are to effect this? They who think this a satisfactory reply know little of the nature of popery, and can have reflected little upon the state of the British parliament. In addition to the power which property will always procure, there is one great borough interest, which in the next succession will revert to the catholics. If it were supposed important to the success of their object, that more members of their community should be returned, and money could purchase their return, which, in spite of all enactments against bribery, it will do (unless the whole form and system of representation be changed,) money would be raised for that purpose throughout every catholic kingdom in Europe; it would be begged as it is for the souls in Purgatory, and part of the re

gular commutation for sin would be converted into a tax for this great purpose. This too must not be forgotten; that a body of members, insignificant as they might be upon general questions, who could turn the scale when weighty ones make the beam tremble, would be able to make their own terms with an English minister, such as ministers are upon our miserable party-system.

Whether any means can preserve the church of England, is a question which may, perhaps, be regarded with more of fear than of hope; but it ought not to be doubted that the admission of the catholics to political power, which is what is meant by emancipation, would increase its danger, and might, too probably, accelerate its overthrow.

A LIST of such proceedings as had been instituted ex officio by the attorney-general against state libels, during the last ten years, was moved for by Lord Holland. "An act," he said, "altering the ancient law March 4. of the land, giving to the silent and spontaneous act of one man all the powers and consequences of a solemn proceeding of a grand jury, had been passed this parliament at the lag end of a session, and without any person to explain the nature of its provisions, or assign the reasons on which they were founded. When he recollected, that to justify that extraordinary innovation, to lay grounds for that unexpected attack on the liberty of the subject, to prove the necessity of arming the attorney-general with the power of holding to bail, and, in some cases, of imprisoning whomever he thought guilty of a libel, no papers were moved for, no enquiry instituted, no documents produced, nay, no statement whatever made, further than was to be found in the meagre, unsatisfactory, and unsubstantiated preamble of the bill; when he recollected this, he felt that his expectation of his motion being acceded to by the supporters of that bill, was rather a proof of his own simplicity, than a fair consequence to be drawn

of

from the former conduct of those noble persons. He complimented them on their consistency in refusing all information respecting the consequence a law, for the enactment of which they had assigned no reasons, and for the allegations in which they had adduced no evidence; but surely it was natural for their lordships, who, if they had reasons for adopting the law, must have adopted it for the purpose of preventing offences and securing the ends of public justice, to enquire whe ther those ends had been accomplished; to learn how often, and with what effect the provisions of the new law had been resorted to; to ascertain whether libels had increased or diminished since these new powers had been granted; and, above all, to discover whether the convictions obtained bore a greater proportion to the informations laid, than they did before the latter were armed with such unusual, and, hitherto, unconstitutional consequences. When he perceived a vigilance in the attorney-general, that in three years discovered near four times the number of heinous offences that his predecessors had detected in twice the time; when he looked at his rigour on one hand, and the solitary instance of his mercy on the other, it would not be charity, it would

be blindness, not to suspect; it would not be candour, it would be hypocrisy, not to say that the attorney-general had exercised these powers for the purposes of influence, instead of confining them to the legitimate cases of necessity, for which alone they were intrusted to him. He wished the house to consider what was the effect of such information, even where no sentence was passed, no verdict obtained, no trial instituted; the bare operation of an attorney-general so accusing a man, put him at once to an expence of from 601. to 2001., without the possibility of being indemnified. It was to all intents and purposes a fine of that sum, at the discretion of the attorney-general to inflict as often as he chose, on every writer, proprie. tor, editor, or printer of a public newspaper. Such a power might be right, might be necessary; but surely it was one, in the exercise of which the officer intrusted with it should be narrowly watched, according to every dictate of public prudence, and every maxim of our jealous constitution.

"On some future occasion," Lord Holland continued, " he should propose, 1st, A limitation of the time at which it should be lawful to file informations for libel, after the first publication; 2dly, To fix a period at which the attorney-general should, after filing an information, be compelled to bring the accused to trial, to drop the prose cution, or to assign reasons and ask leave of the court for further time to collect his witnesses; 3dly, To limit the period at which the persons convicted for state libels should be liable to be called up for judgement; for a verdict, in the present state of the law, might be perverted from the general purposes of punishment and example, into the means of intimidation and influence. He should also move in the course of the session, unless such a measure came recommended from the

other house, the repeal of that part of the 48th of the king, which gave to the attorney-general the power of holding to bail on ex officio informations for misdemeanors."

Lord Ellenborough objected to the motion. "During the whole time," he said, "that he had presided in the Court of King's Bench, he knew that the greatest facility existed in getting at the files of these ex officio informations, and there was not a document of which the noble lord and any one else might not soon be in possession. But it was not a search for information that the noble lord proposed to himself; it was not in order to be informed that he had made the present motion; a motion, upon which the files of the Court of King's Bench were to be ransacked and rummaged, in order that a mass of useless and unnecessary papers should be cast upon their lordships' table. What," he asked, " was law, if the law of informations ex officio was not? It had been made law by the same authority as all the laws which held the government together. It was as old law. If Lord Holland as the common questioned the expediency of the law, why not propose that it should be repealed? That would be the direct and manly course nothing could be more mischievous than, by declamatory speeches in that assembly, to impress upon the public mind the false notion that informations ex officio were not perfectly legal. The noble lord had particularly alluded to the Indictment Bill, an act made within the last four years, giving the attorney-general power to hold persons to bail against whom informations ex officio had been filed. And now he would ask their lordships, how often did they think this bill had been acted upon since its enactment but once in the whole four years; there was but one solitary instance of its being acted upon, and he would tell their lordships in what case

that was; the case of a man, one Gorman, who, being under prosecution for a libel, after an information had been filed against him, had the hardihood to publish it again. And yet this was the mighty abuse of that act; this, forsooth, was one of the ruinous stretch es of power which threatened the government with subversion, and put the subjects of George the Third on a par with those of Buonaparte! He re peated that he knew nothing more mischievous in its tendency, than inoculating the public mind with groundless apprehensions of imaginary evils. His abhorrence of the licentiousness of the press was founded upon his love of liberty, which burned as strong in his breast as in that of the noble lord. But if there was one mode more efficacious than another to ruin the liberty of the country, it was by generating that groundless distrust in the great officers of justice, which such needless and vexatious jealousy was calculated to inspire."

Earl Stanhope, in supporting the motion, said, "There were two species of libels which ought carefully to be distinguished. Libels against individuals it was their duty to discourage, as they regarded the prosperity, and honour, and character of the country. Truth, in such cases, was no justification, and if such libels were suffered, society could not exist: But all public questions ought to be open to the press; every subject connected with religion, philosophy, government, the administration of justice; any thing that could by possibility be supposed connected with the benefit of the nation, ought to be duly and freely discussed. This was his idea, and he thought, at the same time, that the licentiousness of the press was the greatest enemy which the liberty of the press had. I had an old friend," continued Lord Stanhope," an amiable, worthy, able man, with whom I

was always differing; but still I did not like him the less, because I knew he spoke from conscience. We differed, among other things, about the press I was a friend for its liberty, my friend argued for its restraint: I could not help, however, severely condemning some scandalous libels which were daily pouring forth at that time against Lord Bute and the then Princess of Wales; but my friend replied, "Oh! never mind them only let them come to a proper height, and in time the evil will cure itself;' meaning thereby, that the licentiousness of the press would at last come to such a pitch, that its liberty must be checked in order to restrain it." Earl Stanhope's friend, it is to be feared, foreboded rightly; all history shews us that the loss of liberty is the consequence and punishment of the abuse of it.

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The motion was supported also by Lords Erskine, Grosvenor, and Lansdowne. Lord Liverpool said, "that when the effect of the motion was to bring suspicion on the administration of justice, he must say, that the course for Lord Holland to have pursued would have been to select any prosecu tion of which he complained as oppres sive, and then to move for enquiry: To tell them that the prosecutions for the three last years exceeded in number the prosecutions of former years,' was telling them nothing: it might proceed from different causes; even from too great lenity having been shewn before. Publications of all kinds had become more numerous, and libels also might be expected to multiply." Lord Holland closed the debate, replying chiefly to Lord Ellenborough, and making the best use of the advantage which the irritated tone of Lord Ellenborough's speech had given him. The motion was rejected by 24 to 12. Lord Folkestone renewed it in the House of Coin- March 28. mons. "From 1801 to 1806," he said, "there had been four

teen ex officio informations instituted; in 1807, there was not one; in the three following years, under the present attorney-general, no less than forty-two were filed: this increase must have arisen from one of two causes; from an increased propensity, on the part of the public press, to offend against the law; or from an increased eagerness, on the part of the attorneygeneral, to commence such prosecutions." The former, he contended, did not exist; for he argued that the object of the public prints was rather to follow than to lead the public feeling., "The increase of libels, therefore," said he, " is a proof of an increased disposition, on the part of the people, to fall in with libellous sentiments; and if an inclination favourable to the propagation of such doctrines does exist among the people, it becomes the duty of the house to investigate the cause of the discontent; for it is the general bent of the human mind, unless oppressed by great injuries, to remain contented with its situation, and nothing but real and serious injury can raise at once the cry of a whole country.

"Those gentlemen," he continued, "who have not maturely considered the subject, cannot be aware of the immensity of power which is placed in the hands of the attorney-general, and how he is enabled to vex and to harass those against whom he is disposed to file his ex officio informations. In all other cases, when an individual has to contend with the crown, he is fortified by the rules and forms of the law, which serve as a bar against oppression. But in cases of libel, the accused has to contend with the same power, and without any of those advantages which are enjoyed in cases of treason: and this is not the extent of the evil. The attorney-general has it in his power to file his informations against whomsoever he pleases. In all other cases, justice is provided for in the outset.

When a bill is presented to a grand jury, the accused is protected by the oaths of the jury and of the witnesses; and unless twelve of the grand jury agree to the probability of the charge, the accusation is dismissed. But, in cases of ex officio information, no oath is necessary; the attorney-general may at once file his information, and the defendant stands charged with the of fence. And here it ought not to be forgotten, that the attorney-general has a personal interest in these prosecutions, in consequence of the fees which he receives. I certainly do not mean to impute to him so sordid a motive. I cannot bring myself to suppose that the fees have had any influence in the late extraordinary increase of these prosecutions; but, arguing generally on the privilege, it must be apparent that an attorney-general may file informations against every person he thinks fit, and that so far he is interested in multiplying his accusations."

Lord Folkestone proceeded at considerable length to point out the grie vance of special juries; the great disadvantage of the defendant in a case of libel, and the severity of the punishment; and he complained of the partiality of the attorney-general in prosecuting those journals only which were notoriously hostile to government, and suffering what he called the grossest and most indecent observations to pass with impunity in such as coincided in political opinion with the administration. "The real rule," said he, "which guides these prosecutions is this; that the papers which support the ministry of the day may say whatever they please, without the fear of prosecution; whereas those that take the contrary line are sure to be prosecuted for any offensive expressions. Lord Folkestone might have been told in reply, that the malus animus makes the difference, and that, instead of the gentle expression of papers which "take