had immemorially enjoyed this liberty. Now it feems they are no longer to do so, unless notice be given to a magistrate empowered to arreft any person whom in his wisdom he might deem feditious; and who had authority to diffolve the meeting by the fiat of his own will. SAY at ONCE that a free constitution is no longer fuitable to England! Conduct yourselves as the fenators of Denmark formerly did! Renounce your liberties, and accept of defpotifm; but do not mock the understanding and feelings of mankind by telling the world you are free. Can a meeting under fuch restraints as the bill imposes and requires be called a meeting of freemen? Will the people of this country fuffer their feelings to be thus infulted? Or is it poffible they can regard this measure in any other light than as a total extinction of their liberty? He trusted that the people would be alarmed at the prospect of the state preparing for them, and that they would affemble while they might, to concert the means of averting a stroke fo fatal. Those who failed to do so he pronounced traitors to their country. He declared his refolution, if this bill was perfifted in, of moving a call of the house.

After a variety of speeches from the principal members of oppofition, reprobating the bill in terms of the utmost indignation and afperity, Mr. Wilberforce, who had during the two last seflions acted fo independent and honorable a part, rose, and, in the most pufillanimous language, acknowledged his acquiefcence, in, and approbation of, the measure. "For three years," he said, " attempts had been made to poison the minds of the people, by diffeminating false principles of liberty; and not of liberty merely, but of philofophy and religion likewife. That all this had not been without effect, recent events had afforded fufficient proof, and he thought the administration entitled to the thanks of the nation for adopting the neceffary measures of restraint and prevention. He did not regard the bill propofed by his right honorable FRIEND as militating against the

right of difcuffing political questions, and rather thought that right would acquire new life and vigor when those affemblies at which public difcuffions took place should be brought under proper regulations !" The bill was ordered in by a majority of 214 to 42 voices.

Mr. Fox now moved for a call of the houfe, which was acceded to by Mr. Pitt, who obferved, notwithstanding, that the bill would be produced in a day or two, and that it might be read a first and second time, and go through the committee, before the call.--Mr. Grey urged the right the people of England had to expect that a bill of such dreadful import fhould at least be difcuffed in a full house; and hoped time would be given at least to utter the last bitter groans of expiring liberty. The call was at length fixed for the 24th of November. In the mean time, the nation at large, or at least all who retained any fense of the ineftimable value of the bleflings of liberty, had taken the alarm at the bills now depending, and meetings were convened in a great number of counties, cities, and boroughs, to petition parThe Correliament against the paffing of them into laws. fponding Society, whose imprudent proceedings had afforded the pretext for these nefarious and liberticidal measures, met, for the last time, in the field near Copenhagen House, November 12, in prodigious numbers. The greatest decorum was notwithstanding obferved, and petitions were agreed on to the king and two houfes of parliament against the bills in queftion, after which they difperfed in the most perfect order. In a very short time, near a hundred other petitions were presented to parliament against the bills, figned by more than 130,000 perfons; but no confideration could check the minister in his headlong career, fupported as he was by vaft majorities of both houses.

On the 16th of November the Treafon Bill was fent down from the lords, and, after encountering great refiftance in every ftage, it finally paffed into an act moft difgraceful to the code of English ftatutes.

On

On the second reading of the Sedition Bill, Mr. Erskine distinguished himself by some very animated remarks against it. "An act of this defcription," he faid, "was never thought of in the reign of king Charles II. after all the horrors and confufion of the former reign. It was never attempted in the reign of king William, when the government was newly established during a difputed fucceffion, or in either of the two fubfequent reigns, when rebellions raged in the heart of the kingdom.-He defied the whole profeffion of the law to prove that the bill then before the house was confonant to the principles of the constitution. The constitution was abrogated and annulled by it. Our ancestors were content to wait till fome overt act appeared which was the fubject of punishment: but, under this bill, the determination of a magistrate was to interfere between the people and the affertion of their rights, or the complaint of their grievances.-How eafy would it be for the fpy of a corrupt magiftrate, by going to a meeting and uttering a few feditious words, whether appofite to the subject or not, to afford a pretence for diffolving the meeting. The law of the land," this great conftitutional lawyer affirmed, "was fully adequate to all the purposes of good government without the introduction of the prefent measure. In any public meeting, when a breach of the peace was committed, a magistrate, by the existing law, was entitled to interfere, and, in his support, was authorised to raife the poffe comitatis if neceffary; and alfo by the Riot Act he had the power of difperfing tumultuous affemblies.-The minifter was now attempting to brand with the imputation of fedition all thofe who employed the fame language which Mr. Pitt himself had once held. But under the fanction of the venerable father of this apoftate minister, the great earl of Chatham, he would maintain that the people of England might and ought to defend their rights, if neceffary, by the last extremity to which free-men could refort. For my part," exclaimed this celebrated advocate of the conflitution, "I fhall

never cease to struggle in support of liberty! In no fituation will I defert the cause-I was born a free-man, I will never die a flave!"

On the 23d of November a debate took place in confequence of a variety of petitions presented against the bills. Mr. Sturt, on offering that of the Correfponding Society, justified that body from the afperfions thrown out against them and their writings; and, to prove that things at least equally exceptionable had appeared from the partizans of the ministry, he read to the house several paffages from a pamphlet published by Mr. Reeves, prefident of the London Affociation, in which that gentleman had, amongst other curious pofitions, afferted, "that the government of England was a monarchy; that the monarchy was the ancient ftock from which have fprung thofe goodly branches of the legislature, the lords and commons; that these, however, were ftill only branches, and that they might be lopped off, and the tree be a tree ftill---fhorn indeed of its honors, but not, like them, caft into the fire." This contemptible trash was taken up as a very serious matter by the houfe, and not only voted to be a libel upon the constitution, which was very fuperfluous, but the attorney-general was ordered to commence a profecution against the author, which was very indefensible. But by the verdict of an intelligent jury, who were fenfible that opinions ought to be free, he was fubfequently acquitted, to the great fatisfaction of his more generous political adverfaries.

When the house went (November 27), into a committee on the Sedition Bill, Mr. Fox, true to his firft declaration of not debating the bill in detail, immediately rose and left the house, followed by the principal members of oppofition. A very material amendment was, however, made in the committee, by inferting a claufe, limiting the duration of the bill to three years---a conceffion no doubt extorted from the minifter by the alarm excited in every part of the country by this measure. On the 3d of December this bill was

paffed

paffed and fent up to the lords, where it was vigorously but unavailingly oppofed by the marquis of Lanfdown, the earls of Derby and Moira, and lord Thurlow, who ftigmatized it as “a bad bill, establishing a dangerous and unconstitutional precedent. Not that the bill oppugned the right of the subject to discuss public grievances---No: it only rendered the exercise of that right impracticable. His lordship contrasted in a striking manner the provifions of the present bill with those of the Riot Act. By the latter, the perfons affembled for an unlawful purpose did not incur the penalty of death, unless they continued together riotoufly and tumultuously for one hour after the act had been read. By the former, if an affembly convened for the mere difcuffion of public topics continued together peaceably, to the number of twelve or more, for one hour after proclamation was made commanding them to difperfe, they were guilty of felony, without benefit of clergy. For fuch a bill as the prefent," his lordship declared," he was fully determined not to vote." On the 14th of December, the bill was read a third time, and paffed by the ufual majority. It was accompanied by two protests, the first of which expressed in fimple, the fecond in energetic, language, the chief arguments against the bill.

In the early part of the feffion, a great variety of expedients were fuggested, and fome adopted, by the house of commons, for alleviating the diftreffes of the poor, by lowering the price of bread-corn. Bills were introduced to alter the existing laws relative to the affize of bread; to prohibit the manufacture of ftarch from wheat; to prohibit the diftilling from any articles of grain; to prevent obftruction in the tranfit of grain, &c.---So far as these laws operated at all, the operation was allowed to be beneficial. But a more direct and radical remedy for the existing evil, as it affected the most useful and neceffary branch of the community, was proposed by Mr. Whitbread, who, on the 9th of December, brought in a bill to enable juftices at the quarter