Had there not been at that time a body of persons, previously upon the inimical to the constitution; and was not the attack monarchy rendered formidable, and even tragical in the event, by the rigorous measures which rendered the breach irreparable? The honourable and learned gentleman had also mentioned the case of the Americans. When that unfortunate dispute was first agitated, and when he heard scraps of pamphlets and papers read, to prove that there was a settled design formed to shake off the connection with this country, he had never been so unqualified a supporter of America, as to asHe was consert that no such designs were entertained. vinced, however, that those who had conceived the project of separating from the mother country were few indeed. By injurious attempts to remedy the evils then complained of, the catastrophe which it was intended to prevent was realised.

The honourable and learned gentleman had recurred to the fallacy so often answered, of which gentlemen on his side were accused, that they ascribed the discontents to the measures of his majesty's ministers. The honourable and learned gentleman asked, did not these discontents exist before the war, to which much of the discontent was imputed, had been commenced? Here again he would recall the two examples he had already employed. In the time of Charles the First there might have existed causes of dissatisfaction, which, nevertheless, the extravagant pretences of that prince, and the impolicy of his ministers in urging them, carried to that height which proved so fatal to themselves. At one period a compromise with America was practicable, but the opportunity of conciliation was lost, and the desperate system pursued in this country for ever cut off all hopes of that compromise being effected.

It had been said, that much danger was to be apprehended from that party hostile to the constitution drawing to itself all the discontented persons of the country. If the strength of this party depended upon the discontent which a bad government produced, and as the worst administration necessarily would occasion the most discontent, he would defy any man to deny that a great part of the ill humour arose from the bad conduct of ministers. If the discontented were composed of two kinds, those who were enemies to the constitution, and those who, from a spirit of discontent, joined their party and encreased its number, correct the abuses which had been so much the subject of complaint, introduce moderation and economy in the public expenditure, and banish that corruption which had crept into the representative body. Such a procceding would separate those from the disaffected who

II

were displeased with abuses, and at the same time reconcile those to the constitution who had been alienated by its defects.

The honourable and learned gentleman, in animadverting on what had been said to come from gentlemen on his side, had only engendered a monstrous doctrine to show his dexterity in demolishing it. It had never been said, much less contended, that the verdict of juries on the state trials had proved that no seditious practices existed, but merely that the traitorous conspiracy was proved to be ill-founded. He had no hesitation to declare, that he considered the verdict of the jury on that point to be of more weight than the report of the secret committee. The honourable and learned gentleman had attempted to point out an inconsistency between the language at present held, and that which they had heard upon the report of the secret committee. The honourable and learned gentleman likewise had confounded a variety of circumstances, and, from the result of his own combinations, had endeavoured to fix on his side of the House that inconsistency which he had first invented, and then urged as a charge of inconsistency.

With regard to the degree of danger the honourable and learned gentleman imputed to the corresponding and other societies, (principles which he charged upon no authority,) it was impossible to believe that, among the whole, there was a majority unfavourable to monarchy. They might, indeed, have professed to maintain the doctrine of annual parliaments, and universal suffrage. These principles, however, were not borrowed from the French; they had been inculcated in discourses and writings, by respectable characters in Great Britain many years since; and if they contained the evil imputed to them, the French might complain, with more justice, that they had been imported into France from this country. Those societies, the honourable and learned gentleman had observed, must have some determinate object; either they were deserving of encouragement, or of disapprobation. Could there, he exclaimed, be no division of men, or opinions, which they might overlook, without being censured for their appro bation, or accused for their neglect? Must the intolerance of French politics be adopted, which permits no minority, but which proceeds to violence, bloodshed, and extermination? There were many opinions which it was indifferent to approve, or to condemn; and the dilemma which the honourable and learned gentleman employed was the most absurd and ridiculous that had ever been framed. Was a man bound to attack every opinion different from his own? He had never been an advocate for annual parliaments; yet that opinion had been

avowed and maintained at various periods within this century. By the tories it was held as a favourite doctrine; and it had been said that the restoration of that system was a part of the plan of politics taken up in the beginning of the present reign, though that condition had never been observed. Instead, then, of attempting to legislate on this subject, it would be most proper to allow the public to judge for themselves, and trust to the good sense of the English nation. He had stated all his opinions. He had never evaded an explicit declaration. It was now to be considered how far the bill was applicable to the object it professed to have in view. If Englishmen had been seduced from their attachment to the constitution, how could it be restored by the present bill? Meetings might, indeed, be put a stop to, but a total communication of sentiment could not be prevented. The intercourse of the mind would remain. If there were, as represented by the honourable and learned gentleman, something so fascinating in the opinions it was to proscribe, the prospect was indeed alarming. Good God, Sir! said Mr. Fox, in such a case, what must be the horrors of our situation, when, in addition to its other evils, this detestable bill, strong as the measure is, is found to be inadequate to its purpose!

The honourable and learned gentleman had treated with a degree of contempt an opinion of his honourable friend, (Mr. Sheridan,) that the difference of habits, government, and character, would prevent the people of this country from ever sinking into the horrors to which the French, unprepared for freedom, had been exposed. Did the right honourable gentleman think that the negroes of the plantations, or the subjects of Russia, Turkey, or Germany, were capable of that liberty with which an Englishman might be indulged? It was not fair, therefore, to reason from Frenchmen to Englishmen, or to argue that in such dissimilar circumstances the same events would take place. Was the honourable and learned gentleman correct in his information concerning the French revolution? The jacobin club produced, perhaps, terrible effects upon minds not prepared for so great a change. Yet many of those events, to which their future disasters were owing, such as the depriving the clergy of their lands, and the nobility of their titles, took place previous to the establishinent, at least to the credit and authority of the jacobin club.

The honourable and learned gentleman had stated, that the whole of the confusion which had desolated France had arisen from the jacobin clubs; that the number of them were few, that the original republican club in Paris consisted only of seven members, and that they afterwards produced the revolution of the 10th of August, 1792. Would that honour

able and learned gentleman seriously say he believed it rational to frame a legislative provision which was to affect a whole nation, with respect to the most important part of its rights, on the ground of the determination of seven persons? The revolution in France was not to be accounted for in that manner, nor was that the period at which they were to date its commencement. When, then, was the period? What was the cause of the revolution of the 10th of August, 1792? Be it remembered, that he was no advocate for the conduct of the jacobins; no liberal man would accuse him of it; though he knew he must put up with that ill-founded charge from others. Let them inquire into the cause of the success of the jacobins in France; such an inquiry was necessary in order to be able to follow the arguments of the honourable and learned gentleman upon that subject. He would say, then, that they were concluding irrationally indeed, if they said it was owing entirely to the doctrine of the jacobins that the horrors of that day were exhibited, or that they were the cause of the dreadful catastrophe of the late unfortunate monarch of that country; a prince whose cruel fate might induce them to overlook the errors of his reign. In fact, his fate was in a great degree owing to his avowed connection with the nobility of that country; a nobility whose views were hostile to the interests of the people. He believed the king and his ministers were guilty of planning what was attempted at that time against the people. Supposing even that they were not, he would ask, was not the suspicion that they were guilty, a great cause of the revolution of the roth of August, 1792? At that time the king's brother had left him; and the situation of his family, and their connection with the house of Austria, then known to be enemies to the government of France, were so well ascertained, that their objects could not be doubted. Did not these circumstances give ample room for suspicion, on the part of the French, as to the intentions of the king, and those ministers by whose council he was so fatally guided? If this were admitted, he had a right to say, that the catastrophe was no more accelerated by the wickedness of those who attacked, than by the baseness and folly of those who defended.

The honourable and learned gentleman had observed, that if he had said some years ago, that the then constitution of France would not last so long as our own, he should, by many, have been treated as a person who spoke in a very visionary and idle manner. In what company that gentleman had been, or from whose sentiments he formed that conjec-. ture, Mr. Fox said, he did not know; if the learned gentleman had alluded to him, he had never said any thing like it,

On the contrary, he had always entertained and professed a different doctrine. Would any man assert, that although he had often said, that the first French revolution was a glorious event, he had asserted, that the systems which had been built upon that revolution were good? So far from it, the most moderate of them appeared to him to be unstable at least. That was his opinion; and the right honourable gentleman opposite to him knew it to be so; in one particular instance, he had emphatically so pronounced it. He meant to allude to a motion made for a reform of parliament. On that occasion, he had stated it as his opinion, and he had not changed it, that an old edifice, well altered and repaired, was more likely to be useful, than one built on an entirely new construction, of the structure of which they had no experience*. That was his opinion then, and it was his opinion at the present; the honourable and learned gentleman's allusion to opinions, therefore, if directed to him, was unfairly directed, and the sarcasm ill applied.

The rest of the honourable and learned gentleman's speech was what was commonly called pathetic, and he thought it necessary to take some notice of parts of it. He had stated, that if there was a violent party in this country, who pretended to have in view the destruction of the power of ministers and the correction of abuses, and they should once succeed, they would not stop there: that not only the minister would be the object of their fury, but they would aim at the destruction of others who had any authority in the country from their talents, independent of any connection with the government. If the honourable and learned gentleman did him the honour to include him under that class, he would tell him plainly, the caution to him was needless; by such an observation the honourable and learned gentleman only brought to his mind what, indeed, had been but seldom absent from it for many years. "If ever," said Mr. Fox, "those persons who wish to destroy the constitution of this country, as was done in the French revolution, by rapine and plunder, by carnage and desolation, should become a triumphant party here, though I may not be the first, I am well convinced I shall not be the last object of popular fury." If ever the day should come, which God avert, when men's lives should be subject to that sort of popular fury, he thought there were others who would go before him, and those were the authors of the present measures; and from that time, in his conscience, he believed, his life would be short indeed; and therefore the honourable and

* See Vol. v. p. 109.