HOUSE OF LORDS.

FRIDAY, JULY 17.

NEGOCIATION WITH FRANCE.

Lord Holland, before he moved the order of the day, wished to ask the noble lord at the head of the Administration, if the letter from the French Government, and the answer of Lord Castlereagh, on the subject of a proposal for a negociation for peace between France and this country, and which had been published in the French papers, were authentic? Though he did not think it would be proper to consent that Joseph should be King of Spain, he was at the same time convinced there was not the same objection in the acknowledging the title of Buonaparte, and he trusted that no opportunity for negociation would be lost on account of any scruple on that head. He was anxious likewise to know whether there was any objection to lay this correspondence before Parliament, and whether Lord Castlereagh has received any answer to his letter?

The Earl of Liverpool said, he had no difficulty in admitting that the correspondence in question was substantially correct. The noble lord would admit that it would have been improper to have laid these documents before Parliament at an earlier period, since the answer of Lord Castle reagh afforded an opportunity for explanation, which explanation, however, had not yet been given. If any one now chose to move for these papers, he had no objection to produce them. With respect to the recognition to which the noble lord had adverted, Government had acted upon the principle of all former Governments, and even of that of which the noble lord had formed a part, which was, not to make such recognitions gratuitously. But whatever objection some might find to the language of the answer, there were few, either in Parliament or in the country at large, who would find fault with the matter of that answer. All would agree, that if the acknowledgment of Joseph Buonaparte as King of Spain was to be made a necessary preliminary by the French Government, no negociation could be entered upon by the Government of this country on such a basis. It had, therefore, been requisite to call for an explicit declaration on that subject, in the first instance. No communication in reply had been received,

and there the matter had rested. He repeated, that he saw no objection to laying the correspondence on their lordships' table, if any of them thought it worth while to make a motion for that purpose.

The Earl of Lauderdale would not make any observation on the subject either way at present, but merely asked whether he understood the noble earl correctly, when he conceived him to have said, that no answer whatever had been returned to the letter of Lord Castlereagh, and no other paper had passed, except those which had already appeared? The Earl of Liverpool replied, that no other paper or communication had passed.

The subject was then dropped.

EX-OFFICIO INFORMATIONS.

On the order of the day being read for the second reading of the first Bill relative to Ex-officio Informations,

Lord Holiand observed, that after what he had said upon this subject on a former occasion, and considering the thinness of the House at the present moment (although he admitted the season of the year to be inauspicious for a full attendance), he should not have been disposed to have said a word now upon the subject, had not what he formerly stated been misunderstood and misrepresented, in quarters where he was anxious not to be misunderstood or misrepresented; and had not his object also, in proposing these Bills, been greatly misapprehended by some persons amongst the public. Ex-officio Informations and Libel had for some time past been so much identified, that there were some persons in the country so ignorant of law as to suppose them inseparably connected, and even to suppose that his object was nothing less than to abolish the law of libel altogether, and thus expose the Government to every attack that the utmost license of imagination could invent. might be his speculative or particular opinion upon this Whatever subject, he was not such an Utopian reformer as to call upon the House to adopt a measure embodying those opinions. His object was the regulation of the power of Ex-officio Informations, in order to guard against the abuse to which that power was liable, to the oppression of the people. The power of information altogether was inconsistent with the spirit of our constitution, and was condemned, at least by inference, by our own laws, which expressly forbid any other mode of proceeding, in cases affecting life or limb, than the VOL. III.-1812. 4 N

ordinary, safe, and constitutional mode of proceeding, by indictment, to be first found by the majority of a Grand Jury, namely, twelve, before the individual accused could be put upon his trial. And it was highly worthy of remark, that whenever the subject was to be oppressed, it was effected by means of an extension of power of the information. Thus in the reign of Henry the VIIth, the grievances endured by the people through this means were so great, that it was found necessary, in the first year of Henry the VIIIth, to pass an Act for the express purpose of regulating this power. Again in the reign of Elizabeth, and in the reigns of the first Princes of the House of Stuart, this power was resorted to, and was the favourite engine of that most oppressive Court, the Star Chamber. This power continued to be made the engine of oppression up to the period of the revolution, when the Committee appointed by the House of Commons (in which Committee Lord Somers, then Mr. Somers, took a most active and zealous part) came to a resolution, that the power of information ought to be abolished altogether; which resolution was unanimously agreed to by the House. He was aware that the informations then more particularly alluded to were not informations Ex-officio, but informations in the name of common informers. The fact, however, was, that this species of information had been found so convenient to the Government, that the information Ex-officio had fallen into disuse, and had become in a great degree obsolete. To regulate the power of information thus exercised, and prevent the grievances that resulted from its abuse to the people, an Act was passed in the third or fourth year of William and Mary, enacting that the informer should enter into recognizance as a security to the defendant for the costs, provisions had previously been enacted to -prevent the informer from not prosecuting, or from compounding it. He trusted he should not now be told by a noble and learned lord, as he was on a former occasion, that the Act passed soon after the revolution, relative to the information to which he had alluded, was obsolete. That noble and learned lord could not now say so in justice to bimself, that Act being still in operation, and constantly, he was happy to say, acted upon by the Court of King's Bench. He was aware that this recognizance with respect to costs could not be applied to Ex-officio Informations, without the violation of a well-known maxim of the law; a maxim that, whatever opinions might be entertained respecting it, had

been long acted upon, and certainly ought not to be hastily violated, namely, that the Crown pays no costs. The Act, however, to which he alluded, had left the question respecting Ex-officio Informations where it found it, by the insertion of words which could not be construed to recognise the legality of that species of information. If, therefore, the Ex-officio Information was, as some eminent lawyers had maintained, actually illegal, it could derive no legality from that Act. What was the nature of the Ex-officio Informátion? It was a power exercised by the Attorney-General of the Crown, at pleasure, of filing an information against an individual, and placing, by his single act, that individual in the same situation as if a Grand Jury of twenty-three men had found a bill of indictment against him. It must be at once admitted, that such a power was most liable to abuse, and against its abuse, which might tend grievously to the oppression of the people, it was the duty of the Legislature to provide. He had obtained a list of the number of informations Ex-officio which had been filed in the course of a few years past, a proceeding, it should be observed, that, with the exception of revenue cases, was confined to libel, and he found, that from 1800 to 1807, the number filed was fifteen; in the three years from 1807 to 1810, the number filed was not less than forty-two, of which, however, more than half had never been prosecuted to trial. He did not mean to impute any other than proper motives to Sir Vicary Gibbs, in not prosecuting these informations to trial, but he must say, that it was a power of fining and punishing individuals which ought not to exist without regulation. He had several cases before him, but he would not name individuals, his object being to abstain from mixing personal considerations with the question, confining himself entirely to the principle. One of the cases was that of an individual who, in three successive years, has had three successive informations filed against him on charges of libel, on one of which he was acquitted on trial, and the other two had not been brought to trial. The expences incurred by this individual, in consequence of these Ex-officio Informations, amounted to 278/. 18s. 11d. Thus it appeared that the Attorney-General, without the intervention of a Grand Jury, without the intervention of any regular or constitutional mode of proceeding, had the power of amercing an individual to the amount of nearly 3007. in the course of three years. Was not this a power that required some regulation

to guard against the abuse of it? He had formerly quoted Mr. Justice Blackstone upon this subject, and he must again quote that learned Judge, who, in stating the necessity for the existence of Ex-officio Informations, observed, that it was necessary to meet adequately enormous misdemeanours, such as obstructing or affrighting the Sovereign in the exercise of his functions, in which not a moment's delay could be suffered in bringing the offender to justice. Now those who supported this power of Ex-officio Informations, must either deny the authority of Judge Blackstone, or they must accuse the Attorney-General of negligence, in not bringing to trial the information alluded to; or they must admit that the offences for which these informations Exofficio were filed, were not enormous misdemeanours, and therefore that the informations were improperly filed. He could not contemplate the existence of such a power in the hands of an officer of the Crown, without feeling that it was pregnant with the most dangerous consequences. It might give a most improper influence over the public press. At the present moment the Attorney-General had the power, after filing an information Ex-officio, of keeping it hanging over the head of the defendant, without any limit of time, and thus possessed the unlimited power of keeping individuals, at his pleasure, in a continued state of terror and alarm. From the general diffusion of knowledge, and the general curiosity to know the state of public affairs-a curiosity, perhaps, sharpened by the large sums which the people had to paythere were at the present moment a great number of periodical publications. It was, therefore, of great importance to consider what effect might be produced upon the public press, by this power vested in the hands of the AttorneyGeneral. By not prosecuting an information, there might be a tacit understanding, under which the individual against whom it had been filed might be most improperly influenced in his opinions, particularly if his subsistence depended on a periodical publication; or the abuse of such a power might have the effect of driving from the conduct of the public press persons of conscience and integrity, who would, not sacrifice their opinions to temporary interest. It might be said that the case he had alluded to, of three successive informations filed against the same individual, made against this argument; but the case did not make against the general principle of danger which grew out of this power, unlimited, as it at present was, in the hands of the Attorney