fact, yet no coroner, till within a few years, even after the finding of a murder by the joint opinion of twelve difinterefted perfons, a much more refpectable tribunal than any two minifters of ftate, was ever known to iffue a general warrant for apprehending the unknown perpetrators of it; that, if the legislature thought, that fuch libels, as minifters might think proper to confider as feditious and treasonable, required equal reftraint, they would certainly have provided for it; that to prove it was not through any inattention (not that any inattention in the making of laws can excufe any neglect in the miniftra tion of them) of the legislature, fuch provifion was omitted, at the paffing of an act at the time of the revolution for fufpending the habeas corpus act, by granting the king a power to fecure and detain fuch perfons as his Majefty might fufpect were confpiring against his perfon, every fuch warrant for detaining and apprehending any fufpected perfon, was to be figned by fix members of the privy council, and to be, befides, registered in the council books, in order to make fuch members answerable for every warrant they figned.

That, if fince that time, in order to prevent the growth of a moft alarming evil, the great number of rogues and vagabonds, it has been thought proper by the legislature, to direct and authorize general privy fearches for fuch pefts of fociety, yet no perfon fufpected of being either can be committed, if he can procure a refponfible housekeeper to give fecurity for his futures appearance; or be detained above fix days, if committed on

fufpicion of felony, unless fome accufation is, in the mean time, brought against him.

That, if general warrants defcribing the offence, do not give officers in general a right to feize the innocent, they throw in the way of meffengers, who are to be fo well paid for taking care of the offender's perfon, a temptation to enquire into the character and life of all perfons, and thus tend, in fome fhape, to convert these subordinate minifters of justice into fo many fpies and informers; that fuch an enquiry, even when conducted in the difcreeteft manner, might injure the most virtuous in their reputation and fortune.

That, if a general warrant for feizing the authors, printers, and publishers of a libel, feditious and treasonable in the eye of a minifter, was liable to fo many objections, one for feizing their papers was still more fo; fince papers, though often dearer to a man than his heart's blood, and equally clofe, have neither eyes nor ears to perceive the injury done to them, nor tongue to complain of it, and, of course, may be treated in a degree highly injurious to the owners, before they can get into the hands of a minifter; and that, though a minifter may have lefs temptation to fatiate avarice by the garbling of fuch papers, he may have, what is a great deal worse, a much stronger to glut his revenge, by combining or disjoining them, fo as to make of them engines capable of working the deftruction of the most innocent perfons.

That even a particular warrant to feize feditious papers alone, without mentioning the titles of them, may prove highly detrimental, fince in

that

that cafe all a man's papers muft be indifcriminately examined, and fuch examination may bring things to light, which it may not concern the public to know, and which yet it may prove highly detrimental to the owner to have made public; that of this there had happened a moft flagrant inftance in the cafe of one of these perfons, the apprehenfion of whom and of his papers had originally given rife to this debate; fome letters of his, no way relative to the public, having tranfpired foon after the execution of the warrant against him and his papers.

That, great as the mischiefs might be, with which general war rants for feizing the perfons and papers of thofe guilty of writing feditious, and even treasonable libels, must be attended, to individuals, thofe attending general warrants against the printers and publishers of fuch libels, unlefs thefe libels carry fomething feditious or treasonable in the very title, or they have been legally declared fuch, must be ftill greater to the public, fince in that cafe printers and publishers, to be safe, mutt read every thing that goes through their hands; and of courfe would print and publish very little; the confequence of which must be a fuppreffion of the prefs; an evil more prejudicial to the public than almost any abuse of it can be; that fuch printers and publishers cannot be confidered in as bad a light as tale-bearers, fince it is impoffible for a man to tell a thing without knowing what it is he tells, whereas no printer or publisher can be fuppofed to know what every thing is that he prints or

publifhes: and notwithstanding, by the laws of fome of our wifeft Saxon monarchs, the tale-bearer was to be kept in prifon, only till he gave up his author, for that a printer or publisher of an offenfive paper ought not to be feized and detained till he gave up the writer, was not in the leaft pretended by them.

'That the cafes, if any, in which it might be proper to endeavour to fecure, by a general warrant, the perfons, and, by almost any warrant, the papers, of thofe concerned in the writing, printing, and publishing of feditious, and what a minifter might think proper to ftyle treasonable, libels, were fo few, that they might be juftly ranked amongst those very uncommon events, against which the legislature has not thought proper to make any provifion; because the providing against all fuch uncommon events would fwell the law to an intolerable degree; that, befides, it was almost impoffible to imagine any cafe in which every evil, with which fuch practices could be attended, might not be seasonably enough remedied, and even prevented by the prefentment of a grand jury; or, at worst, an information in the court of king's bench.

Such were the arguments now urged against minifters too freely attributing treafon to libels, and their granting general warrants for feizing the perfons and papers of the authors, printers, and publifhers of feditious libels, and even fuch libels, as they might think proper to deem treasonable; and in both refpects they must be allowed to have great weight, confidering how much more the fcale prepon

derates

There is, faid they, in the ftatute called Westminster, chap. 24. a law against telling or publithing any falfe news or tales, whereby difcord, or occafion of difcord, or flander, might grow between the king and his people, or the great men of the realm; and the fo doing was reckoned fedition in the reign of that nurfing mother of her people queen Eliza beth; and, as to the danger of hurting the reputation or fortune of innocent men, by encouraging an enquiry into the commitment of fome offences, there is frequent mention made in the English records of the king's fending or ders to theriffs or other magiftrates to enquire into fome particular fort of crime, then commonly committed within their district, and to feize and imprifon the offenders; and at the time of iffuing the general warrants that have given rife to this debate, what crime could be more common than that of telling or publishing falfe news and tales, whereby difcord, or occafion of difcord, or flander, might grow between the king and his people, and the great men of the realm ?

That, in the cafe of offences not near fo grievous, it has been an immemorial custom to disturb the peace of a whole country by that

folemn alarm called hue and crys and thereby make it lawful for all inhabitants to stop, and all magiftrates to enquire into the cha racter of, every stranger, for the fake of finding out one fingle delinquent.

That to question the legality of general warrants, would be impeaching the character of the higheft and most refpectable tribunal; next to the houfe of lords, in the whole realm; a tribunal, whofe judges for many years paft, that general warrants have been in use, have been allowed to be men of the foundeft capacity and most unbiaffed integrity; fince it is not to be fuppofed, that they, who are always, even by the law, fuppofed to be of council for the prifoner, and cannot, therefore, but confider themfelves as fuch, should overlook any flaw in an order to deprive a man of his liberty; though not taken notice of by the council of his own appointment; men, who have been not only fo attentive to the fpirit and letter of the law, as often to decide cafes on motives never urged by the council of either plaintiff or defendant, but fo watchful of the very fhadow of it, as fometimes to difmifs caufes for want of a ferupulous compliance with mere exterior forms.

That, befides, it could not but be fuppofed, that many of the council employed on thefe occafions were lovers of liberty and very able lawyers, and that the filence of fuch men is, alone, of great weight, in the opinion of a chief justice, whofe capacity and integrity their adverfaries themfelves, they were fure, could not fufpect; an opinion folemnly delivered from the

bench,

bench, and in that cause too, which originally gave rife to the present debate *.

That, if a law, made at the revolution, in the reign of William III. who is univerfally allow ed to have been as jealous of the prerogative of the crown as was confiftent with the fecurity of his new-acquired poffeffion of it, required that warrants granted during the fufpenfion of the babeas corpus act, for the detaining or apprehending of fuch perfons as his Majefty fhould fufpect were confpiring against his perfon or government, fhould be figned by fix of the privy council; the last act paffed for the fame purpose required, that fuch warrants fhould be figned either by fix of the privy council, or one of the fecretaries of ftate, by which the high authority of that office, which fo many perfons affected to confider in a mean light, is, if not recognized, at leaft eftablished, fince it is thereby made equal to that of fix members of the privy council, fix men, whofe perfons, next to thofe of the royal family, are held moft facred, a bare attempt upon their lives being felony without benefit of the clergy.

That it must appear very extraordinary, if not ridiculous, that a houfe of commons, which had made no law for the relief of the most innocent perfons even in domeftic life, clofely confined and cruelly treated in private mad - houfes, without any judicial proofs of infanity, and merely at the inftigation of perfons no way related to them, or only related to

them enough to have an interest in their confinement and death, and could overlook fo great an evil notwithstanding the flagrant proofs of its actual existence, fhould now take fo much pains to declare illegal the comparatively most mild detention of fuppofed offenders a gainft the public, by orders of perfons fo high in dignity, and in the confidence of the prince, and even of the legislature, as appears by the above law to make the opinion of one of them equal to that of fix privy counsellors; men of fuch juftice and humanity, that, in difmif fing the perfons confined in virtue of their warrants, they feldom or never failed to enquire of them felves, if they had received the full benefit of the ample allowance made for their fupport, and fe verely to refent any mifapplication of it.

What the friends of the miniftry might want in thefe arguments against the illegality of general warrants, &c. they made it up, perhaps, in thofe for the propriety of ftating the queftion, as a queftion now depending before the ordinary courts of juftice in Westminsterhall. They remarked, that, if the proceedings there against the fecretaries of ftate met with any obftacle, it was entirely owing to the parties feeking redress; who, in an offence deemed even by the oppofite party to be of a public nature, chofe, from a principle of avarice, to be plaintiffs for themfelves, rather than profecutors for the public; and`accordingly had recourfe to a court established for the diftribution of