subject, Mr W. Wynn moJune 8. ved some resolutions, that whoever presumed to commence or prosecute any action against any person for acts done in obedience to the orders of the house, any such persons, and all attornies, solicitors, counsellors, and serjeants at law, soliciting, prosecuting, or pleading in any such cases, were guilty of a high breach of the privileges of the house; that the actions commenced by Sir Francis Burdett, were for acts done in obedience to the orders of the house; and that the proper officer of the Court of King's Bench should be ordered to attend the house on the morrow with all records and proceedings on the said actions. "Were ministers," he asked, "prepared for the consequences to which the measures they had adopted might lead? and did they intend that the commons should carry the question by writ of error before the other house of parliament, and that they should humbly sue for their privileges at the bar of the House of Lords? for before the lords the question would ultimately be brought, either by the house, or by those who resisted its privileges. Perhaps it might be said, that the lords would be as careful of the privileges of the commons as of their own. On the contrary it appeared, that it was from the other house of parliament that the privileges of the commons had experienced the most severe and frequent attacks; and if it should once be established that the commitments of the House of Commons could, by appeal, be brought under the judicature of the lords, the equality which has hitherto subsisted between those branches of the legisla

ture, would be destroyed for ever, and the commons would retain no privileges but what the lords should, by their judgements on different oc casions, think proper to admit them to. He did not propose that the house should immediately proceed to commit the solicitor, after the origi nal offence had been overlooked; but if, after the resolutions for which he moved, these actions should be proceeded in, then it would undoubtedly be necessary to commit every person concerned in carrying them on.

"This," Mr Wynn continued, "is the latest moment for the assertion of our privileges. What then is now to be done? Recur to that principle which governed the practice of your ancestors, the principle that the pro ceedings of the House of Commons, in matters of privilege, shall not be questioned by any other tribunal. For the preservation of this vital princi ple new measures must be taken, if new measures are necessary; and who, in such a case, would hesitate to make a precedent, if it were true that none could be found? But there are pre cedents in our journals; in three ca ses the house has ordered the re cords of the inferior courts to be laid on the table, and has directed the obnoxious proceedings to be then taken off the file and destroyed. Many per sons, however, there are, who think that these measures are indeed the proper course, but not the most prudent; that they are too strong for the present moment, and that we should now conciliate. But the opportunity for attending to such considerations is gone by. Many instances there undoubtedly were, where common pru dence and good sense would induce

the members of the house to pass over offences altogether. Of such a nature, perhaps, in the opinion of many, was the paper of Mr Gale Jones, when it was originally complained of; but when it had been once regularly noticed, and by a formal complaint forced on the attention of the house, no member could doubt any longer as to the course to be pursued, or could hesitate to concur in the vote which the house finally passed upon that occasion, however he might have been disinclined to the original agitation of the question.

"As soon as that complaint was made, and unavoidably adopted, the country could not be deceived by any pretences to conciliation; nor would they have attributed such a conduct to any other motives, but those of unworthy cowardice. Was it likely, that those persons could be conciliated, who had directed their attacks against the House of Commons, simply because they thought that, at the present moment, this was more vulnerable than either of the other branches of the legislature? They would laugh to see the house affect moderation, by abandoning what for ages had been its only guard and defence. It was much the same sort of pledge of conciliation and peace, which a great country was formerly called upon to give to its enemies, by surrendering the whole of its fleet. The moment of conflict was not that for concession, even if concession were, on other grounds, adviseable, instead of being ruinous and destructive. These were times, when it was necessary to rise above the dread of temporary unpopularity.”

Mr Wynn then adverted to the recent loss which that house and the country had sustained in the death of Mr Windham. "We should recol

lect," he said, "the great man whose loss we all have so lately deplored; who pursued his course firm and undeviating, frequently in direct oppo sition to the prevailing clamour; who, when the spirit of the nation was sunk to the lowest ebb of degradation, when the populace had actually drawn in triumph a French general through the streets of London, stood forward, almost alone, and raised their spirits by his own. To the stand then made by that illustrious person, and the small phalanx which rallied round him, it was to be attributed, that the ancient fortitude of the country was restored; that during seven years of war which had since occurred, we had heard of no petitions for peace, no unmanly complaints of the heavy and unparalleled burthens which it had been necessary to impose. Were my lamented friend now here, it would have been unnecessary for any other person to have brought forward this question. To imitate the strain of eloquence with which he would have enforced it, the felicity of illustration with which he would have adorned it, was impossible; but to emulate his determination and intrepidity, is in the power of every one. For myself," Mr Wynn concluded, "whatever may be the determination of the house, I am desirous to be able to state to my constituents that I have endeavoured to my utmost to preserve, uninjured and unimpaired, those privileges which they have intrusted to my hands, and which I feel to be the privileges, not of this house only, but of all the commons of England."

Mr Perceval replied to this able and manly speech," that Mr Wynn argued upon the assumption that the tribunals would act contrary to the law of the land,-anassumption which

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the house ought not to make. ther ought the house, after having agreed to plead, to commit the inconsistency of resolving to punish the persons concerned in prosecuting the actions. The present resolutions ought not, therefore, to be passed, because they tended to overturn all that had been done. Earl Temple and Mr Adam supported Mr Wynn's motion, which was, however, negatived by 74 members against 14. And here those proceedings of the session terminated to which Sir Francis Burdett had given rise. His conduct, from the commencement of the session, had been in the highest degree reprehensible; it had been a series of direct, premeditated, and systematic insults to the House of Commons. If a regard for the liberty of the subject, and the law of the land, had been the real mo

tives of his conduct, he would have rested the question upon the case of Gale Jones, a case which all parties thought hard; for though, when it had been brought before the house, the house could not proceed otherwise than it did, most persons agreed in wishing that his conduct had never been made the subject of complaint. But it neither suited with the vanity nor the views of Sir Francis, that Jones should be the object of popular attention; he put himself forward, and thrust Jones out of sight, and throughout the whole of the subsequent pro ceedings, acted not like a man who loved and respected the laws and institutions of his country, but like a demagogue performing an insurrec tion, as soldiers fight mock-battles in a review, for the purpose of trying his strength against the government.

way? Without a reduction in our annual expenditure, it would be impossible to carry it on long, and a reduction of some millions he thought might be effected without injury to the country. Mr Tierney, taking the same view of the subject, advised an inquiry into the cause of the present state of our resources, to ascertain whether that cause was merely temporary, or likely to be permanent. The Chancellor of the Exchequer," he said, "seemed to have had a great deal of good luck to help him out in his financial difficulties: in the first year, the loan had been provided by his predecessors; in the second, between 3 and 400,0001. of annuities fell in; and now a surplus produce of taxes offered, which he was grossly misapplying, when setting them apart to pay the interest of his loan; thus breaking a wisely-established principle, merely by making a fetch at popularity by a shew of declining new taxes. Was he aware, while he thus declined to look to future difficulties, that he would, in the event of peace, be obliged the next day to find nine or ten millions a-year of new taxes?" Mr Perceval replied, that the right honourable gentleman seemed quite sore upon the point of his good luck, as he was pleased to call it, and indeed the effects of that good luck furnished another obstacle to the wishes of that gentleman and his friends; for it appeared, that, not withstanding all the drivelling and blundering ascribed to him and his colleagues, the country was thriving under their government, and in a state of prosperity, which their opponents, with all their talents, could not deny." Replying then to Mr Huskisson's call for economy, he said, "there was a diminution this year in the ordnance of 1,500,0001., in the army of

800,0001.; these were considerable diminutions, though certainly the sa vings in the public expenditure were not such that any material effect could be expected from them."

When the bill for appropriating the surplus of the consolidated fund was before the house, Mr Tierney returned to the subject, saying, "that such a mea- May 24. sure was at war with the principle of raising as large a sum as possible within the present year. As a man, he would refer the subject to Mr Perceval himself, and should be as much mistaken as ever he was in his life, if he, as a member of parlia ment, did not say, that the Chancel lor of Exchequer ought rather to lay on taxes to the amount of 750,0001, That minister had done nothing; he had completely lived on the last administration; and now, for the purpose of delusion, he was evading a tax, which must ultimately come upon the people with aggravated pressure." Upon this Mr Rose replied, "that having drawn up the act himself, un der which the consolidated fund was established, he could certainly speak to its spirit and its letter, and denied that Mr Perceval was evading either. In framing that act, the only object which he and Mr Pitt had in view, was to provide that that fund should be sufficient to answer the charges upon it but those charges being provided for, there was no intention whatever to prevent parliament from applying the surplus in any manner that might be deemed expedient, Mr Pitt would have acted precisely as his successor was now doing, and this he knew from the last conversation which he had with him upon ject. It had likewise been said, that the measure before the house was contradiction to a resolution of Lord

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