§ The following Protest against the bill was entered on the Journals:
§ "Dissentient,
§ "Because the right of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, is secured to British subjects by the ancient laws of these realms, is declared to be so by the Bill of Rights, and is, in the words of Mr. Justice Blackstone, "a public allowance of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
§ "Because no sufficient evidence has been laid before the House to prove 'that arms and weapons of various sorts have in various parts of the kingdom been 'collected, and are kept for purposes dangerous to the public peace." We doubt the fect, and we distrust the remedy. If arms have really been procured for such illegal purposes, the person sengaged in these criminal designs, will have had ample notice, before this bill can pass, to remove them to places of concealment. Whilst this power, therefore, is likely to be in a great degree inefficient with respect to its professed object, it is liable to be most imperiously and vexatiously used, in cases where arms may have been provided and kept for the legitimate purposes of selfdefence.
§ "Because in former periods of much greater danger to the crown and constitution of these realms, when conspiracies by the adherents of the house of Stuart were known to be directed against both; when preparations were making for rebellion with the assistance of France; when men of the highest rank, station, and influence in both kingdoms were deeply engaged in 755 these designs; nay, during two formidable rebellions in 1715 and 1745, no such power was granted to the crown; vet the new line of succession was defended, and our free constitution successfully maintained against all these dangers. The principles of the Revolution had been too firmly imprinted in the hearts and minds of our ancestors, to allow them, on the' spur of any emergency, however alarming, to hazard the existence of a right which they had so recently asserted.
§ "Because this law is, in its very nature, peculiarly liable to abuse. Interest, credulity, malevolence, revenge, party violence, and indiscreet zeal, may, equally with a sense of duty, contribute. to call it into action; and the powers given for its execution, of breaking, either by day or night, into any house or place where information may have been received that arms are kept for illegal purposes, must unavoidably expose the persons and property of his majesty's subjects to injury and violence, which cannot be sufficiently guarded against by the provisions made in the bill for that purpose. This is not a mere apprehension. Experience proves that such effects may be expected from it. In Ireland, it is well known, nothing more contributed to irritate the people, and to provoke acts of private resentment and revenge, than the abuses which took place, and particularly the insults which were offered to women, in the exercise of a similar power.
§ "Because we further object to the enactments of this law, as part of a system which, in a season of unexampled distress and misery, rejecting every pro-position for conciliation or concession, rests on force alone for the suppression of the prevailing discontents, and is calculated to give additional weight to an opinion, already too generally entertained, that parliament is more ready to presume against the people, and to enact laws for their restraint, than to attend to their just complaints, and to afford them that protection which they have a right to claim against every species of injustice and oppression.
| (Signed) | |
| GREY. | WENTWORTH |
| THANET. | FITZWILLIAM. |
| ERSKINE. | YARBOROUGH. |
| ALBEMARLE. | AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. |
| KING. | |
| YASSALL HOLLAND. | COWPER. |
| ROSLYN. |