STATE OF THE COUNTRY.

HL Deb 30 November 1819 vol 41 cc418-507

The Marquis of Lansdowne

rose, in pursuance of his notice, in furtherance of a duty, the importance of which he most seriously felt, to propose to their lordships to appoint a committee to inquire into the state of the country, and more particularly with reference to the distress of the manufacturing districts, and the execution of the laws. In doing this, he felt all the difficulty of the task he had under-taken, and was sensible how much reason he had to lay claim to their lordships' indulgence for the details into which he should find it necessary to enter in bringing this important subject under their consideration. He was aware, however, that he came before them at a time when there could be little difference of opinion as to the momentous nature of the subject on which he was addressing them. It had been common, and nothing was more natural on ordinary occasions, to impute to noble lords on that side of the House, a disposition to magnify the dangers of the country, and to accuse the noble lords on the other side of placing them in a point of view by which they were too much diminished. But, at the present moment, this difference of opinion did not prevail. Indeed, when he recollected what had taken place within these few years; when he considered that within the last month there had been added to an already large standing army, a force or rather a new array, greater than that which a hundred years ago had been thought sufficient for internal defence, and external operations; when he found their lordships' table, and that of the other House, covered with measures for restraining the liberty of the subject; when he saw all this, joined to the great anxiety which every where prevailed respecting the state pf the country—an anxiety, which was greatly increased by the conduct of those in whose hands the government of the Prince Regent was placed—he was, convinced that it would be a waste of their lordship time to offer any argument on the extent of the existing danger. He felt this conviction the more, when he considered that their lordships were called upon by the Prince Regent's ministers to adopt measures to check or avert the evil. It must from all these circumstances be admitted that a primâ facie case was made out for requiring their lordships to consider the nature and cause of the danger, and the remedies which ought to be applied.

To perform this duty, it would be necessary for their lordships to take a large and comprehensive view of the situation of the country, in order that they might be enabled to make up their minds to the whole extent of the mischief, and to the means of cure; and, in particular to ascertain whether they had nothing more to do than to pass the bills which the noble secretary of state had recommended for their adoption, and then to return tranquilly to their duties or amusements in the country. The variety of considerations that offered themselves, and the difficulty of making out particular cases, were the chief reasons which induced him to bring the subject in the shape he proposed before their lordships. He was confident that it would be a great mistake, were their lordships to content themselves with taking a partial view of the situation of the country. To look merely at partial danger would tend only to mislead, and produce a false conclusion. This kind of error would be inevitable, if they founded their opinion on any single circumstance or transaction, without connecting it with the whole situation of the country, and bringing under their review not only the events which had taken place, but the causes of those events. No man could look at the events which had recently occurred, but must feel that violence was to be repressed by violence, and that sedition of every kind was to be put down by the law. But when the violence was repressed and the sedition subdued, was not the evil which had led to that state of things to be explored? Were their lordships to stop at this point, and forget that it was their duty to look farther, and to consider how the causes of the evil could be removed? Their lordships must not be satisfied with finding a case made out with respect to the circulation of seditious publications; but must inquire into the cause which produced them, and obtained for them readers. It was not sufficient for them to know, that itinerant demagogues had travelled over the country, addressing seditious harangues to multitudes of people; they were bound to make themselves acquainted with the causes which had, produced these extraordinary effects, and to ascertain why so many tongues were thus, employed, and why they found so many ears disposed to listen to them. It would be in vain to attempt to discover these causes by any partial view or examination, as it would be absurd to account for them by their effects. From all that their lordships had seen, it appeared that there existed, among the people a strong desire that something should be done to ameliorate their situation. Whatever desire there was of change, it appeared to be founded merely in a feeling of uneasiness, and exhibited a wish to embrace any scheme, whatever, which might appear calculated to give them relief. Looking, then, at all the circumstances which had come to their lordships knowledge, it appeared that one principal cause of this feeling, and one which unfortunately was founded in truth, was distress. He did not mean to say that there were not other causes which were calculated to excite great jealousy among the people—a jealousy even justified by the acts of that and the other House of Parliament; but it was evident that the spirit which, under the name of radicalism, had prevailed in different parts of the country, had always taken a deeper root, and more vigorously flourished, in proportion to the extent of the distress of those to whom that fallacious and destructive doctrine was recommended. This would be evident, if their lordships took the trouble to compare the state of the agricultural and the manufacturing districts. The agricultural labourers, though not in that happy situation in which they had formerly stood, were much better off than the labourers or manufacturers. Accordingly, it would be found, that it was in the manufacturing districts only that the mischief which their lordships were called upon to correct had any existence. If he went farther, and inquired among what descriptions of manufacturers the poison was most widely diffused, he was again compelled to point to those who were suffering under the greatest degree of distress. Among the cotton-manufacturers, whose situation was worse than that of any other class, the spirit of radicalism had been carried to the greatest extent. It was important that their lordships should feel the truth of this view of the subject, in order that their attention might be fully directed to the state of the manufacturing districts, which formerly employed so great a part of the population of the country. From statements which he had before him on the table, he could prove to their lordships, that in all the great stations of the cotton-manufacture, such as Manchester in England, and Glasgow and Paisley in Scotland, the earnings of the manufacturers had, at an average, fallen more than one half. Even adding all that could be obtained by working additional hours, the average rate of payment did not exceed Ss. a week in the principal manufacturing districts. There were, however, other places where, from local circumstances, the master manufacturers could not afford to give even so much as 5s. a week. This was the case at Maybole, in Scotland, and some other parts, where, from the smallness of the capital of the master manufacturers, they had been compelled to reduce the rate of wages to half-a-crown per week. There were other places where the price varied to 4s. and 5s., and where some addition was supplied to the labourer from other sources.

He would not trouble their lordships by entering farther into the details which the papers before them afforded; these details were all of the same description, and proved to demonstration, that it was this lamentable distress which afforded employment to the agents of sedition. It was the material on which they worked. It became their lordships to turn their attention to this distress, and to investigate its causes. Those causes appeared to be of no recent date, and their operation might be traced, through the last twenty years, to measures of political economy, connected with the political events of the times. It was one effect of great civilization to produce a great quantity of fixed capital; and the greater that capital was, the greater became the difficulty when any derangement of its usual course of employment took place, of throwing it into new and productive channels. That very division of labour, too, which was another consequence of social improvement and high civilization, formed on such occasions an additional evil; for the workman became a part of the same fixed capital, inasmuch as the talent and ingenuity he had acquired in his particular art or manufacture could not be otherwise employed. It was in every sense of the word, in his hands a fixed capital, which he could not remove to any other productive source of employment. When a great proportion of the population of a country was employed in manufactures, of which a diminished demand suddenly took place, the distress produced must be great. The master-manufacturers lowered the rate of wages: this reduction induced the labourers to work a greater number of hours; and thus more goods were produced, which served only to add to the evil. During the late war it happened (for it was the effect of every war to throw capital into new channels), that various profitable branches of commerce were carried to a great extent. In the course of a contest which had continued longer than any other in which the country had been engaged, and which was connected with a monopoly of the carrying trade, the commercial advantages which presented themselves were necessarily great. The effect of the profitable employment of capital was, to raise up a vast population, supported by means which, from their very nature, could not be permanent. Intimately connected with this circumstance was the disproportion which naturally followed between the agricultural and manufacturing part of the population, the latter being to the former in the proportion of 900,000 families to 700,000. The evil was greatly aggravated by same other circumstances in our domestic policy, by the state of the finances, the Poor-laws, and our paper currency.

Without troubling their lordships with all the details into which he might enter, to prove the pernicious influence resulting from such a state of things, it would be sufficient for him to remind them, that the. poor laws, by making up to the labourer the deficiency of wages, had served: as, a. bounty for an artificial speculation in manufactures. The paper currency also afforded another means of artificial speculation. Capital and labour having, in the manner he had described, been thrown into new channels, a great charge was imposed upon the public, when the cause which produced the impulse was withdrawn. The population which had been raised by commercial speculations during the war, was thrown back upon the country, in a very different situation from that in which the population stood at the commencement of hostilities. They required aid, when the means which the country had of affording it was greatly diminished, This could not surprise their lordships, when they considered the effect of a revenue increased from sixteen to between fifty and sixty millions, and the burthen which such an increase necessarily imposed; when they considered that every individual in the country was subject to burthens equal to triple the amount of what had been paid before the war; and that, compared with the principal manufacturing countries of Europe, our charges were double, and considerably more than the double of those countries. These circumstances could not be loft out of any view which their lordships were called upon to take of the internal situation of the country. When they reflected on the effects which must naturally result from such a state of things, could their lordships be surprised, that many among the unfortunate part of the population he had described, were disposed to listen to projects which might be suggested for bettering their condition, without examining the nature of those projects with sufficient discrimination? Having exhausted all their means in a struggle between life and misery, was it surprising if nothing was done to remove the cause, that they should proceed from poverty to crime, till society, grown weary of the load, wished to shake off the incumbrance? It was however, satisfactory, to their lord- ships to know, that, notwithstanding the industry of the agents of sedition in working on this distress, the poison had not extended to all the population of districts in which the misery prevailed; and that by far the greater portion was acknowledged to continue firm in their allegiance. Even at Manchester, where that unfortunate event had occurred of which he should speak more at large by and by, it appeared that there was no ground for supposing the majority of the distressed population disaffected. If their lordships referred to the papers on the table, they would find that Mr. Hay considered only a part of the mob that composed the meeting to be what he called reformers. Of whom, then, did the other part of the meeting consist? Certainly not of persons whose minds had been poisoned by seditious publications, or by the harangues of itinerant demagogues. Besides, what proof had ministers afforded of the dangerous spirit having spread beyond the distressed districts, or of any thing which could stamp the character of treason or disaffection on the population in general? Policy, as well as humanity, called upon their lordships to devote all their minds to the present situation of the country. If by any apparent want of attention, an opinion should prevail among the middling classes of society, that their interests were either not duly consulted, or sacrificed to other interests, it was impossible to calculate what might be the consequences of such an impression. Then vain would be levies of soldiers and all enactments of severe laws. Then would the arm of the constitution be withered, and those institutions which had been the pride of the country, and the safeguards of liberty, and which depended entirely on the confidence of the people, would be annihilated. He thought the situation of the country in this respect truly alarming; for if the middling classes were to become disaffected to the institutions of their ancestors, it was impossible to say where the danger which their lordships were called upon to avert would end.

Having said thus much, with the view of impressing on their lordships the necessity of diligently investigating the causes of the existing discontents, he should now proceed to consider what means of cure might be in the power of the legislature—first, with reference to the causes of the distress; and secondly with reference to the execution of the existing laws; for with regard to the latter part of the subject, if any cloud was hanging over the conduct of those who had to put in motion the laws of the country, it was fit it should be removed, or the circumstances which gave rise to it explained. Among the means of relief which had occasionally been suggested, was a parliamentary grant for the assistance of those who were suffering by the decay of trade and manufactures. This mode, however, involved a very objectionable principle, and was a mode of relief which, he confessed, he could not accede to without great consideration and caution; for evil was always to be expected when any considerable amount of capital was suddenly removed from one quarter to another. If, indeed, he could bring himself to the opinion that the evil was temporary, that it depended in a great measure on the distress of other countries, and that the means suggested would give effectual relief to the distressed population, then he might be induced to depart from those principles of political economy which, under other circumstances, he should be disposed to hold sacred. If he could be persuaded that a parliamentary grant would carry the people of the distressed districts over their difficulty, he would not hesitate to give it his concurrence. There were, however, other means which, in his opinion, might be resorted to for the purpose of diminishing the burthens which pressed so heavily on the people in general, land palsied every branch of industry. He would for the present suppose that it should be found impossible to carry the reduction of the public expenditure farther than had been done; still, when their lordships considered the manner in which the revenue had been raised for many years past, when they recollected that it had been the object of every minister to look merely at the resources of the present moment, without sufficiently calculating the effect which his measures might have on the future state of the revenue, he believed they would not think it unreasonable to expect some relief from an improved distribution of the public burthens. It was also probable that there were particular duties, the removal of which would afford an important relief without affecting the general amount of the revenue. For instance the article of tea was one the consumption of which, in consequence of the high duty, was, he understood, considerably diminished, particularly in the districts to which he had so frequently alluded. If the duty on tea were lowered it was to be expected that the consumption would be resumed and carried to a greater extent; especially as from long habit, it might be regarded rather as a necessary than a luxury. In considering this subject, it ought not to be overlooked, that the smuggling of tea was carried on to a great extent. It had been estimated that America re-exported tea to the extent of a million and a half; and if this calculation was correct, there was no doubt that a very great portion of this tea was introduced by smugglers into the British dominions. It must then be obvious, that a reduction of the duty would, by taking away the temptation to this contraband trade, increase the revenue. At the same time, a careful revision of our commercial system ought to be undertaken.

It had happened most unfortunately, that the present administration had not succeeded, under the most favourable circumstances in which they could possibly have been placed, to conclude at the close of the war a commercial treaty which might have proved beneficial to the country; but even without any such treaty, much might be done to encourage trade and facilitate the exportation of our manufactures. He would again, merely for illustration, state an instance in which this desirable end might to a certain degree be easily accomplished. The trade with Norway had been sacrificed with the view of encouraging the importation of timber from Canada. The result of this arrangement was, that we had been deprived of the advantage we derived from the opportunity of procuring an article of great value in building, while our export trade was, by the same exclusive system, diminished. It could not be questioned, but that if the prohibition against the importation of timber from Norway were removed, an opening would be made for the exportation of some of our manufactures. There were other regulations which might be made, all tending to open additional markets for our manufactures, and above all, there was South America, where a great mart might be opened for our manufactures, as was evident by what had been done through the appointment of a consul, and the opening a communication with the government of Buenos Ayres. But he should not dwell longer on this part of the subject, being confident that, if he prevailed on their lordships to go into the inquiry, he should propose to institute, either with respect to relief from the weight of taxation, or the improvement of our commercial relations, no practical means would be omitted which might appear calculated to lighten the burthens of the country generally or tend to improve the situation of the manufacturing districts.

Besides the hope of finding the means of removing distress, there was another great object which he thought ought to make an important part of the investigation of any select committee appointed to inquire into the state of the country. That part of the subject embraced the consideration of public meetings and seditious publications; and when their lordships' attention was directed to these objects, he must think them bound to inquire how far the administration of the laws had been fair and uniform; he used the word "uniform," because certainly nothing could produce a more unfavourable impression on the public mind, than affording ground to suppose that the laws were capriciously executed. Now, with respect to seditious publications, it ought to be explained how it happened that the law of libel had been, for two or three years, so laxly and ineffectually enforced, as to permit the most extraordinary multiplication of works of that description. Their lordships should be informed of the reasons which had induced the law officers of the Crown to allow sedition to stalk abroad without any attempt to check it, as if it had been intended by permitting its increase to lay a foundation for measures restrictive of the press. Upon what other ground could libels, which no twelve men in the city of London or any where else could hesitate for a moment to condemn, be allowed to circulate in the metropolis and all over the country, until it seemed that a connected system, having for its object to pervert the public mind, and which he was afraid might in some instances have proved but too efficacious, had been acted upon? For the purpose of calling their lordships attention to this part of the subject, and showing to what a degree the duty of checking seditious publications had been omitted, the would select from a mass of other libels which had been permitted to circulate, two: one, an attack on the rights of property, and a provocation to subvert the existing order of society; the other, a libel on the person at the head of the government, and a provocation to assassination. Nearly a year ago the latter libel had been put in circulation, and yet no step had been taken to check it, or punish its publication. Among other observations the writer of this libel proceeded to state, that if the Prince Regent persevered in paying no attention to the sufferings of the people, there would be but one course for the people to pursue: they would recollect what their ancestors had done in the case of Charles; and the house of Brunswick would, like the Stuarts, be banished from the throne. The other libel to which he had alluded was in the following terms:—"We must look into the coffers of the descendants of our forefathers' oppressors for plundered wealth; we must look at the land-leviathan's hoards, extorted by excessive rentals charged upon their sweating industrious tenantry; we must examine title-deeds; we must know by what right, social, natural, or divine, they became possessed of one or other part of the property they hold; and should they rend the air with their wailings after any unjustly accumulated store, still at a breaking up of an accursed system of exclusion and privilege, justice must be the order of the day. It is said, an infinite God is no respecter of persons; then how presumptuous in man to be so? Truth will make its way; sooner or later it will come to this; for they have pawned all, they are bankrupts, and living upon the spoils, the mercy and forbearance of their creditors the people, whom they and their fathers have for ages defrauded; and when the commission opens, should they not render a true and faithful account, they must even suffer the fate of felons, and depend on the mercy of the offended majesty of the people. They may cry aloud to the property-mongers, the Mammon worshippers of the land, and the town and country gentry, that cling around the falling system, as the miser hugs, in the agonies of death, the precious darling gold to his breast, and thinks that the only source of happiness; but it will not all do; if these show any disposition to join the unhallowed band, to "fight for their property," as a rich man (a mistaken patriot)" once said they would, they must even share the fate of their companions." This article had appeared in the course of last spring; the other atrocious libel, as he had already stated, was published about a. year ago. He would not suppose that it would be maintained, in answer to this observation, that a British jury would have overlooked the offence, and refused to give a verdict against the offender. Let it not be understood that he was demanding a severe administration of the laws with respect to libel, when he appeared urgent for such prosecutions. He thought that a libel which occurred from inadvertence, or at an unguarded moment, was a proper subject for leniency, and ought, in many cases, to be entirely overlooked; but when libelling assumed the form of a system, and was directed against the order of society, and the most sacred institutions of the country, he thought that the law officers of the Crown did not perform their duty, if they did not endeavour to repress it by all the penalties of the law. These officers might be able to account for their late inactivity, but he could hot see the grounds on which they could plead their justification of neglecting to execute the existing laws, which might have been sufficient; while they demanded laws of greater seventy, which might be unnecessary. At any rate the efficiency of the existing laws ought to be inquired into before any change was made; and it ought to be known, whether their intrinsic, insufficiency, or the neglect of those who were required to watch over their execution, had allowed the evil to grow to such a height as to require the application of the measures proposed yesterday by the noble secretary of state. He recollected a time when prosecutions were instituted for much less offensive libels than those which he had read; when the editor of a newspaper was obliged to defend himself before a jury for saying that his majesty's successor would have a glorious opportunity of being popular. No conviction was obtained in this case, but the acquittal did not prove that a jury would have returned the same verdict in cases of an atrocious description. So in another instance, where it was said that lord Castlereagh had bribed Mr. Canning, or Mr. Canning lord Castlereagh (he forgot which), a jury might fairly be in doubt as to the importance of the charge. At any rate the offence was venial when compared with that contained in the passages he had read. In those passages the throne of the king was held up as an object of attack, and the property of the rich pointed out for plunder and spolia- tion. That a British jury would have refused to convict the author of such a libel, had he been prosecuted,, could scarcely be believed.

Another topic of great importance, on which he would beg leave to trouble their lordships with a few observations, was, the execution of the law regarding public meetings. Had the conduct of the magistrates and,, the execution of the law, been uniform over the country in respect to those meetings? He was not disposed to deny that public meetings were differently conducted in different places, and that they, might on that account be treated differently. But in many parts where they were left "unmolested, those who attended them marched to the spot with banners and music in martial array, and under regular leaders; whereas these circumstances, in one case, had been declared the symbols of rebellion, and were pleaded as a justification of a forcible dispersion. Now, he would ask, were the same flags, music, inscriptions, and parade, legal in one part of the country, and illegal in another? What instructions had the noble secretary of state for the home department given to the magistrates to guide them in the execution of their duty regarding these meetings? The noble secretary had not before been slow to issue his circulars, when there was not such a necessity for his advice. How was the present abstinence to be reconciled with, the former assiduity of the noble viscount in issuing his Circular to instruct the magistrates as to the course to be pursued by them with regard to the circulation of libels? Neither the noble viscount nor the magistrates could say, they were taken by surprise; they knew, long before, the nature of the meeting that was to take place at Manchester. They had seen similar meetings all over the manufacturing districts, and knew the doctrines which were inculcated by their leaders; and they ought to have determined beforehand on the course which it was proper to pursue regarding them. If ever "coming events cast their shadows before," the seditious publications to which he adverted were the natural prognostics of those meetings. Looking, therefore, at their character, and anticipating their consequences, government ought to have taken the best advice, and followed a course of conduct which would have prevented the unfortunate occurrences at Manchester. There were three important circumstances to which the attention of the noble viscount and the magistrates ought to have been directed: 1st. It was of great consequence, that if any violence was to take place it should commence on the part of the populace, and not on the part of the constituted authorities. 2ndly. It was of the utmost importance, if violence was to be employed, that notice of such intention should have been given before hand, that the people might have been aware of their danger. And 3rdly, It was of the utmost consequence, that if violence was to be employed, and punishment inflicted that punishment should have fatlen on the leaders of the meeting, and not on those who were aware of no offence, and who perhaps attended out of curiosity, and from no participation in the views or objects of those leaders. Without meaning to impugh the conduct of the magistrates or of the yeomanry on that unfortunate occasion, he was compelled to ask their lord ships, and beg their lordships to ask them, selves, why Mr. Hunt was arrested when on the hustings, surrounded by such a multitude? why he was not arrested when on his way to the meeting—circumstance which might have prevented it? or why he was not arrested after the meetings had dispersed, which there was every probability, it Would have done peaceably? He would ask still farther, why; if the meeting was considered illegal, no precautions were taken to apprise the people of the intent to disperse it, by posting up placards over the town? If such a step was advisable in any place, it was in Manchester, where a caution of the magistrates, warning the inhabitants not to attend the meeting of the 9th, had been attended with complete success. He made these observations, not for the purpose of passing sentence on the magistrates, but as laying the foundation for inquiry; and with them he would dismiss for the present, the consideration of the affair of Manchester.

When he called for inquiry on this subject, it was no sufficient answer, that such inquiry would affect the character of individuals in highly respectable situations. Such an objection was not allowed any weight in 1717, when a riot happened at Oxford from some persons of Jacobite principles, which the troops were sent to quell. The affair was merely local, but the lords went into a committee of the whole house to inquire into the circumstances. Not many years afterwards a similar proceeding was adopted regarding the riots that took place in Edinburgh, when captain Porteous was put to death. Lord Carteret then came down to the House, and proposed a committee of inquiry A motion was made to call to the bar the magistrates who exercised authority on the occasion. In opposing this motion, several of the Scotch peers then in the House contended, that it would, if agreed to, cast a slur on the lord president of the court of session, the lord provost of Edinburgh, and the other official persons whose conduct was the subject of inquiry. On this representation the debate was adjourned to the following day, when the duke of Newcastle came down to the House, and consented to their being examined at the bar. Now, he would ask; were the magistrates of Manchester above that inquiry which was instituted in the cases of the riots of Oxford and Edinburgh? or did the state of the country then less manifestly and imperiously demand of the House to show an anxiety to watch over and enforce a pure and impartial administration of the laws? If their lordships should entertain the proposed inquiry into the administration of the existing laws, into the distresses of the country into the cause of those distreses, and the means of removing them, they might, with the best graces if found necessary, pass the measures of coercion before the House. If, after inquiry, such measures should be thought indispensable, they would, though harsh and severe, be received with acquiescence, and submitted to without murmur; but if inquiry were refused, the proposed laws, though good in themselves, would fail in producing the desired effect. The noble viscount last night strongly expressed himself against concession. If, by saying he would not concede, the noble viscount meant that he would not yield to vague claims, insolent demands, or irritated feelings, he would concur with the noble viscount, and declare likewise against concession. But he was willing to concede what could not be withheld without injustice—he was willing to concede the important benefits and privileges of the British constitution. One of these was, a parliament prepared to hear the complaints of the people, and inclined to redress them; disposed to inquire into their grievances, to listen to their petitions, and to satisfy them, that if restraints were imposed, they were only imposed on the ground of necessity. It had been said from the throne, that their lordships had great duties to discharge. Their lordships would best discharge some of those great duties by endeavouring, by measures of conciliation, to remove any distrust that might exist between the people and the legislature, and by endeavouring to gain the attachment of those whose rights they were bound to protect. The noble marquis concluded with moving, "That a select committee be appointed to inquire into the state of the country, and more particularly into the distresses and discontents prevalent in the manufacturing districts, and the execution of the laws with respect to the numerous meetings which have taken place."

The Marquis of Wellesley

expressed his full sense of the praise that was due, and the importance that must attach, to the able and statesman-like speech of the noble marquis who had just sat down—a speech distinguished by those comprehensive views, and embellished from those sources of literature with which his mind was adorned, and which rendered his eloquence and opinions entitled, upon all occasions, to the attention and respect of the national council. After, however, following the noble marquis as closely as he could through his eloquent address, he thought it amounted to no more than this—that in all the complicated and varied perils of a state, the causes of those perils must be of a complicated and various nature, and the remedies must likewise be complicated and various. But this was not the question now to be solved. The question, in all cases of threatened danger to the institutions of a country, would be with all able statesmen, and all great and wise states, what was the paramount duty of the hour? The noble marquis had said, with an eloquence and manliness characteristic of his accomplished mind, that violence must be subdued by force, and sedition repressed by law; but that their lordships ought to inquire into the cause of that violence which must be so subdued, and of that sudition which must be so repressed. In every word of this he entirely agreed with the noble marquis; but the question to-night was, whether, though much violence had been done, worse violence was not intended—whether sedition was not in existence which had not yet been put down by law—whether we had not arrived at' that state of constitutional danger which called for exclusive consideration—whether we had not before us that case of violence which must be coerced, and of sedition which must be encountered and extinguished by law? This was the real point at issue, and to have it settled, he had only to appeal to a few facts. Why was parliament now assembled, if peril and sedition did not exist? Parliament was now called together for its own preservation—not in the narrow, limited, selfish, meaning of the term, as it had self-interested privileges to maintain with which the people had no concern, but in the general and important sense of preservation which was implied when the constitution of parliament as an essential part of the constitution of the country was menaced. It met to exercise the first of all the duties and all the rights of a state—that of maintaining the public security from violation and ruin. The noble marquis, in a part of his speech, had entered into a consideration of the perils which now surrounded us, and, in the course of his remarks, stated, as their cause, that great distress existed, and that a general desire of a change was felt, without being accompanied, however, with any fixed object, or regular plan. Here he was at issue with the noble marquis. He would contend, that the object was evident, that the plan was definite, well arranged, and perseveringly pursued, which pointed to a parliamentary change, the effect of which must be the overthrow of society, the destruction of the rights of property, and the demolition of the whole frame of government. The noble marquis had said, that all their lordships admitted the danger. It was their duty, therefore, to examine it, to look it fairly in the face, to see what was its character, and what were its powers, and to meet it with proper firmness. He believed that it was as extensive in its diffusion, as it was alarming in its character, and he begged their lordships to consider in what it consisted. It was of no vague description. It was a fixed and unalterable purpose, a regular and settled project, announced in all the publications of the disaffected, embodied in all the resolutions of their public meetings, and perseveringly pursued with all their energies, to effect such an alteration in the constitution of parliament as would establish universal suffrage, annual elections, and voting by ballot. Were those points on which there could be any doubt—were those doctrines which they had denied, disguised, or renounced? No. Some years ago, their plan was more indefinite; there was a dissension among the supporters of reform, and several of them did not go the length of the tenets which he had stated. Now, they were all agreed: they maintained to a man, that universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and voting by ballot, would redress their grievances; and that unless those concessions were made, their expectations would not be satisfied, nor their grievances redressed. All parts of their plan adhered together, and if carried into execution, would be the destruction of all regular government, the destruction, of all religion, and the destruction of all private property. The next circumstance in the danger was the mode in which the plan was to be carried into effect. Their publications and speakers at public meetings announced a settled design to carry their objects by physical force, but recommended, in the first place, to observe order and peace. If their projects could be carried peaceably their adherents were told it was well; but if not peaceably, at any rate they must be carried. "We come," said they, "with our minds prepared and armed for the conquest of our rights: we would wish to obtain them mildly if we can; if not, we must resort to physical force, and our success is secured." If any man could place reliance on their professions of peace, and surrender his alarms on hearing their exhortations to order, that man must have firmer nerves than he had. No one regretted more than he did the unfortunate occurrences at Manchester. The noble marquis had said, that if the meeting had not been disturbed by the interference of the magistrates, it would have gone oft' in perfect tranquillity. Perhaps that might have been the case; but why? in the contemplation of times to come. With the most quieting declarations of loyalty and respect to the laws, the disaffected proceeded meekly and peaceably in their projects, boasting of their physical force without using it, waiting for the happy day and the halcyon hour when they might accomplish loyally and unresistedly their schemes of plunder and anarchy. Their peaceable and quiet demeanor, instead of lessening the danger, in his opinion ought to aggravate the alarm. He might say of them Ipsa silentia terrent. They became more dangerous from entertaining such disorganizing doctrines in settled tranquillity. He would put a case:—Suppose they had agreed at one of their assemblies to repeal the Act of Settlement, to depose the king, or to abolish the monarchy, would the alarm of their lordships be reduced, or the guilt of the conspirators lessened, by assurances that they meant to proceed peaceably in the execution of their projects, and that the meetings in which they measured their strength, and confirmed their purpose, passed off with the utmost quietness? In his mind, such quietness, with such designs, appeared like malice prepense, which, though concealed for a, time, was more dangerous than temporary passion; and the very circumstance of their tranquillity aggravated their guilt. There was another circumstance which had been stated regarding them, as lessening the alarm with which they ought to be viewed, but which, in his mind, increased it. It was said their projects were so wild, absurd, and extravagant, that they could make no progress towards their execution, and therefore they could not be accompanied with danger. He need not tell those who had either attended to the principles of the human mind, or. studied the pages of history, how much mischief had arisen to the world from practical attempts to accomplish impracticable schemes, and realize absurd theories. There was in virtue, in science, and in art, a certain point of excellence which was unattainable, but towards which the admirers of each never ceased to aspire, and in approaching which every step was fraught with improvement—every step added to the dignity of human nature. So with the arts of confusion and anarchy. They might not succeed, but they had an invincible tendency towards realization. In those wild and destructive theories which had for their object the subversion of society, although there was a point of ruin which might not be achievable, every step in the progress towards it had its evil. Universal suffrage might not be attainable; but in the pursuit universal confusion might take place, and every step towards the accomplishment of so absurd and chimerical a scheme would be but a step towards creating new mischiefs. He might apply this also to another subject—he meant, to those attempts which were made to subvert the religion of the nation. Attempts so wild and fantastical as these would scarcely enter into the imagination of any man. So frantic an opinion could scarcely enter the head of any man, as to suppose that in this en- ^✶ lightened country, where knowledge was so advanced, and where the purest religion was established, the monstrous doctrine of unmitigated atheism could be disseminated with any success. But in attempting to realize this object, although the pursuit was not likely to be attended with success, yet the very effort which was made, would tend to dissolve the purity of religion, to undermine faith, to destroy morality, and to dissolve all those bonds which bound man to man: and would it in such a state of things be any satisfaction to be told that the establishment of atheism was impracticable, and could never be accomplished? Why, then, he would ask, were such attempts to be treated with indifference? He was willing to believe that these projects were confined to a few visionary individuals;; he did not believe that the whole people of England were tainted with such principles; nevertheless, he submitted that they demanded the powerful and vigorous efforts of the legislature to suppress them. His, noble friend had told them, that it was very proper to inquire into the state of distress throughout the whole country. He was not disposed to deny the policy of was a proceeding at a proper time, and the expediency of applying every measure which might be calculated to remedy that distress; but was that inquiry to take precedence of those steps which the imminent danger in which the country was placed so imperiously demanded? Would it be proper to appoint a committee, the investigations of which must, necessarily engage the attention of all the ability and all the integrity of the House, from hour to hour, and from day to day, at a moment when the absolute safety of the country was at stake? The noble marquis had also stated, that part; of his plan was to consider the administration of justice, with respect to the enforcement of the law of libel, and whether, in their lordship's judgment, the proper means had been taken of carrying into effect the provisions of that law. This certainly was a very fit subject for their lordships attention; but was that a, reason for appointing a committee before they proceeded to take into consideration the specific measures that were addressed to the immediate evils known to exist? The noble marquis surely did not mean that the bills, which had been so properly submitted to the notice of the House, were to be deferred in order to make way for his inquiry; if not, he would ask, how-was it possible, if the committee were appointed, for any of their lordships who usually took part in such subjects to pay that attention to those bills which their importance demanded? He repeated, that to examination at a proper season he had no objection; but when the nature of the danger to which the country was exposed came under their view, he apprehended all other topics ought to give way to the adoption of measures for meeting that danger in the most effective and decisive manner. The noble marquis had also alluded to a subject connected with this question to which he felt himself called upon to advert—he meant the necessity of conciliating the people of England, by making some alterations in the constitution of the Commons House of Parliament.

The Marquis of Lansdowne

disclaimed Having spoken of any such necessity.

The Marquis Wellesley, in continuation, said, that the noble marquis might not perhaps mean to express himself to that extent; but that it was evident nothingless would satisfy the discontented. He had seen petitions forced upon the House of Commons, signed by a number of persons resident in Manchester, in which it was stated, in the true language of the radicals, that the constitution of that House, as it stood, was so great a grievance that it. was thought to be the source of all other grievances; that it was for the purpose of declaring this that the meeting was convened at Manchester; and for the purpose of calling upon that House, the purity of which they questioned, to appoint & public inquiry into the causes of their distress. This was, in fact, neither more nor less than saying, "We declare the constitution to be a nuisance, which we are determined to abate; and while you are sitting in deliberation, we will continue to take those Steps which we conceive necessary for its abatement." He would ask their lordships if it was at all probable that those very persons who called for inquiry would rest quiet while that inquiry was going forward? Would they not, in pursuit of their main object, the attainment of universal suffrage, continue to pursue their plans of demolition? Was it a safe course for parliament to take, to furnish them with an opportunity of effecting their purpose? Would it be safe, while these persons were engaged in enterprises for de- molishing the constitution, deliberately to enter into an investigation of the causes of their dissatisfaction? The best, the wisest, and the most prudent course to pursue, would be, as the noble earl had so properly expressed it, "By law to put sedition, and by force to subdue violence." But was this the disposition of the people of England at large? Of this he had the strongest doubts, and he believed that the distresses of the manufacturing districts had been greatly exaggerated; but, supposing distress to exist to a considerable degree, was it because the people were so distressed that their lives were to be unprotected? Was it because the distresses of the people exposed them to the artifices of designing demagogues, who would lead them to the commission of every violence, that therefore laws were not to be created to prevent their mischievous purposes? It was true, that the distresses of the people were not to be disregarded, and no man more deeply lamented the existence of those distresses than himself; but he thought a more urgent consideration presented itself to the House, and that was, the importance of adopting measures calculated to repress that spirit of violence by which the peaceable and respectable part of the community was at present threatened. It would, indeed, exhibit an inexcusable absence of that vigilance which the trust reposed in them demanded, if they were to shut their eyes against those scenes which were daily exhibited in the most populous districts of the kingdom. He did not mean to contend, that the bills which had been submitted to the House by his majesty's ministers were of necessity to be adopted; nor did he mean to contend that they did not require due deliberation; on the contrary, he thought it was fit they should be viewed with every prudent caution, and that the talents and the experience of the noble lords by whom he was surrounded should be applied to their improvement, if improvement were necessary, or to their alteration, if alteration were conceived expedient; but he apprehended, that the true course of wisdom would be, to suffer them to take precedence of all other measures, so that an effectual check might be given to those mischiefs, from which there was at present so much reason to anticipate consequences of the most afflicting character Among other causes of alarm, and not the least prominent, were the meetings which were unfortunately so prevalent. He did not think that these meetings could be called the meetings of the people of England. He had too much respect for the people of England as a body, to suppose that they were actuated by similar motives to those which distinguished the generality of these assemblies. He considered them altogether as a wretched Babel, as a set of vagabonds, who met, not to deliberate and to examine into supposed grievances, not to discuss the question of reform, but for the purpose of ascertaining what force they could apply to that atrocious object which they had in view—the subversion of the constitution, and the substitution of those wild and fantastical theories, by the detail of which that House had been so repeatedly disgusted. It would, indeed, be the prostitution of language to characterise such wretches as the people of England—a people who had justly excited the wonder, the admiration, and the envy of the world. To call them the people of England was but a trick—a decoy, for the purpose of alienating the affections of those who were suffering under a temporary distress, from their sovereign, for the purpose of promoting a system of wickedness, fraught with the most terrific consequences to society, and for the purpose of destroying all that happiness which the people of this country were capable of enjoying under the blessings of their glorious constitution. This was the character of the meetings which he had been attempting to describe—meetings which, he would repeat, were calculated, unless suppressed by parliament, to sap the spirit of loyalty, of morality, and of religion, and altogether to subvert our laws and our liberties. Such meetings had justly been described by lord Holt, not as an assault upon parliament, not as an assault upon the state, but as an assault upon the people themselves. Could the liberties of England be said to be supported or promoted by the vagrant licentiousness of such men? Their conduct was, indeed, a libel upon the character of British liberty. The liberty of the subject was most opposite to that which these persons were ambitious to enjoy. He was a warm advocate for the liberty of the subject; but by this what did he mean? He meant the liberty of those who were subject to the laws of their country; of those who were subject to the religion of their country; of those who were subject to moral restraint; of those who were subject to the constitution of the state; of those who were subject to all those principles upon which British liberty, as distinguished from that which, existed in every other part of the world had been pillared and founded; and which if maintained in its purity, must bid defiance to every attack, however violent, but if not, and the radicals were once allowed to lift their heads, radice in tartara tendit. He thought it their lordships duty to proceed with as much despatch as possible to the consideration of the measures which had been proposed by his majesty's ministers; and with great respect to his noble friend he must therefore declare his conviction that the subjects proposed by his noble friend's motion ought not to precede that consideration.

Lord Erskine

said;—My lords, I have listened with great attention to the very; eloquent speech of the noble marquis who has just sat down; and if I could at all agree with him in the facts which he assumes, I should not be disposed to differ from him, either as to the dangers which surround us, or the duty imposed upon the House for the public safety: neither should I differ from lord Holt as to the powers of the magistracy, when the state is in imminent peril, or the peaces dangerously broken. My opinion is that they are amply sufficient, as they have been found for ages; and that if they are defective they ought to be amended. But the difference between us is upon the facts, and not upon the; law; supposing however the proposed bills to be necessary, and necessary without delay, surely the proposal of my noble friend would not at all delay that consideration. The bills might be considered in their ordinary progress, without at all clashing with the important objects to be considered by a select committee which you are called upon by the motion to embrace, and which, on the very first day of the session, ought in another shape to have been our earliest duty.

My lords, I am now an old man, and have been nearly forty years in parliament, yet I declare solemnly that I never felt more unqualified regret for any proceeding in it, than at the rejection of the amendment proposed by my noble friend, and so eloquently pressed upon our attention on the first day of the session. If your lordships had fortunately adopted it, you could have had nothing farther to consider on this painful subject, and would have escaped the double error of rejecting the proposition of the noble marquis to-night, which I cannot but painfully foresee. You would then have had an unanimous parliament; pledged by the address, and not at all touched, but on the contrary con- firmed and strengthened by the wise addition proposed to it; you would have had this unanimous parliament, reprobating all seditious combinations, calling upon both magistrates and people, by the combined authorities of the state, to support the constitution and to maintain public order and tranquillity. In all this, the amendment concurred with the address, and asked nothing more than that the people should hot be condemned unheard, and that Whatever might have been the extent of individual indiscretions or offences, or of a disposition to disturb the government, the offenders might have been withdrawn from dangerous and impracticable courses, by our showing them, that whilst we were bound in duty and firmily resolved to enforce obedience to the laws, even by military force, when: necessity demanded the painful resort to it; yet that we were equally bound, to suffer no excess or abuse of it; equally determined to protect the people, and, sympathising with their sufferings, to exert the whole authority of the state to arrive at the real truth of the blood shed at Manchester, so as to see that the ends of justice should be accomplished. I am convinced, my lords, that if you had pursued this course which my noble friend recommended, you would have done more to tranquillize the country, and to bring back the affections of the disaffected, than all the law you can pass, and all the prosecutions by which you can carry them into execution. I have had many more opportunities of knowing the sentiments and feelings of those who are classed as seditious subjects, than most of your lordships can have had; and it is my unalterable conviction and belief, that a system of alarm, supported by mysterious green bags, and the array of special commissions, followed as they have been, and will be, by convictions not sufficiently numerous to inspire terror, only exasperate evils, the unfortunate existence of which I lament as much as any of your lordships. He must surely be a total stranger to the long-proved characteristic of the British people, to their loyalty, in more recent and perilous times, and, above all to the fortitude and patience with which they are bearing at this moment, unexampled privations, not to be convinced, that even if your inquiry were sure only to confirm the opinions you act upon, and would publicly condemn those you have condemned without hearing, it would exalt your authority, and bring back those who from error only had opposed it. My lords, a systematic indulgence at this moment would place our government as upon a rock, and sedition against it would be trampled under foot. Take my word for it, there is no other course by which affection can be cultivated, and contented obedience secured—tranquillity may be enforced by severity, and turbulence be made silent, but it would be a dangerous silence.

Nevertheless, my lords, I do not wish to go beside the question before the House, nor to deny, that we might have had a very different duty to perform, if we had materials before us to establish that a widely extended conspiracy existed to overthrow the government, that overt acts of rebellion or of dangerous sedition had been committed, and that the proceedings at Manchester, which we have sought as yet in vain to investigate, was a manifest branch of that treasonable combination; but what materials have we to pronounce this judgment? Certainly none at all. That multitudes led by evil minded, but more probably by ignorant persons, have clamoured for unfit, impracticable changes in the constitution I readily admit, and that they have held meetings so absurdly numerous as to render disorder probable and dangerous, and I admit that the meeting at Manchester was one of them, but does the papers laid upon the table which I now hold in my hand bear us out (or any thing like it) in more than I have described; does it warrant us in believing that a treasonable conspiracy was then on foot. His majesty's ministers may have farther information which they may think right at this moment to conceal, and which on their own responsibility, they may give credit to; but your lordships can only act upon the materials before us; and it appears to me very strange how the noble marquis who spoke last can have collected from them the desperate state of the country as he has described it. The Manchester magistrates, even at so late a period before the 16th of August as the 1st of July, tell the secretary of state, "that they cannot state any specific facts on which legal responsibility would attach to any individual,' but they add, "that though they cannot sufficiently applaud the hitherto peaceable demeanor of the lower orders, yet they do not calculate on their remaining unmoved." Are these facts to proceed upon as portending a revolution, more especially as the magistrates immediately afterwards expose the fallacy of their own apprehensions, since the Birmingham meeting went off to their "perfect satisfaction," as they themselves express it, "breaking up before? o'clock without any breach of the peace;" and they say, that "women and children were a great proportion of the crowd." The meeting at Hunslet moor was also equally quiet; and when the one advertised for the 9th of August, which afterwards took place on the 16th, was declared to be illegal by the magistrates, they gave it up, and it did not take place. These are all the public meetings, or other acts that are mentioned in the papers on the table, showing undoubtedly tumultuous assemblies which ought to be suppressed, but reflecting great blame on the magistrates for not using the powers already vested in them by law, for their safer and earlier dispersion. On the part of the multitude there appeared no disposition to a forcible resistance. On the contrary, as I have just observed, when they were informed by the magistrates, that the meeting projected to be held on the 9th of August would be illegal, it was abandoned. This was known to the Manchester magistrates, who had also full knowledge of the meetings held at Birmingham and other places, and who had themselves prohibited the meeting on the 9th of August with effect. Why then, I ask, did they not take the same steps, or stronger ones if necessary, to prevent the one in question from taking place, though they saw it publicly advertised; and having failed in that salutary precaution, why did they not, when they saw numerous and concentrating masses of people advancing from different quarters to form a junction on the margin of so populous a city as Manchester, why did they not station a numerous body of peace officers and constables, supported by the yeomanry or other troops at their command, at the mouths of the different avenues through which this junction was to be formed, before an assemblage could take place which they considered to be so dangerous to the public peace? What possible excuse can be made for this omission? They cannot say, that they thought the powers vested in them by law were insufficient for that useful purpose. Their subsequent conduct, on the very same day, when they authorised all the violences which were committed, sufficiently prove that they had no idea of any such defect in their authority, when without necessity they so notoriously overstepped it, yet now contend that they did not. Surely the Riot act itself was a sufficient authority safely to have effected the dispersion of an assembly which their own negligence had swelled to such an amount.

I distinctly admit, that when overt acts of felony or destructive mischief are committed, every man is a magistrate, and may repel force by force; but no overt act of felony or mischief had been committed or threatened when the yeomanry were directed to rush upon this defenceless multitude, with women and children in their path. But even supposing that so much danger was apprehended by their not dispersing within the period appointed by the statute, why, as has happened in many instances in London—why did they not advance upon the people firmly but slowly, and push them back? What colour or excuse for sabring right and left this unarmed multitude? Is this the law, my lords? [Here lord Erskine quoted a passage from lord Holt.]—The statute only declared them felons, if an hour had elapsed; and they were then only subject to indictments, but not to be cut down as in rebellion or battle, unless such acts were committed as to take the case out of the Riot act, and out of all other laws and statutes, when property and even life are to be defended and secured. But no such case appears from the papers before us, whilst the agitation of the public mind upon a transaction so visible and public, made known to us by petitions from so many quarters, affords a strong presumption of an invasion of public liberty, which it is the duty of parliament to resist and to punish. Your lordships must forgive me for not immediately taking for granted the truth of every thing collected together and laid upon the table of this House. In the year 1794, your lordships prepared and published a report which declared, that a conspiracy of a far different and more perilous description, was on foot;—no less than the formation of a traitorous convention to overthrow the government; and the same proceeding took place in the House of Commons also. I make no question that parliament gave full credit to the facts which it so report- ed and made public. It is not my practice to impute to others what I should be ashamed to do myself. Yet, what was the result when the prisoners accused of all this, were arraigned and brought to trial? Nothing more than that many seditious libels had been written and circulated, and many misdemeanors had been committed by people for the most part strangers to one another; but no traitorous conspiracy was found to have been either formed or contemplated.

Compare, however, my lords, the evidence so collected and reported by the two Houses of Parliament with the papers now before the House. The last, my lords, could not be gravely opened at the Old Bailey to convict any individual for more than perhaps having been present at an assembly, arguable to be illegal.—What evidence have we here to support the charge of a traitorous conspiracy—or, properly speaking, of any act whatsoever? Only the affidavits of A. B. C. and others their companions. I have not been accustomed to deal with those alphabetical witnesses, though I am obliged to confess that when I came to O. P. I thought that there must have been a riot. But to speak gravely, I do not find fault that names do not in general appear to these informations—the reason for which is fair and obvious, and I have no doubt that they are the declarations or oaths of individuals who, for any thing I know to the contrary, may be worthy of credit; but I have no way of cross-examining the letters in a spelling-book; I must see wit-nesses face to face before I can pronounce upon any facts that they depose; and that appears to be an additional ground for granting an inquiry into the whole matter which may be made the foundation hereafter of important changes in the laws. But, taking the papers as they are, without any such objections, what do they contain beyond the very imprudent and improper collections for any purpose however legal, so manifestly dangerous to the public peace. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Nadin, whose names are subscribed to their depositions, inform us, that when they came to examine those formidable trainers as to the objects they had in view, they answer-ed that they were practising so as to be able to march with the band at the Manchester meeting, and upon the whole evidence this appears to have been the truth. Was it a crime, then, to appear to, have an ear for music, and to keep the step?

It is true that numbers—greatly increasing as the public burthens have accumulated, have maintained and still contend for universal suffrage, as a vested right which I hold to be absurdly preposterous; but what then? It is no kind of evidence that they are traitors, or rogues, or vagabonds. Was the duke of Richmond a traitor, who may be said to have been the author and the strenuous advocate for this system? Was Mr. Pitt a traitor, who so nobly distinguished himself in that cause? [lord Sidmouth said across the House, that Mr. Pitt had never supported universal suffrage] Lord E. said, I dare say not; my noble friend must better know it; but he acted with and was supported by those who then were friends to the most extended representation.—Was Mr. Sheridan also a traitor; Mr. Sheridan the invaluable supporter of government in the most awfully trying times?—Is it fair in short to consider every tumultuous meeting in support of any kind of reform as proof of a traitorous disposition? It is to overt acts, and not to opinions we must look, when criminal charges are to be made. There were no such overt acts upon the 16th of August, and nothing can be more affecting than the sufferings of many who, from mere curiosity, were present; yet no regret for this was to be found in the speech from the throne.—I am aware that your lordships sitting here in parliament can only consider the Prince Regent in his public capacity, and I may perhaps therefore be out of order in expressing feelings which regard him as a private man; but, having been in his Royal Highness's service from the beginning of my public life, and under many personal obligations, I cannot but be much affected by any thing which personally concerns his honour and reputation. Why then, my lords, did not his majesty's ministers, even supposing them to have been justified, which I deny, in sanctioning the acts of the Manchester magistrates in the Prince Regent's name, why did not they in the speech to be delivered from the throne, introduce the strongest expressions of sorrow for the melancholy sufferings which unquestionably had taken place, from whatever cause they proceeded.—The higher orders undoubtedly well know, who are acquainted with the forms of parliament, that the Prince Regent's speech no more proceeds from himself than from the porter at Carlton-house; but the lower orders do not know this, and it is noto- rious that many injurious remarks have proceeded from this omission, and that his Royal Highness may thereby have appeared to the multitude as dead to those humane and good natured feelings which have been his Royal Highness's characteristic when occasions have called them forth.

To conclude, my lords, I lament that new laws are to be enacted, when, if all the facts were before your lordships, it would appear that not only the existing ones are sufficient, but that their authorities have been wantonly exceeded and abused, whilst, at the same moment, they are unaccountably suffered to sleep when they most ought to be exerted.—I have seen within a few days, not only in the shops of booksellers, but in others of all descriptions, a placard announcing for sale the Mock Trial of Mr. Carlisle, and in large letters, "Infamous Conduct of the Judge," whose lenity was carried throughout the trial to the utmost limits of indulgence.—Surely, my lords, libels of this description should not pass unpunished; yet they are suffered to corrupt the public mind with impunity, whilst you are about to pass new statutes, instead of carrying those you have into execution. It is this negligence which is the parent of offences. Execute the existing laws with promptitude and vigour, and it will be quite unnecessary to enact transportation for a libel—a punishment unknown to the constitution.

The impolicy of imposing new restrictions on public liberty we shall very shortly, I fear, have but too many opportunities to consider, and I shall therefore pass it by for the present. I shall content myself with only saying, that they never can restore confidence, nor willing obedience to government—confide yourselves in the people, and all murmurs and discontent will be at an end. For my own part, whilst I have life and strength, to raise my voice, I will continue to protest against them here, and every where; I will not repeat with the same oath what I said in the House of Commons when similar restrictions were in agitation, but I will say firmly, that I was born a freeman and will not die a slave.

Lord Grenville

rose, and spoke to the following effect:^*—

My Lords

;—The admission with which ^* From the Original Edition printed for John Murray, Albemarle-street. my noble friend who opened the present question; commenced his temperate and able speech, relieves those who may follow him in this debate from all necessity of expatiating on the painful circumstances of our present danger. He sees and acknowledges its existence; he is deeply sensible both of its magnitude and its urgency; and the glowing colours in which he has represented our present situation, must have made the strongest impression on the minds of all your lordships. For myself, unquestionably, need not say what is my own conviction on this subject. Often has it been my painful duty to express, in this House, the continued and increasing anxiety with which I have regarded the attacks unceasingly directed against the whole frame and fabric of our government. Often have I laboured and laboured ineffectually, to impress these feelings on the minds of others. My apprehensions have been considered as visionary, originating much more in a fond and solicitous attachment to the interests which I conceived to be endangered, than in any just view of the actual condition, or future prospects, of my country. And would to Heaven that it were so! Joyful indeed would this hour have been to me, if I could now rise and confess my error; if I could say to those from whom it has been my misfortune to differ on these questions, "My apprehensions were vain; your security was well grounded."

The reverse unhappily is true. During a large portion of a long public life, now closed, I have watched the destructive tendency of these revolutionary projects.—I have marked their unremitted activity,—their growing confidence,—their extended influence,—their fast advancing progress. But the evil has outrun my apprehensions. Never, at any former period, has it presented so fierce and menacing an aspect; never yet has it so imperiously required, from the wisdom and firmness of my country, the most immediate, vigorous, and determined resistance.

It is this persuasion which alone induces me; it is this which irresistibly compels me, contrary to all my expectations and all my wishes, once more to solicit your indulgence in the discharge of duties which I thought had been for ever closed.

Let me, then, in the outset of these deliberations, entreat your lordships con- tinually to bear in mind that the mischief against which we are now called upon to defend our country, is not merely of the present day; no, nor of the present year. Its true origin must be traced much farther back,—its real causes must be sought much deeper,—its remedies must be applied with a foresight and policy extending far beyond that presure of temporary distress to which alone my noble friend is willing to ascribe it. Even in the course of this debate, your recollection has been called to those measures which, in the year 1795, now nearly five-and-twenty years ago, it had already become necessary to adopt for the defence of our laws and government. And it was then that Mr. Burke declared, and he has consigned the sentiment to posterity in his immortal writings, that the grounds of that necessity did not originate among us even with the French Revolution, although that terrible convulsion of the world did, undoubtedly call them forth, increase them, and give fresh vigour to their operation.

In what manner your security was then provided for, and how it was maintained during the long and arduous contest which ensued, I will not now detain you by examining. We all remember, that from the happy restoration of peace increased confidence was felt, increased assurance drawn by many, for the permanent and undisturbed continuance of our domestic tranquillity. From that. very date the mischief has on the contrary been constantly increasing. Every successive period, down even to the moment in which I now address you, has brought us only fresh menace, augmented violence, more open and more ostentatious defiance of the public authority in all its branches. And I now call with earnestness on all who hear me, to reflect, how rarely the history of any country has exhibited so rapid a progress of such a danger within so short a time!

Unquestionably, when such designs are entertained, and such projects are pursued, the distress of any part of our population must always give great opportunity and advantage to the promoters of sedition. It is the most powerful engine by which they can operate; the stimulant, by which they inflame the passions of the ignorant, and drive their deluded victims on to acts of desperation, which, instead of alleviating, can serve only to aggravate, and to prolong their difficulties. But occurrences like these are the instruments, not the causes of the mischief. Much of this evil exists where these distresses have had comparatively little operation. Many are most forward in the sedition whom the pressure has least affected; while those on whom it has most severely borne, have, in many cases, conducted themselves with exemplary patience and resolution, untainted by this pernicious contagion, obedient to the laws, and inviolably attached to those institutions which have so long been the glory and happiness of Englishmen.

If then it were possible, by any measures within the reach of human legislation, to alleviate their difficulties; if, by any operation of law or government, we could hope to mitigate the present distresses of our manufacturing population, most readily would I enter on the discussion of any such proposal, and most earnestly, I am sure, would it be pursued by parliament. We all deplore, in common, these melancholy effects of causes which we cannot control; we deeply sympathize in the afflictions of our fellow-subjects; and not our interests and and policy alone, but every higher feeling which animates the heart of man, would lead us to embrace with joy, and to follow up with perseverance, the remotest expectation of contributing to their relief. Even those general principles of legislation to which we are most bound to adhere, because by them the permanent prosperity of the whole community is best promoted; even these, I would consent, on such an occasion, to disregard for a time; could I be persuaded, that in that course an effective and adequate remedy could be found against the present pressure.

But my noble friend, in the very act of proposing such an inquiry, has but too well enabled us to judge how little real benefit we can derive from its result. He felt too justly what belongs to his high rank, and still higher station, in this country; he followed too closely the dictates of his own exalted and honourable mind, to countenance those vague and groundless insinuations, which, not in-deed within these walls, but in popular assemblies, and in seditious publications, have been profusely poured out against the British legislature. He condescends not so to delude the multitude. He imputes not to parliament the blame of events which are beyond the control of man; nor does he charge upon his political opponents the neglect of a duty, which he well knows that no government, and no legislature, could possibly perform. He has stated, on the contrary, in the language, and with the science, of a statesman, the true causes in which he considers the pressure to have originated; causes far removed from affording the smallest grounds for any such imputation. And he has, with no less candour than ability, distinctly enumerated the only measures to which, in his judgment, this House could even now resort, with any hope of rendering our interposition honourable to ourselves, and beneficial to our country.

Through these details I will endeavour shortly to follow him. The interest of the subject will apologize for what may be tedious in the discussion.

With respect, then, to the origin of the present distress, we must, no doubt, in some degree, ascribe it to temporary causes of depression, to which so complicated a system of commerce and manufacture must always be liable. The products of our industry cannot be so exactly calculated as never to exceed the demand for them; nor do the markets themselves remain unaltered. Fashions vary, other productions enter into successful competition with ours, and the occasional distresses of foreign nations lessen their powers of purchase and consumption. It is then that the necessity of transferring capital and labour to more profitable employment becomes urgent and difficult. Hazardous and groundless speculations are made; and even the most skilful commercial enterprises are affected by disappointments and embarrassments, to the production of which they have in no degree contributed.

But in any more permanent view of our present situation, nearly all, I think, that my noble friend has stated, and certainly all that I should venture to press upon your attention, may be referred to the operation of one general and leading principle of political economy. In peace, and under the happy influence of domestic tranquillity, the capital of every civilized community, especially if permitted to find for itself its most profitable employment, tends naturally to increase in a more rapid proportion than the population; and the effect of this its augmented and growing preponderance, is felt in the correspondent increase of all which constitutes national prosperity. But it operates most immediately, and visibly, to the benefit of the lower classes of society. It is by the application of capital alone that any employment is ever found for their industry; by augmented capital, additional employment is provided; and hence again arises a new and growing demand for labour, and a continually progressive improvement in the reward and the condition of the labourer.

The tendency of war is, in all respects, opposite to this; especially of such a war as that which this country, in common with every other European state, has recently and unavoidably been compelled to sustain. In war, large amounts of capital are continually and utterly destroyed. Much is also diverted to channels of employment, wholly or comparatively, unproductive; from whence, on the return of peace, it cannot again be transferred into its natural course, without much difficulty, delay, and loss.

It is therefore, to a long continuance of this great calamity, that we must ascribe our present distress, and that of so many other nations, who unhappily share it with us. The implacable hostility, the inordinate and insatiable ambition of the successive revolutionary governments of France, are the true causes which have extended this, with so many other incalculable evils, to every quarter of the globe. Hence arose the call for exertions unexampled in duration and extent; the sacrifices required indispensably for national independence; and the necessity of those united efforts, by the unparalleled magnitude of which, alone the contest could have been successfully, or safely terminated. Who can doubt how much all these causes, aided also in this, and in other countries, by the unhappy error of an excessive and forced paper currency, must, in a long course of more than twenty years, have contributed to arrest the natural increase of capital, and perhaps, in some of the last of those years, to effect an actual diminution of it? But the population of our own country, instead of experiencing any correspondent diminution, has, on the contrary, during this whole period, been continually and greatly augmented. The result, probably, not only of our insular situation, and comparative exemption from the direct calamities of war, but also of the artificial and improvident system of our poor laws, established more than two centuries ago! But whatever be the cause, the fact is certain. The proportion which before existed, between our capital and our population, has been essentially varied. And the conclusion follows irresistibly. No art, no wisdom, no power of man, can make our diminished capital equally productive as before of employment and subsistence for our augmented numbers.

Where, then, shall we look for the remedy? There only, where it is placed by Providence, in the admirable disposition of moral as well as of natural causes. To the flow of the flame tide which has already ceased to ebb; to those altered circumstances which now again operate in a favourable direction; to that returning and rapid accumulation of capital, which reason and experience teach us again to expect; when the science, and enterprise, and Industry of a great and enlightened nation are protected in peace, and secured in domestic tranquillity.

In addition, however, to this firm and sure hope of progressive improvement, there are three measures, or rather subjects of inquiry, which my noble friend suggests for the examination of a select committee of this House, with a view to more immediate and present relief. As brought forward fey him, they are entitled to our respectful attention; they would animate all our exertions if they held out any just expectation of promoting the purpose for which he proposes them.

But the first of them he does not him-self recommend to your adoption, unless you entertained a hope, which neither he feels, nor can you venture to encourage. If you believed that this pressure was the effect only of some sudden and transient calamity, and likely, therefore, to be very Speedily removed, you might, he thinks, be inclined to discuss the question of giving temporary aid to the sufferers, by grants drawn from the national credit, or national finance. And, undoubtedly, there have been cases of that description, where our feelings, prevailing perhaps over our better judgment, or at least overruling our general principles of legislation, have induced us so to act. But to those examples, our actual condition bears no resemblance, either in the nature or in the causes of the pressure, in its present extent, or in its probable duration. Nor must we forget what has been, even in those less objectionable cases, the true operation of such interference. Arrangements of this description, however plausi- ble and popular, make no real addition to the wealth of the nation; they furnish, therefore, no new means of employment for its industry. Capital is not created by them, but transferred. It is for the most part diverted from that channel, in which it furnishes profitable employment to one portion of our people, and forced into another course, in which the labour which it sets in motion, is avowedly less productive to its employer, and consequently less beneficial to the community.

Touching, therefore, but lightly on this suggestion, on which he himself manifestly places no reliance, my noble friend passed to his two other more general subjects of investigation; both of them, undoubtedly, well entitled to the fullest consideration of parliament, but both, as it seems to me, extending very far beyond those bounds, which could be embraced by the labours of a select committee.

The first of these includes the whole wide circle of our finance. He would examine, whether the means could not be found of levying a revenue equal to that by which we now provide for the public faith and public safety, but collecting this amount in some mode of less unpopular or less burthensome taxation. An inquiry of almost infinite detail! To be entered upon, not in the gross, but with a careful and scrutinizing survey of each particular change which may be recommended: and even in this course, the only one in which it can be usefully pursued, leading us almost immediately to the most intricate and complicated combinations! In the present state of a revenue, composed of so many various branches, mutually bearing upon each other in almost innumerable relations, what questions of greater difficulty, of wider compass, and more hazardous decision, can be proposed to any statesman? There might, for example, taking the very instance which my noble friend alleges; there might be reason to believe, that by a diminution of duty, and a consequent increase of consumption, foreign wines might be made to yield their present amount of revenue at a lower rate of taxation. I think it probably would be so. But, for practical purposes, the inquiry must not stop here. Before this measure could safely be adopted, its operation must be deeply considered with reference to the other weighty considerations which it involves, both of commerce and of revenue. We must ascertain, if indeed it be possible to ascertain before-hand, in what manner, and to what degree, the increased use of foreign wines which we should thus promote, would affect the production and sale of the many other articles of analogous consumption, which are so important to our trade and to our agriculture, and from every one of which so large a revenue is derived.

It is far from my purpose to discourage the due examination of any such projects. The attention both of government and of parliament would be well directed to them; and never would I dissuade you from the task. But it is necessary, on this occasion, and with reference to the motion which we are now considering, to remind you of its great extent and difficulty; of the impossibility of pursuing it usefully through the inquiries of a select committee; and above all, of the utter hopelessness of looking to it for any present or sensible effect in relieving distress, or appeasing discontent.

The same remarks apply, but still more forcibly, to a similar examination with which it is proposed that this select committee should be charged, as to the whole system of our commercial legislation, susceptible, undoubtedly, of great improvement. On that subject my noble friend and I are, as I believe, fully agreed in principle. We both consider that policy as erroneous, which purports to encourage domestic industry by the prohibition of foreign commodities. We both believe that such devices, instead of promoting, have obstructed our commercial prosperity, exactly in proportion as they limit the free, and therefore most profitable, employment of capital. We are both persuaded that, besides this general mischief, these regulations directly counteract their own purpose, by narrowing the only means which the foreign merchant has both of purchase and of return; and by thus closing the market of the world against those very manufactures, whose prosperity we are labouring to advance. I will add, that in the particular case which he instanced, that of the discouragements now opposed to the import of timber from the Baltic, I am myself as much satisfied of their impolicy as it is possible to be without minute and detailed inquiry. Other errors of a similar description might, I fear, very easily be pointed out. But every session offers the opportunity of bringing these, distinctly and separately, under the view of parliament; and they would be thus much more safely, because much more deliberately, corrected, than by any general inquiries instituted in the form now proposed, and with reference to the urgency of present distress.

For in truth there can scarcely be any subject on which deliberation is more necessary, or where greater dangers would result from inconsiderate haste. Our prohibitory code in this respect closely resembles the system of our poor laws. Both are, as it is now generally acknowledged, prejudicial to the public welfare, though the latter no doubt is by far the most injurious to our labouring population. But both are of very long standing in our Statute book; closely interwoven with all our interests, deeply grafted into our system, both of commerce and of agriculture, and in our actual condition inseparably connected even with the subsistence of a very great proportion of our people. They are both therefore to be approached only with the utmost solicitude and caution; to be touched only with the most delicate and tender hand. The same enlightened policy which now condemns their principle, the same juster views of benevolence and patriotism which have taught us to regret their establishment, teach us also that in a state of our society which they have mainly contributed to make what it now is, there can be no safety in their removal, otherwise than by a long succession of temperate and well-considered measures, uniformly, but slowly, directed to the ultimate object of a better legislation.

It is obvious, therefore, that from this source nothing is to be drawn by which present distress can be alleviated. Gradual improvement may be made, and future benefit derived. But sudden and extensive changes in our commercial code would always be dangerous, and might in the present moment lead us to destruction. They would infallibly increase the existing pressure, they might possibly aggravate it almost beyond endurance.

And let me farther remind your lordships with respect to both these proposed investigations, that their inconvenience and hazard arise not merely from the extent which they embrace, or the results to which they might possibly lead, but also from the very nature of the subjects which they propose for discussion. I am far from agreeing in the opinion which has been stated to us, that these inquiries, even if unproductive of any practical good, would still produce conciliatory and tranquillizing impressions. From such a disappointment of hopes so raised, I should fear a directly contrary effect. I know of no policy more injurious, none more dangerous to the public peace, than that of exciting, in moments of pressure, expectations which we cannot realize.

But much more is such an experiment to be deprecated, when the very questions which it involves are such as cannot even be proposed, without exciting to mutual opposition and contest many and powerful conflicting interests. We are arrived, I trust, at the end of the painful duty of taxation. If its burthen can be alleviated without affecting its produce, happy will those be to whose lot it may fall to confer so great a benefit upon their country. But without the certainty of this result let us not tamper with the revenue, nor trifle with the feelings of those who contribute to it. Unless the advantage of change be indisputable, the very proposal of change is in itself injurious.

As to our commerce, we have now the opportunity of considering, under the happy auspices of peace, how it maybe most certainly, and most beneficially, extended. The removal of prohibitions, and the reduction of prohibitory duties, on foreign produce and manufactures, are pointed out by my noble friend as the best measures for that purpose. They unquestionably are so, and they are the fittest to be gradually adopted. But let us not forget that they are also, however unjustly, the most repugnant to the prejudices of every people; and the most likely to irritate and to inflame, instead of appeasing, the discontents of those classes of our own population whose present sufferings we lament, and whose feelings we are solicitous to sooth and to conciliate, by every practicable measure by which real kindness can best be manifested.

I pass then to the second part of my noble friend's motion, that which more directly relates to the internal situation of our country, and to the threatened interruption of its domestic tranquillity. On many parts of this subject, we are all agreed. If, by whatever means, either of previous preparation, or present distress, evil-minded men are endeavouring to plunge us into the unmeasurable calamities of civil discord, our duties cannot be doubtful. To our sovereign, and to our country, to the British nation, and to the whole civilized world, we are answerable for the preservation and maintenance of our religion and morals, of our laws and government. To our peaceable and loyal fellow-subjects, we owe the defence and security of their rights, properties and lives. To the deluded victims of these machinations, we have also a duty to discharge; a duty of protection and kindness. We owe it to them, and it is the greatest of all benefits which can be conferred upon them, to rescue them, if it be still possible, from the seduction and treachery by which they are beset; and to remove from their paths and dwellings, the snares unceasingly laid for their destruction. This is the office of their true friends; their bitterest enemies are those who are labouring to inflame their sufferings into disaffection and treason.

To the execution of these great and awful trusts, let us then apply ourselves with diligence and resolution: neither disguising from ourselves the real extent of the evil, nor shrinking from the remedies, unpleasing as they may be, which it must unavoidably require. Our danger is no longer to be searched for in hidden consultations or secret conspiracies. It courts our notice, it obtrudes itself on our attention. We are daily assailed with undisguised menace, and are little removed from the immediate expectation of open violence. Let us, then, attentively review the steps which have brought us to this situation. Observe their beginnings, consider well their rapidly accelerated progress. You will find them in near conformity to all that led to the subversion and misery of France. A close and striking resemblance, a servile, yet ostentatious imitation, which it is of the utmost importance that we should forcibly impress upon our minds! If such a parallel were found, even in the remotest history, yet, of the remotest history what better use could we make, than to draw from it whatever conclusions it affords of policy or wisdom, applicable to our own condition? Shall we, on the contrary, now in the hour of our own peril, strive to banish from our thoughts and counsels all memory of this recent and forcible example! We, the nearest spectators of that dreadful convulsion, our minds still shuddering at its crimes, our hearts still bleeding at its miseries, shall we turn aside from the painful but instructive lesson, and in wilful blindness close our eyes against the prophetic mirror which exhibits to ourselves, of the progress of the same machinations, the fearful advance of the same destruction? No, my lords, let not the warning voice have been heard in vain! We have shared deeply in that widely extended calamity; the bitter draught which France prepared for herself, has overflowed into our cup. Let us at least derive from it the benefits of an experience so dearly purchased! Observe what were the beginnings of that great catastrophe; follow up its progress; mark by what course it reached its terrible consummation; trace it through subversion and ruin, through plunder and confiscation, through slaughter and massacre, till all was swallowed up in military despotism!

What first occurred? The whole nation was inundated with inflammatory and poisonous publications. Its very soil was deluged with sedition and blasphemy. No effort was omitted of base and disgusting mockery, of sordid and unblushing calumny, which could vilify and degrade whatever that people had been most accustomed to love and venerate. No artifice, no incitement, was left untried, which could stimulate the deluded multitude to the most savage acts of insult and outrage, of violence and fury, against the ministers of their religion, and the dispensers of their government and law; against all who were eminent for birth or rank, for talent or for virtue, and against those most especially who had been most distinguished as their kindest friends, protectors, and benefactors!

Who is there that is not struck with the resemblance of this picture? Who can be ignorant how closely this detestable and malignant wickedness has been imitated in our own country, how long it has been pursued, and to what a height it has now attained? You heard the papers read to you this night by my noble friend, and you shuddered at the recital. Exhortations to murder and treason, from which the heart recoils and the blood turns back to its fountain! If these were only a few and extraordinary instances, exceptions to the, general character of the publications daily obtruded on all the lower classes of your community, yet against these, no doubt, you would call down the vengeance of the law, against these the arm of justice would be directed with universal concurrence and approbation. But it is from a torrent and deluge of such mischief that you are now called upon to protect your country. The poison has been profusely scattered throughout the land: it has pervaded not only your towns and manufactories, but your peaceful villages and farms. Its malignity is hourly increasing, and fresh activity is employed in its diffusion. This, my lords, is the true root and source of all your danger; against this, no social institutions can possibly maintain themselves; it is incompatible with all peace, all security, all public, and all private happiness. It is of power, and it openly boasts itself to be of power, to overthrow all that is now standing in this country; and to level in the dust all your prosperity, and all your glory, involved in one common ruin with the magnificent and splendid fabric of the noblest government which has ever yet provided for the welfare of any society.

In this unbounded licentiousness of an inflammatory press, pointing continually the poisoned weapons of sedition and blasphemy against all that constitutes human happiness in present possession, or in future hope, shall we content ourselves with asking, as my noble friend has done, why the voice of the law has been silent, and the terrors of its arm unnerved? We must now, indeed, all regret the too sparing exercise of powers, which our ancestors had, with more provident wisdom, interwoven into our constitution; we must lament the too reluctant discharge of duties, of which no discouragement could ever justify the dereliction. But we must also confess, that this forbearance is of no recent date. Indulgent as your laws have been, in all that affects this subject, their execution has, for a long time back, been yet more tolerant, even of acknowledged wrong. And happy is that condition of society, in which the mildest laws may, without injury to the public interests, be still more mildly administered! This had been our fortunate situation; and this, in consequence, had been our practice. May both speedily return to us! Soon may we again be enabled to boast, as Englishmen, not only of the unexampled freedom of our press, but also of its comparative exemption from those enormous evils to which such freedom great as are its benefits, does, in its abuse, open so wide a field. But such, unhappily, is not our present state. We feel, too sensibly, its altered character. I speak it with the deepest affliction; lamenting the change which I have witnessed, and deploring the necessity to which it leads. But we must not forget, that it is to the actual condition and exigencies of every society, that its legislation must conform itself, and that when new evil arises, it must be met by new remedies.

When this current of mischief, uncontrolled, and bearing down before it every barrier of public authority or law, had thus far succeeded to sap the foundations of civil society, what next ensued? The next step has been the same here as in the French Revolution. The formation of local societies, clubs and unions, of various description, sedulously contrived and organized, for the diffusion of these impious and destructive doctrines, by frequent and familiar intercourse, and for the establishment of an extensive concert and cooperation in the prosecution of the only practical results to which such principles can lead.

And when at last, by the unremitted effect of all this seduction, considerable portions of the multitude had been deeply tainted, their minds prepared for acts of desperation, and familiarized with the thought of crimes, at the bare mention of which they would before have revolted, then it was that they were encouraged to to collect together in large and tumultuous bodies;—then it was that they were invited to feel their own strength; to estimate and to display their numerical force; and to manifest, in the face of day, their inveterate hostility to all the institutions of their country, and their open defiance of all its authorities.

The question therefore on which we are now compelled to deliberate is nothing less than this, whether parliament shall continue to disregard this fast accumulating panger, conscious of its progress, and certain of its inevitable tendency; or shall oppose to it a vigorous and effectual resistance, before it reaches the gates of the sanctuary, and shakes the pillars of the commonwealth?

If, indeed, this resistance be not now made, one other period only of resistance can remain; that in which the evil shall have reached its last stage, shall have assumed its last hideous form of open insurrection and declared rebellion. Then, indeed, it will be resisted, and I have no doubt effectually. The British nation is not of a character to suffer its government to be overwhelmed by a tumultuous populace, by whatever artifices excited against it. The great and enlightened body of the inhabitants of this country, the people of England, truly so called, will never submit themselves to see, by the effect of such machinations, their laws subverted, their property confiscated, and their lives made the sport and prey of some ferocious and sanguinary demagogue. But to meet and to subdue the danger, if once suffered to assume this shape, force must be opposed to force. Recourse must unavoidably be had to those means of repression and defence at the thought of which every British heart bleeds. I will not dwell upon them; the task would be too painful. Sure I am that the bare imagination of such a contest, aye, and the very circumstances with which success itself must be attended, will be the strongest of all inducements to urge and to compel your lordships, by provident and timely interposition, to avert that dreadful, but otherwise inevitable necessity.

The resistance which you may now make is of a very different character; resistance by law; by the authority of the legislature; by the intervention of the civil government. Can it be doubtful which we should prefer?—But the crisis is arrived in which this option must finally be made; the decision must now be taken and must now be acted upon. If it be still postponed, the choice may probably no longer rest with ourselves. And yet, placed as we are in such circumstances as these, deliberating on the exigencies of such a moment, in what manner is it that we are advised to commence our measures for the repression of those enormities which threaten to involve us in civil bloodshed? By suspicion and distrust, directed not against the authors of the mischief, but against those by whom it has been hitherto successfully, though imperfectly counteracted: by inquiries into the conduct of our magistrates, and of those who have supported them in the discharge of their painful duties. Shall we accede to this proposal? Do we wish to debilitate all our efforts; to cast away from us our readiest and surest resources; to undermine the best bulwarks of our defence; and to shake to its foundations all hope of mutual confidence, and united exertion? If such were our desire, most powerfully would this course contribute to its accomplishment. My noble friend, I am certain, has no such wish: far, very far, is it from his intention to produce so great an evil. I am well assured of it. But I am not the less convinced that such would be the unfailing consequence of your adopting this suggestion.

For I entreat your lordships to ask yourselves, what has been the real character, and what the immediate object of these tumultuary assemblies, to which the present motion refers, and against which your magistrates have finally been compelled to exert the full extent of their constitutional authority. Examine them in all their circumstances; mark their previous preparation, and their actual conduct; the emblems displayed, the language held, the resolutions adopted: and let it then be explained, if any such explanation can be given, for what other purpose such proceedings were intended, but for menace and intimidation,—the most powerful of all revolutionary engines, the very instruments by which in France all religion, law, and government, were levelled to the earth! To strike terror into the peaceable and well-affected; to deter them from supporting the public authorities in the hour of danger; to alarm and to dispirit those authorities themselves, and to drive them, if it were possible, to a desertion of their highest duties:—Such, and such alone, were the consequences naturally to be expected by those with whom these projects originated; and such, we are informed by the papers on our table, are the effects which have already, in some degree, been actually produced.

Hence it is that we cannot hesitate to pronounce, as far as our, present information of these facts extends, that, not only the meeting which was dispersed at Manchester, but many other similar meetings, held both before and after that event, have been decidedly illegal. Doctrines, new to my ears, have indeed been recently promulgated on this subject. The notion, wild as it is, seems actually to have prevailed in some quarters, that no assembly of any part of the people of this realm can be deemed illegal, be they armed or unarmed, arrayed or unarrayed, from whatever quarters collected, in whatever numbers, or under whatever previous or attendant circumstances; unless the fact of present violence, or, at least, the intention of present violence, can be proved against them. I have no pretensions to deep skill in the science of our law; but directly opposite is this doctrine to all which I either learnt in my youth, or have at any time since collected, either from books, or from living authorities; utterly repugnant to any lights which our own experience or history afford, and in manifest contradiction to the plainest principles, by which all civil societies are connected and up- held. I have been taught that, independently of actual or meditated violence, every sort of menace, intimidation, and array of force, are in themselves abundantly sufficient to stamp on such proceedings the plainest characters of illegality. Every assembly held in terrorem populi, the English law, as I have always been instructed, does in express terms declare to be unlawful. No such menace, no such intimidation, no such array, have ever yet been tolerated under the British government. And it is among the first elements of all political science, that men combine in civil society, to obtain for themselves and for their families, not only the safe enjoyment of life, and properly, and peaceful occupation, but also the full and undisturbed confidence and assurance of that safety. Banish this principle from the British constitution, establish the contrary doctrine, if any one can now be found to maintain it, and your government must thenceforth, in self-defence, assume an attitude purely military, armed in never-ceasing preparation to meet a danger perpetually arrayed against it; while your people must for the same cause, revert to the condition of savages, relying for personal security, not on the warranty of law, and the protection of a common government, but on the exertions of individual strength, or on the separate support of partial associations.

If then so many of these meetings must thus, in reason and in law, be regarded as illegal, my noble friend asks, and it is one of the first objects of his proposed inquiry, whence it arose that one alone amongst them all has been dispersed by public authority? The law he thinks should have been more equally, more uniformly, administered. On fuller consideration, he will perhaps himself be sensible, that an exact similarity and correspondence of practice on this subject is neither necessary, nor easily attainable. The interference of the magistrate with any such assembly, must always be in some degree discretionary. No two of these cases can be exactly similar; and were they so, the mere differences of place and time would still essentially distinguish them. Much, therefore, must unavoidably be left to the judgment of those who are intrusted with the public peace. And we must all feel, were it only from what we have heard this night, how painful is the responsibility which these cases sometimes impose upon them. The question is to be determined respecting each particular assembly, whether there be just cause of apprehension to men of firm and constant minds, that the public tranquillity will be disturbed, or the safety of the king's peaceful subject's endangered: a question in some of these cases abundantly clear, in others perhaps of nicer and more difficult decision. It admits of no fixed line of demarcation, no rule, no definition previously laid down. The principle is the same as in the case of an individual, who claims the protection of the law, against apprehended or threatened violence. The magistrate has there no book which he can take down from his shelf, to draw from it an unerring rule of conduct. He cannot say to the complainant, here is the precise boundary of the law: if these words were used, I can interpose in your defence; but if the same meaning was differently expressed, I have no such power. If your adversary raised his arm thus high, it was a menace, but if one inch lower, it was none: if a dagger was pointed at your breast, the law will protect you; but if it was only a clasp-knife, you must defend yourself. Our law deals in no such subtleties. The general and broad principle is unequivocally laid down: actual safety and full assurance of safety, are alike the right of all; the right of the individual, and the right of the public. It is for magistrates, and courts, and juries, to apply this universal rule to the infinitely-varying circumstances of each particular occasion.

Where such a discretion was to be exercised by so many different persons, and in so many various instances, we cannot be surprised to find some seeming contrariety both of opinion and of conduct; the result, sometimes perhaps of real differences between cases apparently similar, and sometimes of the opposite judgments formed on the same circumstances, even by the most enlightened men. The mere want of uniformity affords therefore no ground for censure, nor any presumption of misconduct. But I will not disguise my own impressions on the subject. The facts themselves are not fully known to us: we cannot therefore, speak decisively of the conduct to which they led. It does, however, appear to me that the indulgence of the magistrate has, in almost all these instances been carried to the very utmost extent, which was consistent with the public safety; and on more than one occasion, I think it has been pushed to an extreme, productive of considerable evil. It is no light matter, to have witnessed these repeated and ostentatious defiances of law and government, even where they have not as yet been followed by actual violence. It is no pleasing recollection, that our greatest manufacturing towns, and this metropolis itself, the capital and seat of our empire, have, even for the shortest time, been placed, as it were, in a state of siege: their business interrupted, their industry suspended; waiting in fearful expectation of impending tumult, or looking for protection to troops collected with difficulty, and harassed with preparations and marches, as in the presence of an enemy.

The wisdom of this forbearance may well be questioned, though I am sure we all sympathise in the kind and benevolent feelings in which it originated. But it would be a strange perversion of reasoning to maintain, that because it had been pushed thus far, it was in future to have no limit; that because so much had been tolerated, all was thenceforth to be permitted. We have neglected the outworks, must we therefore surrender the citadel? We have disregarded the approaches of the storm, must we take no measures of security when it rages with redoubled violence? Where danger was less imminent, your magistrates had been content to overlook it. Does it therefore follow, that no menace, no defiance, no hostility, no nearer and more urgent peril, could justify their final resolution to interpose for the safety of a great commercial town, and for the tranquillity of a populous and wealthy district? If such be your opinion, the whole foundations of our government are already broken up! Let it then be openly avowed! Let us not deceive our country with the semblance of authorities which are no longer to exist. Let it be declared and known that the king's commission of the peace is henceforth to be unattended with any power, or any duty, to give protection to his faithful and loyal subjects!

Far different is the light in which these gentlemen have considered their office, and discharged its obligations. They have proceeded on the long-established principles by which it has always hitherto been governed; they have acted in conformity, I trust, and in obedience, to the laws which they undertook to administer. And is it for this conduct that you will visit them with parliamentary inquiry?

On the first night of this session, I expressed by my vote, and on such grounds of knowledge as I then possessed, my decided disapprobation of our adopting any such proceeding. Since that time I have been strongly confirmed in the same opinion. Much "more has been stated to the public of these transactions: many most important and satisfactory circumstances have been brought forward, resting, as it should seem, on indisputable authority. As the facts now stand before the world, on the assertions of those best qualified to explain them, the conduct of the magistrates, who sat at Manchester on the 16th of August last, appears to me not only free from blame, but highly meritorious. And should the case be ultimately established, such as it now appears to be, I am confident they will deserve, and I trust they will receive, a complete and authoritative approbation of that conduct.

I say a complete and authoritative approbation, because I cannot at all consider in that light the letter of the noble secretary of state, of which so much has been said. Neither can I see any resemblance between that communication and the resolutions promulgated on this subject, by the meetings, held, first, I believe, in this metropolis, and afterwards in various counties throughout the kingdom. Those proceedings are, in my judgment, most deeply to be regretted. While the courts of justice were completely open to all complaints respecting these transactions: while criminal proceedings upon them had already been instituted, and were, in some cases, still actually depending, before the regular tribunals appointed for that purpose by our laws and constitution, what could be more unfortunate than the popular and extra-judicial agitation of such questions? Little real knowledge could be obtained by such meetings, even from report, of the facts most essential to the case; and great misapprehensions were likely to prevail there, as to the legal conclusions to which such facts would lead. The citizens of London, the freeholders, or the inhabitants of a distant county, could have no authority to pronounce on such occurrences; no cognizance of the crimes reciprocally imputed; no means of proof; no power either of condemnation or acquittal. Was it for them to hold public deliberations on the guilt or innocence of their fellow-subjects? Do we wish that a habit should thus be established of anticipating, by the excitation of popular feeling, the trial and decision of accusations which our constitution has reserved for judicial cognizance? No greater calamity could possibly befal us. No other course could certainly tend to erase, not only from our practice, but even from our recollection, the sacred principles of criminal justice, and those inviolable provisions for its temperate and impartial administration, which have hitherto been the peculiar glory and blessing of our country.

Far different was the situation of the king's ministers: they had a regular and constitutional duty to perform. It would in them, have been, not only an unworthy and base abandonment of all honourable feeling, but a positive dereliction of official trust, if they had withheld from the magistrates their judgment upon the conduct pursued in circumstances so critical. That judgment they were bound to form, and they were bound to act Upon it; they were responsible for it to parliament and to the laws; and it was their duty to communicate it to those whom the constitution has placed under their direction. If your lordships could doubt this principle, I would entreat you to consider the reverse of the proposition. Imagine, then, for a moment, that, instead of a reluctant interposition for the maintenance of the public peace, against a tumultuary and menacing array, there had been the most open and wanton violation of unquestionable right: that the magistrates, for instance, had dispersed by force the freeholders of their county, peaceably and regularly assembled, under the authority of the sheriff and in obedience to the king's writ, for the choice of their representatives in parliament. Would your lordships endure to be told that, in such a case the king's secretary of state had remained silent? Would you not require it to be proved to you, that not a moment had been lost by the servants of the Crown, both in condemning and in repressing this outrageous infraction of the constitution? And if it be the duty of persons placed in such stations to convey censure where censure is due, who will be found to argue that the more pleasing duty of expressing merited approbation is alone to be withheld from them?

And in this view of the case, my lords, let me now beseech you to turn your attention for a moment from its general principles, such as I have hitherto endeavoured to establish them, to the actual si- tuation, and real conduct, of the individuals most concerned in it: of those gentlemen who have received from the ministers of their sovereign this testimony of public gratitude, but whom it is now proposed to your lordships to hold out to the world as the first objects of your suspicion and jealousy.

If there be one among the many noble institutions of this country, which can with more confidence than any other be exhibited to foreign nations as a matter of exclusive triumph to the British name, it is the manner in which local justice is administered, especially in our counties, by the persons who gratuitously undertake that task, under the king's commission of the peace. I need not describe, and no words could magnify, the labour, the self-devotion, the pure benevolence, the unspotted integrity, with which this duty is discharged. The fact is universally admitted; all men of liberal and enlightened minds repose the fullest confidence in the proceedings of this upright and truly honourable magistracy. The law itself establishes in their behalf, from long experience of their conduct, a presumption of pure intention, and even a favourable construction of error, such as may occasionally, though it rarely does, arise from unprofessional education, or from human infirmity.

But the merit of the individuals, whom this motion would place almost in a state of accusation, does not rest merely on this general ground of habitual and honourable service. It was explained to us in our last debate, but it is of the utmost importance to be repeated, that this duty was undertaken and performed by them in no common manner. During the course of last summer the two great counties of Lancashire and Cheshire were exposed to imminent danger of tumult and violence from the effect of those seditious and traitorous machinations of which I have already spoken. In such a situation, their security, and most especially the security of the town and neighbourhood of Manchester, required a more than usual degree of vigilance, a constant and unremitting superintendance. And for this special service, a committee was formed out of the whole body of the truly respectable magistracy of those counties. It must be remembered that the danger, though more urgent in a few particular places, was not confined to them, but was extensively and widely diffused. In such circumstances, therefore, these gentlemen, in the same manner as all the other peaceable and loyal inhabitants of this whole district, had the deepest interest in watching, each of them over the tranquillity and safety of their own immediate neighbourhood. In a season of so much alarm, the care of their own properties, the protection of their own houses, families, and dependants, would naturally demand their constant presence, and personal exertions. But these considerations they disregarded; their houses and their families they left to the protection of their country; they assembled at Manchester; and there they continued to hold their sittings, because there was the chief root of the evil—there the scene of greatest peril—there the utmost certainty of benefitting the public by their patriotic and voluntary labours. With such feelings, and such conduct, your lordships may well believe that personal danger was the subject which least occupied their thoughts. But they also knew that there were other perils to be encountered; they could not but feel the heavy responsibility to which they would thus be subjected; they could not be ignorant, that if the painful necessity should arise of employing force for the maintenance of the public peace, no industry would be spared, no artifice, no calumny untried, which could excite the prejudices, or inflame the feelings of a humane and generous people. They were sure that their motives would be misrepresented, their actions vilified, their characters defamed. But they suffered no such apprehensions to deter them from rendering to their country what they justly deemed a most important and necessary service. They relied, first, on the uprightness of their own intentions, and on the consciousness of that pure and public spirit, by which alone they were actuated; they thought perhaps that they might securely trust to the dispassionate and impartial judgment of their fellow-subjects; they certainly looked with confidence to the honourable feelings of your lordships, and to the well-earned favour and protection of the British parliaments.

In the execution of this service, the time at length arrived when forbearance could no longer be maintained. To have neglected to interpose against the dangers justly apprehended from the meeting of the 16th of August, would, in their view of honour and duty, have been a ma- nifest violation of both, and a total abandonment of the awful trust which they had undertaken under circumstances of such peculiar obligation. They were well apprised of the nature and extent of the previous preparations made for that assembly; they were eye-witnesses of its menacing array; no doubt was left on their own minds of its real character and tendency; their apprehensions of its too probable result were confirmed and strengthened by those of the peaceable inhabitants of Manchester; their protection was demanded, and it could not legally be refused: And, had they hesitated on that day to assert and to enforce the law, he must, indeed, be a bold man who will venture to affirm that the consequences of such an error could ever have been retrieved.

The tumultuous and insurrectionary spirit which produced that meeting, was not, however, extinguished by its dispersion. There was no hope that it could be so. The mischief continued to extend itself, and the dangers in which so large and so important a district of this kingdom was thus involved, have made it ultimately necessary that parliament should be assembled to provide effectually for our common security.

In this situation we are now met. The eyes of all are upon us. There is no state in Europe which does not feel its own security involved in that of the British government. There is no individual, capable of appreciating the real interests of society,—no friend of order,—no lover of virtue,—but looks with anxious solicitude to the conduct of parliament in this great conjuncture. What, then, would be the impressions of mankind;—what would be the appearance which we should exhibit to this country, and to the world, if our first step for the security of lawful government should be to discredit and to degrade our upright and honourable magistracy? What would be thought of our wisdom,—what of our justice,—should we turn aside our eyes from the violators of the public peace, and fix them with jealous suspicion on its champions and assertors; exerting the great powers, with which we are invested for the public safety, not against the savage depredators of the fold, but against its faithful and intrepid guardians? I have heard of many instances of public ingratitude: History is full of unrequited merit,—of services repaid by oppression and injury. But, I trust, we shall suffer no such example to stain our own records,—no such stigma to be fixed on the proceedings of this day. No, my lords! Respect the feelings of honourable men, who have well discharged an arduous and painful duty! Treat with affection and kindness those branches of the public defence, to which you are already so much indebted! Inspire them with fresh confidence in themselves, and with fresh attachment to the constitution and legislature of their country! On them is our firmest reliance; in their zeal,—in their exertions,—is our best hope of security against every difficulty which now surrounds us, and against every danger which we may still be destined to encounter.

Nor let it be said that, by refusing this inquiry, you preclude the regular and legal investigation of any error which the most zealous and adverse scrutiny can possibly discover in these proceedings. If any intemperance of zeal, in the execution even of the most justifiable and necessary directions,—if any heat, excited by tumult and contest,—if any other feelings, be they what they may, have betrayed even a single individual into a conduct unworthy of his cause, the courts are open,—the laws will do justice to all! Not twenty-four hours have elapsed since we have seen how readily such complaints were received and inquired into, and I am happy to add, how satisfactorily they were answered. By rejecting this motion you can do no injury, nothing is prejudged; nothing closed against any complainant.

Need I say what would be the effect of its adoption? You would teach the whole magistracy of your country, that, when in the hour of peril they have discharged their public duties with intrepidity and firmness, yet if unjust prejudice—if groundless clamour,—be raised against them, they must look to no protection from the government or the legislature. After all their exertions, and all their sacrifices, they must prepare themselves to meet unfounded suspicion, and harassing inquiry, to appear, perhaps, as culprits in this place, defending themselves against the vindictive malice of those very criminals, whose guilt they may have exposed and punished. Thus discredited, thus degraded, what would be their resource? They might appeal, perhaps, to yourselves against your own decision. They might remind us that the discretion which they exercise, and the duties which they perform, are committed and enjoined to them by law; by that law of which they are the ministers, your lordships the high and hereditary guardians. And they might confidently claim, from your justice, that you should suffer them to enjoy, unmolested, its full protection for their own conduct and character, while they are engaged in uprightly administering it to others. But, whatever were the result of such proceedings, never, I trust, would they be induced for any cause to deprive their country of the inestimable advantage of services which they alone can render to it. Under whatever circumstances they can be placed, in grief, in depression, in dismay, their characters assailed, their feelings wounded, their authority impaired, may there always be found a spirit in the magistracy of Great Britain resolutely to persevere in the discharge of their duties! Should that hope fail us, should it ever happen that the landed gentry of this kingdom were driven, by whatever discouragement, to relinquish their high trust, and to leave to other hands the faithful administration of our laws, and the vigilant defence of the religion and government of their forefathers, our condition would, indeed, be desperate.

Look also to another class of voluntary exertions; not less honourable, scarcely less useful. Do you wish to shake the confidence which the armed yeomanry of Great Britain now repose in the justice and gratitude of parliament? You know what efforts have been made, what calumnies employed, to inflame the passions of the people against that portion of this force which was employed at Manchester; you have seen what industry has been exerted to intimidate those individuals from persevering in their honourable service, and to deter all others from venturing to associate for the same loyal and constitutional purposes. Nor can you be surprised that it should be so. Could these objects be accomplished—could this establishment be discountenanced, this force disbanded, much, indeed, would have been done for the cause of disaffection. But still more complete, much more unexpected, and unhoped for, would be the triumph of that cause, should the conduct of' this House be found to have contributed to it. Far be it from us! I trust we shall accede to no proposal that can have such a tendency. If there be sufficient ground to impute to any man, charged with the execution of a painful duty, even a single act of wanton and needless violence, I repeat it, the law is open to all. Let the facts be legally examined, let them be judicially determined. The previous interposition of this House, in such a case, if any such there were, could operate only to the prejudice of impartial justice; but it would have the farther mischief of sanctioning those indiscriminate calumnies which have for their true object, not the conduct of any individuals, but the character of the institution itself. To that institution the fullest protection, the warmest encouragement, is due from parliament. I acknowledge that on this point I speak with strong personal feeling. I had much share in the original formation of that establishment; I earnestly promoted it both by counsel and by personal exertion; and I look back to it with unqualified satisfaction, as to one of the most useful services of a public life now brought to its conclusion. Great advantage, I say it with full experience and knowledge of the fact, did then arise from the exertions of those meritorious and patriotic bodies; and still greater we shall, I trust, derive from them in the present exigency. Nor let these benefits be considered as merely occasional, calculated only to meet the pressure of some momentary danger. A much more solid and permanent good, and of far wider influence on the highest interests of our society, has already resulted, and will I am confident, continue to result from this institution. It has habituated the middle classes of our community, under the authority of the sovereign, and with the guidance and co-operation of the magistracy and gentry of their neighbourhood, to take an active share in defending our free and happy government against all its foreign and all its domestic enemies. What can be in principle more constitutional, in practice more beneficial? It was in its origin, and it will ever be, both in its impression and effect, a pledge of mutual confidence between these different orders of the state; most honourable on both sides to those who have offered it, and on both sides most gratifying to those by whom it has been received. It has been and may it long continue to be, a strong, I trust an indissoluble link and bond of union between them, in the support of that cause which is common to us all!

And shall this be called arming our fellow-subjects against each other? No; we are arming them in their own defence against lawless violence; we are arming them for the protection of their peaceful dwellings against plunder and devastation; we are arming the people of England itself against designs, which, if they could be realised, would leave not a trace behind of all that has made the British name respected, admired, and honoured, among the nations of the earth.

On whom then does the imputation justly rest of arming our fellow subjects against each other? Is it not on those who, in the midst of peace, have lighted up among us the torch of discord? Who have deluded the ignorant, and inflamed the discontented; who have drawn aside their unhappy followers from habits of tranquil industry, to designs and practices ruinous to themselves, and destructive of the public safety; who have animated them against the very persons from whose skill and enterprise their subsistence was derived; and by instigations, incessantly repeated, inciting them to the foulest crimes, have at length, in the very centre and heart of our greatest commercial establishments, impaired the security of property, and the security of life itself!

And this, my lords, brings us back to that consideration of present and local distress with which my noble friend commenced this discussion. Whatever be the remoter origin of that distress, we all acknowledge for its immediate causes the diminution of commerce, the suspension of manufacture; the cessation of employment. And what, let me ask your lordships, what could tend more effectually than the present disordered and fearful state of your great manufacturing districts, to subject them, and through them to subject every part of the kingdom, to the continued operation of these calamities? Already you are told what is the condition of Manchester. Individuals are retiring, capitals are withdrawn, and establishments about to be transferred from that scene of disturbance and alarm. It could not be otherwise. It is of the nature of commerce to flourish only under the shelter and protection of law; its blossoms will not expand themselves, much less will it mature its fruits, except in secure and undisturbed tranquillity. It shrinks from the rude blast of power; it is instantly withered by the tempestuous hurricanes of popular commotion. Let us not deceive ourselves. Never can our commercial prosperity maintain itself under the lawless dominion of self-constituted and tumultuary assemblies. Never can it endure the rapacious and vindictive despotism of mutually conflicting demagogues. To other shores, to more peaceful countries, to better-ordered communities, the trade and manufactures of Great Britain would, in such circumstances, speedily remove themselves. They were first attracted to this happy country by that security which our institutions alone could then afford to them; greatly have they flourished under a government, which has defended them alike from the unjust aggression of power, and from the capricious tyranny of the multitude; they would vanish like a dream at the first aspect of revolutionary terror; they would fly far away from tumult and violence, from plunder and confiscation, from massacres, and from judicial murders!

They would vanish! and what would then be the condition of your manufacturing population? What means would then remain of alleviating their present distress, what hope of terminating their future misery?

If, therefore, on no other ground; if, from no larger and deeper views of policy and justice, such as may best become the legislators of a mighty empire; yet, for the single purpose of preventing these unhappy men from aggravating and perpetuating their own distress, let me implore your lordships to step between them and their betrayers. Interpose your high authority to rescue them from this destruction. Take speedy, take effectual measures to give peace and security to those disturbed and agitated districts of your; country. On peace and security depends the prosperity of all; there is no other prospect of reviving commerce to the manufacturer, no other hope of renewed employment to the artisan.

In every view which can be taken of our situation, there is but one course which you can now pursue. Do you think that present distress is the sole cause of all this evil? What, then, must be the first steps towards its removal? The discontinuance of alarm; the punishment of sedition; the vigorous and instant suppression of all that produces, and all that threatens, disturbance. Do you look to the permanent protection of your constitution and government? Then, also, must the same determination be adopted. You must give energy and vigour to the laws; you must uphold and strengthen the authority of magistrates and courts of justice; you must protect the well-affected, encourage the loyal, and animate the whole body of the British nation, by the best of all exhortations—the example of your own resolution and constancy.

And, with this opinion, thus decidedly entertained, thus unreservedly expressed, let me finish what I had to submit to your lordships on the present occasion. I little expected to have troubled you so much at length. But I have obeyed the impulse of an irresistible duty; the last, perhaps, that I may ever be called upon to discharge within these walls. Whether it will be so I know not; for, who can now anticipate the events which are impending over us? But how can I, under any circumstances, better close my long service in this place, than by an effort, earnest, however weak, to uphold the laws, and to preserve the tranquillity, of my country? With what sentiment nearer to my heart can I conclude these labours than by finally conjuring your lordships to guard, as you have hitherto done, with unremitted vigilance, with unshaken firmness, the sacred deposit of the British constitution? It has been the work of ages; formed on no preconcerted plan of human policy; resting on no delusive principles of imagined right; the happy result of a long series of unforeseen and uncontrollable events; the produce of many jarring and contending elements, combined and harmonized by the tried experience, by the unwearied diligence, and by the traditional, yet cautious wisdom of a legislature better adapted than any other yet known in the history of mankind, to promote the happiness of the community, whose interests it administers. Such is our government; the boast of Englishmen,—the admiration and envy of the world! Such may it long continue! And wise, indeed, should that man be, who hopes to improve it by the preconceived theories, and baseless speculations, of his own imagination.

Earl Grey

expressed his sincere regret at the difference of opinion which now existed between himself and his noble friend, to whom he had been peculiarly attached, not only by the ties of political connexion, but by the more endearing bonds of personal friendship—a regret which he felt the more keenly from his having been accustomed to look up to that noble lord with sentiments of deep delight as his guide and oldest instructor. His regret was scarcely less when he saw the noble marquis also differing from him, recollecting, as he did, the powerful eloquence which the noble marquis on every occasion had displayed, and that in the year 1817, under circumstances not very dissimilar, that noble marquis had brought to his side of the question, in the struggle then made for the constitution, all the brilliancy of his eloquence, all the strength of his argument. He felt these to be serious disadvantages; but, notwithstanding them all—notwithstanding the infirm state of his health, he felt it his duty to rise, perhaps for the last time, to fight once more for the liberties of his country. It was a duty which he would execute at any risk—which no fear of misrepresentation, no weight of obloquy, should induce him to forego. No apprehension that his opinions might be represented as calculated to endanger rather than to secure the peace of the country, of which he would hold himself forth to be as zealous a defender as any noble lord in that House, should make him hesitate in his endeavour to discharge what he conceived to be a paramount duty, by supporting the motion for inquiry made by his noble friend.

It had been objected, that the proposed inquiry comprehended too wide and extensive a field: the field was indeed wide and extensive so also were the difficulties which were to be inquired into; and to the understanding of which no close or confined investigation could be adequate. His noble friend, in his statesman-like speech, had stated his objects so distinctly and conclusively, that he should only weaken the subject by attempting to add to it. He therefore would not go into that part of his argument which related to the financial condition of the country, because, much as inquiry was there necessary, yet another subject pressed so much more immediately, and occupied so much more intensely the public mind, that he should now confine himself to a consideration of that branch of the question—the internal situation of the country. On a former occasion which had been more than once referred to, he had certainly acknowledged the difficulties and dangers of the country to be very great. All seemed to be agreed upon this point; and it was with reference to the causes of them that the main difference of opinion existed. His noble friend who last spoke had maintained, that distress was not a sufficient cause of the existing evil. He differed from his noble friend entirely. The cause of the distress itself might be doubtful; but that that distress was the main and operative cause of the disturbed state of the public mind, was proved by evidence which the senses could not reject—was proved even by those scanty papers—[Hear, from marquis Wellesley]—he must repeat that epithet, though it seemed to give offence to his noble friend—was proved even by those scanty papers which had been laid upon the table with so much parade. What was the language of those papers? The very first of them, dated so far back as the 1st of last July, and which it should be remembered was received by ministers before parliament was prorogued, and which, though stating the existence of danger, and its cause, ministers had not thought of sufficient importance to lay before parliament, or to propose for consideration any preventive measure, said "Of the deep distresses of the manufacturing classes of this extensive population, your lordship is fully apprised; and the disaffected and ill-disposed lose no opportunity of instilling the worst principles into the unhappy sufferers in these times; attributing their calamities, not to any event which cannot be controlled, but to the general measures of government and of parliament; and when the people are oppressed with hunger, we do not wonder at their giving ear to any doctrines which they are told will redress their grievances." Such was the language of the magistrates at Manchester; and if their lordships would look at the representations made from Yorkshire, Cheshire, or any other part of the country, they would see that they completely proved that it was the opinion of every one of the writers, that distress was the real cause of the danger. His noble friends, indeed, had allowed, and had expressed themselves with great complacency—a complacency natural to so consoling a topic—that the people were not generally disaffected. How was this to be explained? Why, in those districts where distress did not prevail, as for instance, in the agricultural districts, there the evil did not exist in the same degree, and in some of them not at all. Was it, therefore, too much to conclude, both from the papers on the table, and even from the admissions of his noble friends, that it was distress which had disposed men's minds to listen to designing and wicked demagogues? Was it, therefore, inconsistent with humanity and justice to say, that when the circumstances of this dangerous influence on the public mind were under consideration, their lordships should in the first instance look to the cause, and endeavour to check the evil in its source? Was it not their duty, while deprecating the designs of evil men,—and no one could deprecate them more than he did—to draw a distinction between those who misled, and those who were misled? He was grieved, therefore, to hear that Latin quotation of the noble marquis, which implied that the whole people were filled with fury and detestable malice against the government, and all indiscriminately combined against the institutions of their country. On the contrary, he from his heart believed, that those who really entertained mischievous intentions against the constitution were few in number, less in consequence, and would be as nothing in effect, unless a perseverance in the impolitic system of government, by his majesty's ministers, should increase that evil of which he believed it to be the cause.

His noble friend who had last spoken had taken credit to himself for having marked the growth of the evil from and even before the French Revolution; and had asserted, that it had now come to that height of unparalleled danger, of which not only the history of this, but of no other country could furnish an example. But while his noble friend thus congratulated himself on having foreseen, and on having carefully watched the progress of the mischief, he must beg to recall to his recollection what he had prophesied as to the efficacy of the remedies on which he had formerly insisted as able utterly to extirpate that mischief. What were those remedies? A war with France, and a domestic system of force and coercion. The war did indeed suspend, and to a certain degree extinguish, the progress of internal disquiet; but at the conclusion of the war that disquiet revived: and why? Was it not to be found in the conduct of parliament on that occasion? Did his noble friend believe that the country, looking as it did, with the utmost anxiety to the proceedings of parliament, was not acutely alive to any supposed betrayal of trust in that quarter? And would not such betrayal produce disaffection? At the end of the war, parliament had new duties to perform; and the people, who without a murmur had made the greatest exertions, and submitted to the greatest sacrifices, had a right to look to parliament for an active protection of their interests. His noble friend had at that time certainly acted from this impression; and with that constitutional spirit which he believed always animated him, had urged the reduction of the army to such a degree that even he (earl Grey), anxious as he was to reduce the military power of the Crown, from a conviction that the best defence of the sovereign was the affection of his people, even he had been induced to pause before he could give his entire concurrence to the proposition. His noble friend, however, had expressed in the most energetic language his apprehension of a design to establish a military rule, and had urged with the greatest force, and had shown with the most laborious accuracy, why and to what extent the army should and could be reduced. Parliament, however, did not reduce the army, did not do what even his noble friend conceived to be its duty; and was it unreasonable to suppose that this was a cause of public discontent—of discontent which he was sure would not exist without materials to work upon? He had himself been frequently misrepresented, as being the cause of results which he had never intended. He would not, however, though he had a fair opportunity, retort on his noble friend, and say that his conduct had been the cause of breeding discontent and an ill opinion of parliament.

His noble friend had desired them to mark the march and progress of the evil; he (earl Grey) would call upon them to mark the march and progress of that system which ministers had adopted to check the evil. He would call to their attention the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, the restraints on the liberty of meeting, the restraints on the press,—restraints now so increased, that he believed they would lead in a short time to the complete extinction of that right; in short, a general code of coercion and force, to which parliament had too readily assented, on the ground that even urgent distress was not to be reasoned with, but to be silenced. And what was the consequence? Why, according to his noble friends, the danger was so immediately threatening, that par- liament must proceed without a moment's delay, to remove the fences of that liberty which they were professing to defend. There was an old and homely proverb, "look before you leap," but it was full of wisdom; their lordships would do well to pause and consider before they took their desperate leaps beyond the limits of the constitution. But his noble friend had dilated on the horrors of the French revolution, that pregnant source of alarm. He (earl Grey) had hoped that he had survived that disagreeable topic. He thought to have heard no more of it after the happy restoration of legitimacy. His noble friend, however, thought differently, and had maintained that the same system, with the same objects, and with the same means, was in progress here, as had overthrown the French government. And what was his remedy? Coercion and restraint. "You must," said he, "restrain the press; you must put a stop to public meetings—you must take away from an Englishman his oldest privilege, the possession of arms for his defence." But would all this operate as a security? Why, this was a mere joke, compared with the power possessed and exercised at the beginning of the French revolution: yet there the evil was not checked, nor would it be here, by such means: for in such a system there was no stopping till it came to the power of the sword, and that, when public opinion was once excited against it, would produce the very evil it was intended to prevent. There was, indeed, no real defence in any country, especially in a country under such a constitution as that of England, but a system of liberty which should conciliate the affection and esteem of the people. All other devices were absolutely futile.

He now came to another part of the speech of his noble friend, which he confessed he heard with astonishment, and with a degree of pain amounting almost to horror. His noble friend was not only against inquiry, not only approved the Letter of the noble secretary of state, but had gone so far as to express his opinion that the magistracy of Manchester had deserved what he had called "authoritative approbation." He sincerely believed that his noble friend was the only man in that House—nay, in the whole country, who had even approached to such an opinion. Who could for a moment conceive that the conduct of the magistrates had been not only free from blame, but highly me- ritorious; and who could venture to say, that the only question for consideration was, whether they had not been too forbearing? But he would leave this part of the subject, which he could not touch upon without the greatest regret, and proceed to examine a little the speech of the noble marquis—a speech which he owned seemed to him to be more remarkable for brilliancy of expression than for solidity of argument. The noble marquis had said that the meeting was obviously illegal—that there could be no question as to the right of putting it down. The noble marquis had professed himself to be greatly alarmed, not indeed at any acts of violence committed by that assembly, but at its silence—ipsa silentia terrent. A riot, no doubt, was bad enough; but that a meeting should disperse without any riot at all, was enough to fill the whole nation with terror. This was certainly a notable discovery, the credit of which entirely belonged to his lordship: but the noble marquis had another argument—he had inferred that the meeting was illegal, because its object was illegal; and its object was illegal, because it was universal suffrage and annual parliaments. And the noble lord had illustrated his argument by asking, whether it would not be illegal to discuss the propriety of assassination, or of establishing atheism. To this he would answer, no; there was no analogy in the cases, because assassination and atheism were in direct contravention to the known laws of the land; but he had yet to learn what law was infringed by discussing the propriety of universal suffrage. He would appeal from the speech of the noble marquis that night to his speech in the year 1817, when, with powerful eloquence and irresistible argument, he had recommended not to put down radical reformers, however absurd, by force and violence, but by reason and conciliation—when, in short, he had reprobated that system of coercion in support of which he was now so stoutly engaged, and had called upon parliament, in the words of the wisest of men, to "take away the matter of sedition." His noble friend had on that occasion referred to the conduct of the duke of Richmond, and it was conduct worthy of being again referred to. What! was it to be charged as a crime on "the deluded people of England," as it was the fashion to call them, that they entertained a question which they had been taught to consider a proper one, from so illustrious an example? When they recollected that a bill, with that very reprobated object of universal suffrage and annual election, had been brought into the House, and read a first time, at a season of the greatest public danger, when parliament was threatened and besieged by an outrageous mob? When, too, they had the means of reading that strong recommendation of this now called illegal purpose, in a letter written by the duke to colonel Shirman? What! should that which was entertained as a question in parliament, be charged as a crime on the people of England? He would go so far as to say, that the people had a great practical grievance to complain of, in the disregard of parliament to their just and reasonable wishes—wishes, which were expressed not now for the first time, and which, if they were criminal, had been encouraged by the example of great names. He had himself, though certainly with but humble powers, contributed to create the delusion. In his early years, Mr. Pitt himself had been a reformer; for in the House of Commons he declared that no ministry could be honestly entrusted with public affairs unless there was a reform. But not only Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, sir George Savile, the illustrious lord Chatham, and many other distinguished characters were guilty, if guilt were imputable. But there was no guilt; for who would endure that such men as he had referred to should be branded as rebels and traitors, who were looking only for the subversion of the constitution? Connected with this part of the subject was the case of sir Manasseh Lopez, who had been made a baronet for no conceivable reason except his parliamentary influence. He defied any noble lord to point out one ground of character or service for which sir Manasseh Lopez would have received that reward, unless on the score of the influence to which he had alluded. But what followed? He was detected in some comparatively trifling act of bribery, and an election committee sent him to trial; and the result was, the severe, though certainly just punishment, of a fine of 10,000l. and three years imprisonment; just, it must certainly appear to all those numerous gentlemen who were conscious that they had never been guilty of any thing bordering on such an offence. But what occurred on the occasion of passing the sentence? The learned judge, for whose merits he would refer to the noble and learned lord on the woolsack, and indeed to all who had ever an opportunity of seeing or hearing of his conduct, had expressed himself, in the most decided terms, on the enormity of the offence of which the defendant was convicted. He said, "the crime was one of the greatest magnitude, and he confessed his own poverty of language to express the abhorrence in which such a crime ought to be held by every man in the country. It was of the highest importance to the public that the purity of election should be preserved. There should be no inroad into the House of Commons by corrupt means; for how could the country have any confidence in that House, if its doors were open to corruption; or could the public be induced to believe, that persons who obtained seats by such means would themselves be free from being corrupted in that place?" With the conclusion of the learned judge's observation, reasonable as it appeared, he did not entirely agree; for he certainly had known persons who paid for a seat without any expectation of deriving profit from it. Still, the principles there laid down by the learned judge were sound and just; and was it to be wondered at that the people of England should cry out with impatience against an abuse which the judges of the land had denounced with indignation, and punished with the utmost severity?

His noble friend who spoke last had advanced another reason for the illegality of the Manchester meeting. He had said that an assembly in terrorem populi was illegal. He did not deny the principle, and was glad that his noble friend had so worded it, because he thought the noble and learned lord on the woolsack had stated a similar proposition too broadly. For himself, he certainly thought that numbers alone did not constitute illegality. Every large assembly, to a certain degree, was calculated to produce intimidation; but, however great the numbers, unless there was such reasonable ground of fear as a firm and constant man might entertain, no magistrate could be justified in a violent and forcible interference. Taking this, then, as an established point, he begged to ask, did any of the other circumstances render the meeting illegal? Could their marching in military array be called illegal? Could their marching with flags be called illegal? Could their wearing caps of liberty, or their being accompanied by music be said to be illegal? None of these singly, nor all collectively, were in his opinion illegal, unless it could be shown that the assembly meditated some outrageous or seditious proceeding. He saw no reason to allow that the meeting in question was illegal. Looking at the documents upon the table—looking at the evidence furnished by the magistrates themselves—he could not bring himself to believe, that men without arms, and accompanied with women and children, unless they were fit for Bedlam, could have contemplated any acts of violence, much less any regular conflict with the armed authorities. While, however he expressed his opinion, he did not mean positively to affirm that the meeting was legal. He did not either assert or deny the illegality of the meeting, he was ignorant on the subject; he wished to have the facts fairly before their lordships; he wished the country to be fully informed on the subject, and therefore it was, that inquiry was imperatively necessary. But did it stop here?—Admitting the illegality of the Manchester meeting; what then? Did that illegality authorise the magistrates to send in the military among them—to charge them—to cut them right and left in all directions? He was sure that his noble friend would not attempt to maintain such a proposition. If, then, there was a reasonable ground of presumption, that the meeting had been illegally dispersed, why refuse to satisfy parliament and the country by instituting an inquiry? He agreed with his noble friend, that nothing was more necessary than to uphold the magistracy; and he was glad to have an opportunity again to bear his feeble testimony to the merits of a body who sacrificed their case, and sometimes incurred the greatest risks; in the gratuitous performance of their high and important office. To uphold such a body, was the duty of every public man: but how was that duty best performed? Was it by an indiscriminate approbation of all their acts in all times, and under all circumstances, or by a prompt support of them when right, and a firm remonstrance with them when wrong, and by an investigation of their conduct, when any reasonable objection existed against them? His noble friend, indeed, had argued, as if the government was bound at once in all cases to approve or disapprove; but there was a middle case which his noble friend had forgot to mention, where doubt, or even strong presumption of misconduct existed; where therefore either blame or praise would be in the first instance unjust; and that was precisely the case now before the House. His noble friend had asked, if, when it had been proved that magistrates had acted improperly, ministers were not bound to censure them, and then he took the converse of the proposition, and assuming that the magistrates had acted right, contended that ministers were bound to thank them. This he would fully admit, provided the facts were equally clear in both cases. But here the case was not clear; on the contrary there was strong presumption against what had been assumed as true. Here had been a meeting assembled for the purpose of discussing parliamentary reform. Of what occurred at that meeting, or in the attempts to disperse it, the House knew nothing, save what appeared in the letter of Mr. Hay. It was a remarkable circumstance, that there was no other evidence but that of one of those magistrates, who were, in fact, to be indemnified by the measures of ministers. Now, what was Mr. Hay's statement?" "The special committee have been in constant attendance for the last three days, and contented themselves till they saw what the complexion of the meeting might be, or what circumstances might arise, with coming to this determination only, which they adopted in concurrence with some of the most intelligent gentlemen of the town, not to stop the numerous columns which were from various roads expected to pour in, but to allow them to reach the place of their destination." Now it was a remarkable fact, that the magistrates had evidence of the extent to which training was carried in their district—that they knew of parties of men marching in military array—that they knew of their carrying flags, caps of liberty, and music—it was an established fact they knew of all these circumstances which are said to have rendered the meeting illegal, and yet they took not a single step to prevent the meeting from being held. Now he would ask whether the magistrates being of opinion that these circumstances rendered the meeting illegal, were not in duty bound to keep the people from assembling, and thereby prevent the havoc and bloodshed which took place on the charge of the cavalry? Was not this in itself a strong presumption of misconduct in the magistrates? Mr. Hay said in his letter, that "a body of constables took their ground, about 200 in number, close to the hustings; from them there was a line of communication to the house where we were." Now it was in evidence upon oath, that this line of communication remained unbroken up to the time that the cavalry reached the hustings. This was proved by the evidence of Entwistle and Nadin, who were called before the coroner's jury by Mr. Ashworth. Nadin, obnoxious as he was to the people, had walked up and down this space uninterrupted: and even Mr. Norris one of the magistrates, passed repeatedly in and out through it. He would ask their lordships, whether with these facilities of communicating with the meeting, the magistrates could not, if they thought the assembly illegal, have read the Riot act? He would ask whether they had not an opportunity of informing the poor deluded people that they were committing a serious crimes and of guarding them against its consequences? But no such thing was done. Was not this, then, a strong presumption that those magistrates had misconducted themselves. He would go further: Mr. Hay said, "There was no appearance of arms or pikes, but great plenty of sticks and staves, and every column marched in files of three or four deep, attended with conductors, music, &c. The most powerful accession was in the last instance, when Hunt and his party came in." But it seemed the magistrates were determined to leave themselves without excuse for not having prevented the meeting from taking place. Mr. Hay went on to state; "but long before this" (the assembling of the meeting) "the magistrates had felt a decided conviction that the whole bore the appearance of insurrection; that the array was such as to terrify all the king's subjects, and was such as no legitimate purpose could justify. Now he appealed to their lordships whether, if such was the impression of the magistrates before the meeting had fully assembled, whether they were not bound in duty to prevent its taking place, when they could have done so without danger? He asked, whether their not having done so was not a neglect of that duty? Did the noble lord mean to call this forbearance on the part of the magistrates? The manner in which the people had been allowed to assemble, appeared to him more like the manœuvre of a skilful general, who wished to draw the enemy into a situation from which they could not retreat, and where they must be in his power. But when the people were placed in this situation, what was done? It was in evidence, that the people committed no act of violence before the soldiers reached the hustings. The magistrates, having allowed them to meet, ought, in common humanity to have suffered them to remain until the last extremity before they interfered. But no; the cavalry were ordered to advance at a gallop into the crowd, for the purpose of arresting a man who could have been taken on the previous day, or on the day after. This would not do; the cavalry mast act, and the consequence was, according to the noble viscount's statement, the loss of three lives; but according to his (earl Grey's) information, of seven lives, besides the wounding of near four hundred persons.

He maintained, that this conduct of the magistrates furnished primâ facie grounds for inquiry.—In justice to the magistrates—in justice to the country—in justice to parliament, this inquiry ought to be instituted. He begged their lordships to attend to the flippant manner in which Mr. Hay mentioned the reading of the Riot act—"In the mean time the Riot act was read." Indeed, from all which had transpired upon this subject it appeared that the Riot act was not read. None of the witnesses examined before the coroner had heard of its having been read, though some were close to the house in which the magistrates were stationed; even Nadin and Entwistle, and a man named Hall, said they had never heard of its having been read, or of any warning having been given to the people to disperse, or of the meeting being illegal. He asked, then, was not this again presumptive proof that the magistrates had misconducted themselves? The magistrates asserted, however, that the Riot act was read, but if they acted upon it they ought to abide by its provisions; yet the meeting was dispersed immediately after the period when it was stated to have been read.

But it was urged that there had been much misrepresentation on this subject. He admitted it, there had been a good deal of misrepresentation on both sides. Was it possible that all the misrepresentation could be on one side? Was it possible that the magistrates, who had the making out of their own case, had not allowed a little prejudice to infuse itself in that account? Was it not possible that some misrepresentation had crept into that account? It had been sworn by most creditable witnesses, that no resistance was offered to the cavalry before they got to the hustings. Here he would make his stand and call for inquiry. Was it to be tolerated, that without any opposition being offered—without any attempt at violence by the people, these men were to inflict wounds, and put to death several of his majesty's subjects? He said, without fear of contradiction, that there never was a case where the most prompt and minute inquiry was called for. There never was a period when the House ought more seriously to pause before they decided against inquiry. There existed much discontent in the country. The evidence laid before the House could not be relied upon. He was asked, would he give way to popular clamour? His answer was, "No, but I will use my utmost endeavours to obtain justice for the people." This justice was demanded at a time of great public distress; it was demanded too for what was considered an invasion of the people's privileges.—Let inquiry be granted—let the magistrates be acquitted, if innocent; let them be punished, if their conduct was proved to have been culpable;—let the inquiry be instituted, and in either case their lordships would take a considerable step towards calming the public mind. There were cases of palpable misrepresentation respecting the yeomanry, which he wished to mention. The first was that of a yeomanry man named Hulme, who had been knocked off his horse. It was urged by the magistrate that this person had been struck before he used his sword, whereas it was sworn that he had cut at several persons, and that he was striking at a man when he was struck with a brick bat. The next case was that of a person named Campbell who was acquitted of a charge of having fired at a man from his window, on its having been proved that he was in the habit of firing pistols from his windows. He did not urge that any of these statements were true, but he said that they called for inquiry. The circumstance of the swords of the yeomanry cavalry having been sharpened, was also a subject on which there existed much difference of opinion. It was, no doubt, right that the arms of soldiers should at all times be prepared for duty; but here it had been proved before the coroner, by the person who had been employed to sharpen them, that 60 swords were sharpened in the week ending on the 17th of July, and others a short time before the meeting at Manchester. These were facts that had been proved, and that could not be doubted or denied. Their lordships had been asked if they would protect the disturbers of the public peace? He asked, who were the disturbers of the public peace? There was strong ground of presumption that the magistrates were the disturbers: he asked for inquiry to establish or disprove the fact. "But, then," said the noble lords, "inquiry will prejudge the question in courts of law.'' He should like to know how the magistrates were to be brought before a court of law. They ordered the yeomanry to act, in the exercise of the discretion vested in them, and he would ask what power there was to bring this conduct under legal discussion? This was an inquiry which parliament, and parliament only, could institute. Their lordships were called upon to enact laws restricting the rights of the subject; was the evidence on the table sufficient to induce them to do so? The noble lord said that all the facts were proved. By whom were they proved? The statements were almost all anonymous. Were the statements of A. B. and C. D. to be implicitly credited; and were the liberties of the people to be invaded on such authority? A. B. says he went to a blacksmith's shop and bought a pike-head—that he went to the public-house and had certain conversations with this blacksmith, from which he learned certain treasonable matters. Was all this to be implicitly believed by parliament, who knew nothing of A. B. or C. D.? It reminded him of a curious device, practised in a book written by lord Orford, which he had read some time since. In that book, the names of the different personages were left out in the print, but afterwards supplied in manuscript. But the statements of these anonymous individuals were ridiculous. On one occasion, a search for arms was made—and what was found? One pike-head, two pistol-stocks, concealed on a shelf, and a box containing some unfinished balls! In another instance, the socket of a pike-head, with a small pistol, and a paper containing the pattern of a pike were discovered! This was if possible more ridiculous than the stocking full of ammunition which was to be used in seizing the Tower, and taking possession of London.

It was said that the people were at present providing themselves with arms for the purpose of carrying their revolutionary plans into execution: but it should be remembered that the same was said in 1817. What followed on that occasion? The Habeas Corpus act was suspended, but none of the arms which were said to have been provided were ever discovered, although the most diligent search was made for them! The present case, however, was a great deal stronger than that of 1817, for here parliament were called upon to make new laws, without even the authority of a committee to sanction the credibility of A, B, and C, whose testimony, supposing it to be confirmed, was incomplete in many points. He had made some extracts from the report of the committee appointed in 1817, in which it was said that pikes had been manufactured, and other arms provided, in different parts of the country; but the fact was known that none of these pikes or other arms had ever been found. Again, on the subject of Mr. Horsfall's atrocious murder, these were the words in the report of the committee—"When he fell, the people surrounded him, and reviled him, instead of offering him assistance; and no attempts were made to secure the assassins." Thus the people were charged with the brutal cruelty of reviling the unfortunate sufferer, instead of offering him any assistance. But what was the fact? The murderers were afterwards secured, tried, and convicted; and, on the trial it was proved, that the people, instead of reviling the wounded man, had assisted him to the nearest house. Here anonymous evidence had been satisfactorily contradicted on the trial; and yet, on similar testimony, parliament was at present abridging the liberties of the people. If this was not a fit case for parliamentary inquiry, he could not see when such a case could occur; and that being his opinion, he thought it his duty to support the motion of his noble friend. He observed with astonishment that there was nothing from the lord-lieutenant of the county of Lancashire on the subject of these proceedings. It was to him an unaccountable matter, that his majesty's ministers, as far as appeared from the documents on the table, had not applied to the lord lieutenant, the highest authority in the county, but had received all their in formation from magistrates in inferior situations. From the lord-lieutenant it was that ministers ought to have sought for information, instead of passing him over and applying to the magistrates, who were parties in the case. In saying this he meant no personal disrespect to the magistrates.

He felt it unpleasant to speak of himself, but he appealed to the House whether he could have any other motive in advocating inquiry than a conscientious wish to perform his duty to his country. Could he be suspected of any attachment to the principles of the radical reformers? Was he not aware that those persons called radical reformers were decided enemies to the Whigs—that he himself was pointed out by name as their greatest, if not their principal enemy? He knew that if those persons were to succeed in obtaining that which they sought for, he would be their first victim; but, notwithstanding this, when he found an attempt made through these people to aim a vital blow at the constitution of the country, he was determined, as far as in his power, to interpose his shield and prevent it. In doing so, he could have no ambitious purpose in view; for he was not so weak as to suppose that at his age, and with his state of health, he could, in the event of any popular commotion, "Ride on the whirlwind, and direct the storm.'' His only object at his time of life was and ought to be peace and tranquillity, but above all, he was anxious for the peace and prosperity of the country. He was anxious to see that blessed constitution which had been the work of our ancestors preserved pure and inviolate. If that were attained, he should sink to his grave with peace and satisfaction. For the reasons which he had endeavoured to submit to their lordships he must give his most cordial support to the motion of his noble friend.

The Earl of Liverpool

apologised to the House for addressing them at that late hour, after all he could say had been anticipated by the noble marquis, and also by the noble baron who had that night delivered one of the ablest and most eloquent speeches that had ever been heard in that House. He could not, however, in justice to the cause which his noble friends had taken up, in justice to himself, or in justice to the administration with whom he acted, suffer this question to go to the vote, without delivering his opinions upon it. How injurious so ever he supposed that the views of the noble mover would prove, if adopted by parliament, he was ready to render him that justice which the noble marquis, he knew would on his part, give him for purity of intention. In addressing himself to this subject, he could not help observing the very different views which were entertained by the noble marquis and by the noble earl who had just sat down. In the opinion of the noble marquis, the motion embraced every thing; but the noble earl restricted it to an inquiry into the proceedings at Manchester. The noble earl said, on the first night of the session, that he objected to the whole proceedings of ministers, as injurious to the interests of the country: from the noble marquis they had heard a different opinion, for he had said he did not doubt that some of the measures proposed by his majesty's ministers would be beneficial to the country.

The subject of the motion before their lordships might be considered in two points of view—either that they should go into an inquiry with reference to the whole state of the country, as the noble marquis proposed; or, as the noble earl proposed, that they should institute an inquiry on the question of the proceedings at Manchester alone. The noble marquis had attributed the present troubles to the distress which prevailed in some districts of the country; and the noble baron had said, that these troubles were owing to a plan that had been regularly formed long ago to subvert the constitution. He would not, at that late hour, enter into the examination of these two different opinions, because they all admitted that, whether the evil proceeded from distress or not, distress did exist, and that every endeavour should be made to relieve it. If the noble marquis had said, that this distress proceeded from the measures of parliament, that would have been a fit ground for a parliamentary inquiry; or had he even said that it could be relieved by parliament, that would have been a fit ground for inquiry. But the noble mover had not said any thing from which it could be inferred that he entertained either of these opinions. As to the first of the remedies that had been suggested, the issuing of exchequer bills in aid of the commercial interest, he did not think it necessary to enter into any argument to prove its inefficacy, especially as the noble marquis himself had great doubts of the propriety of such a measure. With respect to the second remedy, even if the smuggling alluded to was really practised, he was sure the noble marquis had too enlarged a view of the subject, to suppose that any material good could result from the plan proposed. It was evident that great delusion had been practised on the public mind respecting the causes of the present distress, for every one who looked at the papers on the table must know that it was connected with circumstances over which neither the executive government nor parliament had any control. It arose from the state of an internal trade, affected by foreign commerce; and he maintained that, whatever might be the circumstances of this distress, it was not connected with political causes. It was impossible it should not have happened that a war of more than twenty years, a war in which not only this country, but all Europe had been involved, should be followed by great distress in this country, as well as in all other countries in Europe. If, however, the noble marquis would inform himself on the subject, he would find that this distress existed to as great an extent in the United States of America as in this country—a circumstance which he regretted, both on account of America itself, and on account of the effect it had on this country. If their lordships considered the situation of America, they would find there those principles of reform which had spread through this country. The Americans had no king—no nobles—no established church—no tithes. They had too—what was called equal representation—and we were told they had no taxes; yet that country was more distressed than this, in which all those establishments existed. He did not urge this as a matter of blame against the American government—it arose from a cause simple, plain, and intelligible.

For fifteen or twenty years that country had remained neutral, had carried on an extensive commerce, and during that time had made great progress in prosperity; and when the circumstances which had given rise to its prosperity were changed, it was impossible that a country so situated should not go backwards. Its present situation, he hoped for our own sakes, would not be of long duration; but he had stated these circumstances to show that the causes of distress were not to be attributed to the government of a county.

In inquiring into the circumstances which had given rise to the distresses of this country, it was material to consider how rapidly the population had increased within the last 60 years. What was the consequence? To meet the great demand for manufactures, machinery was introduced, which had a tendency in the end to produce something like a glut in the market; and this, combined with the increase of our population, might easily account for some portion of the distresses that existed. He stated these circumstances, because he thought, generally, that they were most material for consideration, and also because they were most important with reference to the formation and adoption of any measures for the amelioration of the state of the country. Every man must look with an anxious desire towards any measure that was calculated to afford relief to the lower classes of people in this country, and more particularly to the manufacturing population. But the legislature must proceed with great caution. Measures of that kind could not be viewed as matters of indifference. If they did not effect good, it was probable that they might do much harm; and he believed that, for one instance in which benefit was produced by legislative interference in matters of trade and commerce, ten cases could be pointed out in which injury was the consequence. This was a doctrine that ought to be impressed on the minds of the people of this country. They ought to be taught, that evils, inseparable from the state of things, should not be charged upon any government; and, on inquiry, it would be found that by far the greater part of the miseries of which human nature complained, were, in all times and in all countries, beyond the control of human legislature: How small, of all the ills that men endure, The part which kings or states can cause or cure! Whatever the cause of the present distress might be, it could not, he would maintain, be ascribed, in any degree or in any way, to the government or legislature of this country. The observation of the noble baron who spoke last but one was worthy of the deepest attention. If there were any suggestions to be made worthy of notice, either to alleviate the distress that prevailed, or to contract its duration, let them be brought forward at the proper time, and they would always receive full consideration from the parliament and government of the country. But those points did not, in his judgment, form any ground for proceeding with such an inquiry as was now called for.

The noble marquis had, however, declared, that an inquiry ought to be instituted, not with a view to apply relief to any distress which existed, but because he conceived that there was some defect in the formation of the other House of Parliament, and that the people looked to some reform in that House, where they conceived they were not sufficiently represented. This was a severe charge to advance against the House of Commons, and, in his opinion, an unfounded one. He knew not on what ground it could be defended. The noble marquis, in support of his argument, had referred to the conduct of the noble baron and of the noble marquis some years ago, with respect to the military establishment of the country. He would not now enter into a discussion of the reasons which induced them to suppose that the establishment then in existence was not more than sufficient; but the noble marquis had entirely forgotten the reduction that took place in preceding years—a reduction, he believed, that went to the full extent of any wish or expectation that was ever stated by those who opposed a very large force. The result of that reduction was, that though the question of the amount of the army and ordnance establishment had been in every preceding session a great subject of conflict and discussion in both Houses of Parliament, yet it would be found, on referring to those sources which were open to all their lordships, that in the last year the army was so far reduced that the vote passed the other House of Parliament with little observation, and except what had been offered by a noble earl opposite, without objection in that House. It was, therefore, most unfair, considering the evil that must arise from it, to endeavour to excite distrust in the minds of the people, by making an accusation against parliament in general, or the House of Commons in particular, unless the noble marquis could adduce a more grave and well-supported ground of censure than he had offered: but did the noble marquis believe that the spirit of reform—that spirit which produced those numerous meetings—had, in reality, any connexion with the distress that existed?

The noble marquis had asserted that meetings convened for the purpose of procuring annual parliaments, were not? ille- gal. That opinion he conceived to be erroneous. By the same rule, the people might meet to alter the succession to the Crown. If the noble lord's argument were carried to its extreme, he could see nothing more illegal in their assembling to alter the line of succession, than in meeting to demand annual parliaments and universal suffrage. If the doctrine laid down by the noble lord were true, the people might meet to petition parliament to do any act that was within its power, and no person could argue that the power of altering the succession to the throne did net belong to it. In the first place, the noble lord had stated that numbers alone did not constitute illegality. He would not take on himself (for he did not profess to have sufficient confidence in his knowledge of the law) to decide whether numbers alone rendered a meeting illegal, but he would maintain, that the appearance of great numbers established a fact, from which the nature of a meeting might in some degree be inferred; and if with numbers they combined the circumstances stated in the papers laid before the House, the whole taken together constituted an illegal meeting. What could be the object of previous training—of military array—of coming armed, even with sticks and staves—of answering to the orders of commanders, as the people at those meetings did, except for the purpose of carrying their designs by terror? Could any person examine the evidence, and say that there was not a design on the part of many individuals by terror or force to shake the constitution of the country? But the noble lord observed, that there was nothing to be feared, for there were no persons of rank or property amongst the discontented. If the noble lord examined the proceedings at former periods in this country, he would see the dreadful mischief that was occasioned even by such men as Wat Tyler and Jack Straw. He would find a vast quantity of property destroyed and confiscated; he would perceive that many lives were lost, by popular commotions, unaided by men of property. He would learn that the country might be visited by destruction, without the interference of people of rank and consequence. But the noble lord said, he did not believe the great mass of the people to be of the description stated by his noble friend (marquis Wellesley) in the course of his speech. His noble friend did not assert that the whole or even the greater part of the people were of that description, but that there were many dangerous characters amongst them. If the noble lord would look to the history of any revolution that ever took place, he would find, that, on those occasions, the active leaders were few. When the government of this country was overturned, those who first entertained the project were very much restricted in numbers. In every instance, it was the desperate conduct of the few, and the fears of the many, that produced revolution. He would not say, because he did not believe, that the great body of the French people were at first implicated in the revolution which formerly ravaged that country. If any person had told them, a few years before, that they would soon assist in overturning the monarchy of France, he believed they would have shuddered at the bare idea, but they soon became familiarised to scenes of devastation. The noble lord, to prove that the meeting was peaceable, stated that it was attended by women and children. He (the earl of Liverpool) never saw a mob in his life without women and children. He had witnessed some of the most active scenes in the French revolution: he was present at the capture of the Bastile; and he could assure the noble lord that he saw many women busily employed on that occasion.

He had heard, with the highest satisfaction, the noble baron's speech. He had heard it with the highest satisfaction, both because it took the view which, in his opinion, appeared to be the just view of the transactions in question, and because he knew that what had fallen from such high authority, must have an excellent effect throughout the country. But the noble marquis whose motion was before their lordships, declared, that the facts disclosed afforded a sufficient ground for inquiry. Now, he had no difficulty in stating, that if all the noble lord advanced had been true—if he could make out his case to the utmost extent, and show that there was a fair ground of suspicion, with respect to the conduct of the magistrates of Manchester—still he should think, that it was not a proper subject for inquiry in that House, but one that should be investigated in the courts below, before which a part of the case had already come. He would not, however, let the statement of the noble lord go forth, without expressing his concurrence in the opinion of the noble baron, that no reason, no ground for inquiry existed, because the conduct of the magistrates was not only legal and justifiable, but highly laudable and judicious. It was not, however, necessary for his purpose that he should go that length; because he had no difficulty in saying, that if they were actuated by an honest desire to do their duty, if they were uninfluenced by passion or partiality, and had applied their minds fairly to the circumstances of the case as they occurred at the time, he should not have thought them liable to blame, because he or others had formed a different conclusion with reference to those circumstances. It would be exceedingly unjust if they were censured, not for a wilful abandonment of their duty, but for a mere error of judgment. The noble lord said, the magistrates had a previous intimation of the views of those who intended to meet on the 16th of August, and their first object ought to have been to prevent the people from assembling, by stopping the different columns as they approached. That consideration did occupy the serious attention of the magistrates for some time, and they at length determined not to adopt such a course. Their motive for not preventing the meeting appeared to him to be a sound one. They could not do it without causing such a diversion of the military force, in and near the town, as must have endangered its safety more than the meeting of the people could do. This was the deliberate view they took of the subject, and he conceived it was a correct one. They, however, caused placards to be posted round the town, calling on the heads of families to keep their children and servants within doors, and warning them that if they attended the meeting it must be at their peril. Thus it appeared, that they did employ the best means in their power to render the asgemblage as little numerous as possible. The question then was, whether the meeting was of such an illegal character as would justify the magistrates in dispersing it by force? Their lordships were aware of the previous drilling—of the appearance of military array—and of the people to the number of at least 30,000 marching to the ground, under regular commanders. Few persons had raised a doubt, looking to all the facts, that the circumstances and character of the meeting were altogether illegal. But, independently of their own observation, the magistrates had the depositions of 50 persons in the town and neighbourhood of Manchester, in which they stated that they believed the town to be in imminent danger, by the accumulation of a vast body of people there: and when all the shops were shut up, when business was suspended on a labouring day, was there not, he asked, a reasonable ground for fear? The magistrates did consider the meeting to be illegal, and they felt they were justified in signing a warrant for the arrest of the principal persons who convened it. The noble lord had observed, that there was a line of constables from the house where the magistrates were assembled, to the hustings; but he forgot to state, that the hustings were several times removed, in order that the parties who called the meeting might have the assistance of a compact body of men, who were linked together by the arms, round the hustings, and could effectually prevent the approach of any persons towards them. The noble lord said, the warrant might have been executed by means of these constables, without the intervention of military. What was the fact? Nadin and Andrews, who were intrusted with the execution of the warrant, declared to the magistrates that they could not serve it without the assistance of the military; and, under these circumstances, it was the duty of the magistrates to grant the aid required. The noble lord next asserted, that the military charged into the midst of the mob, before any resistance was offered. What was the nature of that change? The yeomanry proceeded in single files, and the slowness of their pace might be ascertained from this fact, that Mr. Nadin and Mr. Andrews were able to keep up with them all the while, until they arrived at the hustings.

He now came to the question of reading the Riot act; and he had learned from authority which he could not doubt, that it was completely read once, and partly read a second time, but the magistrate who undertook the duty was thrown down. On this part of the case, however, he did not lay any stress, because the magistrates were legally empowered to disperse such a meeting, without reading the Riot act at all. He believed it was the original intention of the magistrates to disperse the assembly an hour after the Riot act was read, but, when the officers went to arrest the accused person, the yeomanry were assailed. They were fired at with pistols, and sticks and stones were hurled at them. He spoke on the authority of the officers, Nadin and Andrews, who both declared that they considered the yeomen to have been overpowered. At this moment an individual exclaimed, "For God's sake save the yeomen!" and, in consequence, the 15th Dragoons were ordered to charge the mob, who were almost immediately dispersed. The whole period between the advance of the cavalry and the dispersion of the meeting was not more than ten minutes. He believed the yeomen (he spoke of them as a body, and did not mean to answer for any individual) did not remain longer on the ground than was necessary to complete the business, or do any act that was not absolutely necessary. He stated these circumstances for their lordships' consideration, and he defied any man to point out any part of the conduct of the magistrates in this case to which blame could be fairly attached. He protested that, if he had been in their situation, he did not know one point in the whole of the proceeding where he thought he could have acted better himself. But if there were objectionable points—points on which more prudence might have been displayed, still, when they recollected the danger which threatened them at the moment, no impartial man would say that an error occasioned by inadvertence should be visited with censure. This again brought him to the question of inquiry, and he felt, as he had stated before, that this was not the place for such a proceeding. In fact, the case had in some degree proceeded to inquiry already, because the finding of bills against Hunt and others was, as far as it went, a species of inquiry, through the medium of which the legality of the meeting would be decided. He would say farther, that when certain parties preferred bills against five of these yeomen, which bills were rejected, it was an ex parte justification of their conduct. The noble lord said, it was not in the power of the persons injured to obtain redress. This was not correct: they could proceed by criminal prosecution or civil action. Was it then fair, when a judicial investigation might be had, to set aside all the ordinary course of justice and to demand an inquiry in parliament? The noble lord alluded to the case of Porteus, in Scotland, which underwent an investigation in parliament. But then the fact was, that the magistrates had not done their duty, and parliament was the only place in which a remedy could be obtained. Where cases of that kind arose, it was certainly proper to apply to parliament; but a simultaneous proceeding in parliament and in the courts below could not be admitted without violating every principle of justice.

The noble lord had said it would be improper to pass such measures as were now in contemplation, without due consideration. This was very true; but ministers would rest their justification on the papers laid before the House, combined with the notoriety of the facts narrated in them, which were well known to every person in the country. The noble lord might take objection to insulated parts of an affidavit, but he believed a more complete body of evidence, taking the whole of it together, was never laid before parliament. Here was information, derived not merely from the Manchester magistrates (for the papers were not laid on the table for their justification) but from individuals of the highest respectability. They had the authority of the grand jury of the county of Lancaster, which was as respectably composed as any in the kingdom. It comprised individuals not only of high property and consideration in that county, but who entertained political opinions extremely different from each other. They had also the statement of the respectable individual who filled the situation of lord-lieutenant of the county. He could speak of that individual's conduct from experience when he held the situation of secretary of state for the home department, and he never knew a person who discharged the arduous duty of a lord-lieutenant in a more exemplary or abler manner. For many years it had been found of the greatest benefit to the county of Lancaster, that it possessed so excellent a lord-lieutenant as the earl of. Derby; a nobleman whose services could not be too highly appreciated, and who, although a zealous opponent of his majesty's ministers, had conducted himself in such a manner as to induce them, at any critical period, to congratulate themselves that such a man was at the head of a remote district. In addition to the authorities he had quoted, they had also the statement of the grand jury of Chester, and of the lord-lieutenant of that county; and having thus briefly adverted to them, he would ask whether there ever was so complete a mass of evidence laid before a secret committee of that House. From the conviction which ministers felt that this evidence was correct, they thought that laying it on the table would be sufficient to prove, that a state of things existed in the country which called for the interference of the legislature. The noble lord, on that and former occasions, had made a charge against the government for not having prosecuted a sufficient number of those infamous libels with which the country at present teemed. He would venture to say, that prosecutions, inopportunely taken up, were always productive of more evil than good. This was a subject, however, which for months past had most anxiously occupied the attention of government. Their lordships were aware that several prosecutions were instituted in Michaelmas term last year, particularly with respect to Sherwin's Register. If the noble lord thought they were dropped through neglect, he was mistaken. It was not from the supine-ness of government, but from the deficiency of the law as it now existed, and which their lordships had it in their power to remedy, that the proceedings were slow or unsuccessful. He could state that up to the present day, it was not in the power of the law-officers of the Crown to bring one of those libels home to Sherwin himself. It was, however, true, that fifty prosecutions had been instituted, some of them several months ago, not against himself, but against other persons, for publishing his register; and he believed that a prosecution was commenced against Carlile, for a letter on the subject of assassination, so long back as Christmas, 1818, but the forms of the law as it at present stood prevented it from being brought forward till Michaelmas term last, when it was further postponed, at the request of the defendant. They would have another time to go into this subject; but he wished now to put it to their lordships, whether it was fit that such a state of law should exist in this country, as enabled individuals to circulate libellous publications for nine or twelve months before they were subjected to legal punishment. Their lordships had on their table a most important measure connected with this subject. It was an alteration of the existing law respecting traverses which he deemed indispensable. He did not, however, mean to say that it would answer the intended purpose, unless it was combined with other mea- sures. This subject was under the serious consideration of the Prince Regent's government, who were as convinced, as he was, that the alteration was indispensably necessary for the administration of justice. Those who consider the increase of the population must feel with him, that the legal machinery, which 200 years ago might have answered every purpose, could not prima facie be calculated for the present state of things. He again repeated, that with the exception of one measure authorizing the search for arms, which was of a temporary and local nature, all the others which had been introduced by his noble friend last night, were consistent with the existing laws and principles of the British constitution. Those measures, were, indeed, proposed in furtherance of the principles of the constitution, and for the purpose of protecting the people of this country against a series of evils, which, if not checked, must subvert their rights and liberties. If they looked to this question in a proper point of view, they would see that whatever they might have gained by commercial exertions, whatever benefit they might have derived from the persecutions which had driven individuals from other countries, it was possible that they might be deprived of them all, if they did not guard against the persecutions of a mob. The fear of the mob invariably led to arbitrary government; and the best friends of liberty were therefore those who put down popular commotion, and secured the inhabitants of a country in the peaceable enjoyment of their rights.

The Earl of Darnley

said, he should support the motion, and contended, that this was a subject on which the minds of the people required to be satisfied, and on which an inquiry was absolutely necessary.

The Marquis of Lansdowe

replied. He was perfectly ready to admit that he was favourably disposed to the principle of some of the measures about to be adopted; but to others of them he was decidedly adverse. Whatever opinion might be entertained of them could not affect the propriety of the inquiry he proposed; which would be honourable to the House, satisfactory to the country, and would give to the magistrates an opportunity of vindicating their conduct.

The House then divided, when there appeared:—Contents—Present, 35; Proxies 12–47. Not Contents—Present, 110; Proxies 68–178. Majority against the Motion—131.

List of the Minority.
PRESENT,	Earl Grey
Duke of Kent	Minto.
Sussex	Lord Saye and Sele
Somerset	Hawke
Grafton	King
Devonshire	Holland
Hamilton	Montfort
Argyle	Auckland
Marq of Lansdowne.	Erskine
Earl of Essex	Alvanley
Thanet	Yarborough
Darlington	Foley.
Albemarle	PROXIES.
Fitzwilliam	Earl Spencer
Jersey	Marq. of Downshire
Lauderdale	Duke of Leinster
Cowper	Viscount Ansn
Grosvenor	Ear Derby
Carnarvon	Suffolk
Darnley	Charlemont
Bessborough	Visc. Bolingbroke
Donoughmore	Lord Sondes
	Dundas
Blessington	Hutchinson
Rosslyn	Crewe.