for the protection of Holland. Holland was now leagued with our Enemy. They had commenced hoftilities for the r.ftoration of Monarchy in France. They had been obliged to treat with the very authors of the death of the King. Was there one of their menaces accomplished, or one of their predictions fulfilled? They threatened to march to Paris. Now they were in anxiety for the safety of this kingdom. They announced the finances of France to be completely ruined. How, he afked, are our own? Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. He then took a view of their domeftic fyftem. They had extended the Excife Laws they had erected all over the kingdom. They had impofed reftrictions upon the liberty of the prefs. They had tongue-tied the people. They had diforganised the navy. They were hazarding the difmemberment of the empire. In thefe circumstances he called upon the Reprefentatives of the People to addrefs his Majefty to remove the authors of fuch a destructive, oppreffive, and ruinous fyftem. "If you wish," faid he, "for a fecure, permanent, and honourable peace, addrefs the King to difmifs his Minifters. If you wish to repair the shattered finances of the country, and to prop the tottering edifice of public credit, addrefs the King to difmifs his Minifters. Would you prevent the difmemberment of the empire, address the King to difmifs his Minifters. Would you restore the priftine purity and fplendor of the Conftitution, I repeat the expreffion, and with it I conclude, addrefs the King to difmifs his Minifters." Sir Gilbert Heathcote deprecated the confequences of a diffolution of Parliament at the prefent moment, when unanimity ought fo much to be cultivated. At prefent the country ought to rally round the Conftitution and the Executive Power, and if Ministers have been culpable, call them to account after the war. He was, therefore, against the Motion. Mr. Dent was against the Motion. He wifhed nothing had been faid of the feamen. He, as well as many others, thought that much mischief had arifen from speeches in that House. He afked where other Minifters were to be got, and who they were ? Mr. Jefferys (of Coventry) faid, that he was reprefentative of a confiderable manufacturing town, and he acted agreeably to the inftructions of his conftituents in fupporting the Motion. He should answer the queftion---where other Ministers were to be obtained, by alking, where there could be worfe? Mr. Sturt faid, that if any moment was favourable to the removal of Minifters it was the prefent; nor could any measure be more conducive to the speedy attainment of peace. For what has been the conduct of thofe Minifters? Have they not wantonly plunged the country in a war, the grounds of which they have 8 R 2 been been continually shifting; while they feduced the nation by pretended overtures of peace, in order to pick their pockets to enable them to profecute the war. How did they pla:1 the abominable expedition of Quiberon, at the bare mention of which British honour must blufh, and the heart of British fenfibility muft bleed? Did they not enlift the prifoners taken on the rft of June, who were notoriously and enthufiaftically attached to Republicanifm? And for what service did they enlift them? For the re-establishment of Monarchy in France-Could any conduct be more ridiculous and abfurd? Can fuch inen be held in too much contempt? At St. Domingo have they not facrificed millions of money, and the flower of the British Army? And at home have they not occafioned the most dreadful, the most alarming calamity that ever befel this country---he meant the late disturbances among the feamen---by oppofing or delaying to fatisfy the fair and just claims of these our gallant protectors? Thefe difturbances were as yet far from being wholly appeafed. (A loud cry of Order.) But Mr. Sturt faid, that no cry of Order, as long as he was not diforderly, and pronounced fuch by the Chair, thould deter him from delivering his fentiments. What he advanced he held from authority, and he was now ready to prove it at the Bar of the House. Of all thefe accumulated calamities, in his mind, the prefent Adminiftration were the cause; and it was impoffible that his Majefty could chufe worse, or who could bring the nation to a lower state of degradation and diftrefs. So fatisfied was he that they were the caufe of the unhappy disturbances in the fleet, that if no Member took up the fubject, he himself would move an inquiry into it. Indeed it were endless were he to enter into all the proofs they had in every inftance exhibited of grofs ignorance and glaring incapacity. We are laughed at in every country in Europe. for having fo long entrusted the conduct of affairs to fuch weak and incapable hands. But the time will come when they will be brought to a ferious account; when the people will exact from them indemnity for the past, and fecurity for the future: for if they continue much longer in office, they must reduce the country to fuch a fituation, that his Majefty, wholly unfolicited, muft turn them out, or the people will turn them out of their own accord. For his part, from whoever came in, he would expect a Reform in Parliament, the want of which was the cause of all our calamities, and without which all their proceedings would be but a farce. Mr. Sturt concluded by laying, that he never gave a vote with more pleasure than in the prefent queftion: for on its fuccefs, in his mind, depended the fafety, the very existence of the country. Mr. Mr. Pierpoint alluded to the obfervations made refpecting the inftructions given to the Reprefentatives by their Conftituents. He had the honour of reprefenting four thoufand, over whom he profeffed to have no other influence than that of his family having reprefented them for feveral centuries. With respect to paying obedience to them, it was a delicate fubject to speak upon, and he therefore declined faying what were his fentiments. He thould give his vote agaft the Motion, as he rather conceived his Majefty's Ministers had been unfortunate. He refered to the Sedition Bills, and faid, had he belonged to the last Parliament, he fhould have voted in favour of them, and he trufted when the stake he held in the country was confidedered no one would suspect him of giving his vote against its interefts. Mr. Burdon thought that the decifion of the prefent Motion was materially connected with the character of the country, and having a tendency to divide the country, he lamented that it had been brought forward. The House then loudly called for the question, and a divifion immediately took place:-- HOUSE OF COMMONS. Monday, May 22. The Report of the Committee on the Billfor guaranteeing the re-payment of the fhares of the Imperial Loan, was taken into confideration, and agreed to. Read a third time and paffed, the Weights and Measures Bill. Mr. Wilberforce moved for leave to bring in a Bill to enable perfons profeffing the Roman Catholic religion, to ferve as officers in the Supplemental Militia and Provifional Cavalry.---Ordered. Adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Cambricks, Liverpool Pilots, Dividends Guarantee, and Tonthill and Harrold Inclofure Bills were read a third time and paffed. THE TREASON AND SEDITION BILLS. Mr. Fox-"I fhall not have occafion, Sir, to detain the House for any confiderable length of time in ftating the reafons that induce me to call the attention of the Houfe to the two memorable Acts Acts of the laft Parliament, a Motion for the repeal of which I intimated before the holidays; nor will it be neceflary for me to fay much in answer to the mifreprefentations that have been made on account of my having delayed the Motion fo long. The circumstances that have recently occurred, particularly the measure of the stoppage of payment at the Bank, fo totally engroffed the public attention, and engaged the time of this House, that I did not think it right to bring forward this difcuffion, and instead of deferring it by adjournments from week to week, I derectly and openly annouced it for the present period. I have never been one moment doubtful as to the propriety of the two obnoxious Bills, which at the time they were paffed, I conceived to be most portentous to the country. Every reflection that I have made upon the fubject, and all the experience that we have had fince they were paffed, have served to corroborate my original feeling, and I now rife to move for the direct repeal of those two laws. With refpect to one of the two, that which came to us from the Houfe of Lords, under the title of A Bill for the better preservation of his Majefty's Perfon and Government against treasonable practices,' I fhall make but one or two obfervations, though every part of it continues to excite my heartfelt abhorrence. The first great objection to that Act is, that it extends unneceffarily the Statutes of treasons, and carries them to a length by no means confiftent with found policy as to their avowed object of the King's fafety, nor confiftent with the tranquillity and conftitution of the realm. The memorable ftatute of Edward III. was found to be fufficient to prevent the crime of treason, and experience has taught us, that all the ftrained and forced conftructions that have been put on that ftatute, have ferved rather to lower than to highten, its force. Its operation has proved that the life of the King is fufficiently guarded, and every extenfion of it beyond that great and national object has only ferved to take away the reverence which its fimplicity excited in the hearts of a loyal and a liberal people. That fimplicity impreffed upon the mind a fanction which it was impoffible to derive from intricate and nice conftructions. The people faw, in its noble and generous frame, fecurity for themfelves; by the reverence in which it held the facred perfon of their King, they faw that for the fecurity of his perfon even the imagination of his death was provided againft, and the law was fo clearly defined, so short and fimple, that no danger to the well meaning could be created by its operation. This is not the first inftance in which attempts have been made to make levying war a fubftantive Act of attempting the King's death; but all the inftances upon record in which the extenfi on on the Treafon Laws to forced and doubtful conftructions, has utterly failed of producing the effect which fuch laws ought ever to have on the minds of the people. We have found extenfions in the Laws of Treafon in the reign of Elizabeth, a reign certainly of great brilliancy and glory, but one alfo in which the alarms refpecting popery, then newly abolished, made fuch extenfions furely more neceffary than at the prefent moment, and were the occafion of a code of laws being adopted, which no man can juftify, but upon the particular crifis that exifted then, after the abolition of one religion, and the introduction of another. In fubfequent periods of our hiftory, the fame measures were adopted. "In the reign of Charles the Second, fimilar provifions were recurred to; but whoever looks at thofe provifions, will fee that they were taken on this ground, that the conduct of the Government was fuch, as to provoke Treafon on the part of the fubject. Upon the former Debates upon this topic I mentioned fome of thofe provifions. One of them made it highly penal to say that Charles the Second was a Papift. Why was it made penal? Because the affertion was true. If Charles had not known himself to have been a Papift, no law would have been paffed upon the fubject. But no law would, in the prefent day, be thought neceffary for the prefervation of the character of his Majesty King George III. against the charge of his being a Roman Catholic, becaufe any fuch charge would be too contemptible for notice. His Majefty's well-known character is his best protection against fuch an imputation, and the very enacting of fuch a law would betray a confcioufnels that there was ground for the imputation. The laws of Charles II. were made in this fpirit, they were received by the people, and have been received by pofterity in this fpirit, and fuch laws can never have any other effect than to excite fimilar fufpicions, and to weaken the Government which they profeffed to fupport. "The other part of the Bill is productive of the most serious confequences; I mean that part where all publications of libels, on a second conviction, enable the Judges to go far beyond what they have ever been allowed to go before. If we look back to the hiftory of former times, and fee what opinions and writings have been deemed to be libels---if we confider that Juries, the beft of all establishments, are ftill liable to the imperfections that attend all human inftitutions---if we confider too, that in times of alarm Juries have been fwayed, poffibly overswayed, in many inftances by the Courts--if we look back, I fay, to our hiftory and fee what have been adjudged to be libels, and how many more would have been declared to be fo, if the Govern ment |