prosecute such papers? To this I answer very candidly, I would not. I never yet saw the seditious paper that I would have thought it necessary to prosecute; but this by no means implies that emergencies may not make it proper; but surely there is nothing so essential to the true check of sedition, as impartiality in prosecution. If a government wishes to be respected, they must act with the strictest impartiality, and show that they are as determined to prevent the propagations of doctrines injurious to the rights of the people, as of those which are hostile to the rights of the crown. If men are to be encouraged to rally round the one standard, you must not, you ought not to prevent volunteers from rallying round the other; unless you desire to stifle in the breasts of men the surest and most active principle of obedience, a belief in your impartiality.

When I first heard, Sir, that the militia were called out, I felt more anxiety and consternation than ever possessed my mind. I thought that information had certainly been received of some actual insurrection, or impending invasion. But when I heard that they were not called out to enable ministers to send the troops to any distant part, to Ireland or to Scotland (where they might know of disturbances, though I did not), but that troops were assembling round London, I firmly believed the whole to be a fraud; for I have friends in and about London, as intelligent, as vigilant, as much interested in the tranquillity of the metropolis, as the right hon. magistrate; and I was confident, that an insurrection could not actually exist in London without being known. I pronounced it in my own mind to be a fraud, and I here again pronounce it to be so. I am not given to make light assertions in this House, nor do I desire to receive implicit belief. I deprecate confidence on my bare assertion. On the contrary, I state, that I believe this pretext to be a fraud, and I intreat you to inquire, that you may ascertain the truth. I know that there are societies who have indulged themselves, as I think, in silly and frantic speculations, and who have published toasts, &c. that are objectionable; but that there is any insurrection, or that any attempt was making to overthrow the constitution, I deny. Now if this assertion of ministers is a falsehood, is it an innocent falsehood? Are the people of this country playthings in the hands

of ministers, that they may frighten them and disturb them at pleasure? Are they to treat them as some weak, jealous-pated, and capricious men treat their wives and mistresses-alarm them with false stories, that they may cruelly feast on the torture of their apprehensions, and delight in the susceptibility that drowns them in tears! Have they no better enjoyment than to put forth false alarms, that they know may draw from the people the soothing expressions of agitated loyalty? Or do they think that these expressions, gene. rously, readily made, in favour of the king, whom the people rationally love, may extend in its influence to all the persons that are near his throne? Indulging in this passion, they may keep us incessantly in the tumult of apprehension, until at last they so habituate the mind to dread the evil in this quarter, as to look for it in no other, or to stun it by repeated shocks of fiction into an insensibility of real attack.

His majesty, in the next passage of the speech, brings us to the apprehension of a war. I shall refrain at this time from saying all that occurs to me on this subject, because I wish to keep precisely to the immediate subject: but never, surely, had this country so much reason to wish for peace; never was a period so little favourable to a rupture with France, or with any other power. I am not ready to subscribe exactly to the idea of the noble lord, of the propriety of a resolution never to go to war, unless we are attacked; but I wish that a motion was proposed by some one, to express our disapprobation of entering upon any war, if we can by any honourable means avoid it. Let no man be deterred by the dread of being in a minority. A minority saved this country from a war against Russia. And surely it is our duty, as it is our true policy, to exert every means to avert that greatest of national calamities. In the year 1789 we all must remember that Spain provoked this country by an insult, which is a real aggression: we were all agreed on the necessity of the case, but did we go headlong to war? No; we determined with becoming fortitude on an armed negociation. We did negociate, and we avoided a war. But now we disdain to negociate. Why? Because we have no minister at Paris. Why have we no minister there? Because France is a republic! And thus we are to pay with the blood and treasure of the people, for

a punctilio! If there are discontents in | the kingdom, Sir, this is the way to inflame them. It is of no consequence to any people what is the form of the government with which they may have to treat. It is with the governors, whatever may be the form, that in common sense and policy they can have to do, Having no legitimate concern with the internal state of any independent people, the road of common sense is simple and direct. That of pride and punctilio is as entangled as it is crooked. Is the pretext the opening of the Scheldt? I cannot believe that such an object can be the real cause. I doubt even if a war on this pretext would be undertaken with the approbation of the Dutch. What was the conduct of the French themselves under their depraved old system, when the good of the people never entered into the contemplation of the cabinet? The emperor threatened to open the Scheldt in 1786. Did the French go to war with him instantly to prevent it? No. They opened a negociation, and prevented it by interfering with their good offices. Why have we not so interfered? Because, forsooth, France is an unanointed republic! Oh miserable, infatuated Frenchmen! Oh lame and inconsiderate politicians! Why, instead of breaking the holy vial of Rheims, why did you not pour some of the sacred oil on the heads of your executive council, that the pride of states might not be forced to plunge themselves and you into the horrors of war, rather than be contaminated by your acquaintance! How short-sighted were you to believe, that the prejudices of infants had departed with the gloom of ignorance, and that states were grown up to a state of manhood and reason!

This naturally brings us back again to the business of this day, namely, whether any address should be agreed to or not. I desire, then, to put it seriously to the conscience and honour of gentlemen to say, whether they will not be aiding the object of republicans and levellers, if they should agree to plunge this country headlong into a war, or give any pledge whatever to the crown, until they inquire and ascertain whether there is an insurrection in this country or not? Shall we declare war without inquiring whether we are also to have commotions at home? Shall we pledge our constituents to submission, to compliance, without first proving to them that the strong measure of government has

been authorized by truth? If you would have the laws respected by the people, I say again, you must begin by showing that they are respected from above. If you do not prove to the people that there is an actual insurrection (for I leave out impending invasion and rebellion, as these are not even pretended), you cannot withhold from them the knowledge that you have acted illegally. And how can you expect rational obedience to the laws when you yourselves counteract them? When you set up the ratio suasoria as the ratio justifica, the people will clearly discern the futility and falsehood of your logic, and translate at once your terms into their true English of real causes and false pretexts. "Ut ameris amabilis esto,” is as true in government and legislation as it is in manners and private life, and is as well established by experience. The people will not be cheated. They will look round, and demand where this danger is to be seen. Is it in England?— They see it overflowing in expressions of loyalty, and yet they libel it with imputations of insurrection. In Ireland, you know there is danger, and dare not own it. There you have prorogued the parliament to the 17th instant, but not to meet till the end of January for the dispatch of business, though you know that there a most respectable and formidable convention-I call it formidable, because I know nothing so formidable as reason, truth, and justice-will oblige you by the most cogent reasons to give way to demands, which the magnanimity of the nation ought to have anticipated. There you have thus prorogued the parliament, and deprived yourselves of the means of doing that gracefully which you must do, and which you ought to have done long ago, to subjects as attached to their king, and as abundantly endowed with every manly virtue as any part of the united kingdom. And while the claims of generous and ill-treated millions are thus protracted, and, in addition to the hardship of their condition, they are insulted with the imprudent assertion of the tyrannical ascendancy, there is a miserable mockery held out of alarms in England which have no existence, but which are made the pretext of assembling the parliament in an extraordinary way, in order, in reality, to engage you in a foreign contest, What must be the fatal consequence when a well-judging people shall decide -what I sincerely believe-that the

like to have laid waste the kingdom, and of these, according to the distinction already made, some were weak and some were wicked. The weak were those who thought popery the greatest mischief that comprehended all others, who mistook prejudice for conviction, credulity for candour, and rigour for righteousness. These, however, meant well, though they acted ill; and while doing the drudgery of a party, persuaded themselves they were saving the nation. The wicked were the master politicians of the times, who considered kings not as they were, good or ill in themselves, but as they were ill or good with respect to their own immediate views; now the plot, whether true or false, was formed of the happiest ingredients imaginable to advance their interest."

Now, Sir, let me address one word to my valued friends. I entreat them to reflect on the consequences of their recent delusion-not dissimilar to the above. The measure of the proclamation is now stated to be over-it has failed: let them avoid all farther snares of the same kind. They will reflect on the necessity of union from the experience of the advantages which have flowed from it. They cannot feel more sensibly than I do the benefits of the cordial co-operation of that body of men who have, through the whole of the present reign, had to struggle with prejudice as well as enmity. Let them recollect the manner in which the present ministers came into power: let them recollect the insidious attempts that have been made to disjoin them; and now that the fatal measure of the proclamation is over, let them avoid, I say, all farther snares of the same kind. Of the declarations, which it is now the fashion to sign, I certainly cannot in general approve. Of all that I have seen, that of the merchants of London appears best calculated to conciliate the approbation of constitutional men; but I see and hear on every side such violent doctrines, and such afflicting measures, as no man who is actuated by the wish of preserving peace in this country can subscribe to. A noble lord (Fielding), for whom I have a high respect, says he will move for a suspension of the Habeas-Corpus act. I hope not. I have a high respect for the noble lord; but no motive of personal respect shall make me inattentive to my duty. Come from whom it may, I will with my most determined powers, oppose so dreadful a measure.

But, it may be asked, what would I propose to do in times of agitation like the present? I will answer openly. If there is a tendency in the dissenters to discontent, because they conceive theinselves to be unjustly suspected and cruelly calumniated, what would I do?-I would instantly repeal the test and corporation acts, and take from them, by such a step, all cause of complaint. If there were any persons tinctured with a republican spirit, because they thought that the representative government was more perfect in a republic, I would endeavour to amend the representation of the Commons, and to shew that the House of Commons, though not chosen by all, should have no other interest than to prove itself the representative of all. If there were men dissatisfied in Scotland or Ireland, or elsewhere, on account of disabilities and exemptions, of unjust prejudices, and of cruel restrictions, I would repeal the penal statutes, which are a disgrace to our law books. If there were other complaints of grievances, I would redress them where they were really proved; but above all, I would constantly, cheerfully, patiently listen. I would make it known, that if any man felt, or thought he felt, a grievance, he might come freely to the bar of this House and bring his proofs: and it should be made manifest to all the world, that where they did exist, they would be redressed; where they did not, that it it should be made evident. If I were to issue a proclamation, this should be my proclamation:-"If any man has a grievance, let him bring it to the bar of the Commons' House of Parliament with the firm persuasion of having it honestly investigated." These are the subsidies that I would grant to government. What, instead of this, is done? Suppress the complaint-check the circulation of knowledge-command that no man shall read; or, that as no man under a 100%. a year can kill a partridge, so no man under 201. or 30l. a year, shall dare to read or to think! I see in Westminster the most extraordinary resolutions of parochial meetings. In that city, with which I am intimately connected, and to which I owe high obligations, there have been resolutions and associations which militate against every idea that I was ever taught to entertain both of law and of the constitution. In the parish of St. Anne, Soho, at the head of which parochial meeting I see a much respected friend of mine, Sir Joseph

Bankes, they have demanded a register of all the strangers living in the parish. In St. Clement's and elsewhere publicans are threatened with the loss of their licences if they shall suffer any newspapers to be read in their houses that they shall think seditious. Good God! where did justices find this law? I have always thought that there was no one thing of which the law was more justly jealous, than the exercise of the discretionary power given to justices with regard to licences, and that above all things it was not permitted them to suffer political motives to interfere in the giving or withholding them. And publicans, too, are to be made judges of libel! No newspaper or pamphlet is to be read, but such as they shall determine to be free from sedition! No conversation is to be suffered but what they shall judge to be loyal! And yet in this very House, not more than a twelvemonth ago, when I brought in a bill with regard to libels, we all heard it asserted, that the knowledge of what was a libel could not be safely left to the determination of twelve jurymen-it could be judged of only by sages in the law. How can these publicans be conceived capable of judging, or by what rule are they to act? Are they to take their opinions from these associations? They recommend to them that loyal paper called "One Pennyworth of advice," in which, among other things, it is pretty plainly insinuated that it would have been well if Petion, the late mayor of Paris, had been assassinated when in England, and that it would be an excess of virtue to exterminate the dissenters! Are they to be told, that such writings as these are perfectly harmless and praise-worthy, but that discussions on the constitution, debating societies, (although, by the by, I never knew London without debating societies, and I cannot see by what law any magistrate can interrupt their peaceable discussions), and all papers and conversations, where there are free opinions on the nature of government, are libellous? What, Sir, must be the consequence of all this, but that these publicans must decide, that that is libellous which is disapproved of by ministers for the time being, and by these associations, and that all freedom of opinion, and all the fair and impartial freedom of the press is utterly destroyed.

prejudice and a habit, as well as from conviction. I know that it is calculated for the happiness of man, and that its constituent branches of king, lords, and commons, could not be altered or impaired, without entailing on this country the most dreadful miseries. It is the best adapted to England, because, as the noble earl truly said, the people of England think it the best; and the safest course is to consult the judgment and gratify the predilections of a country. Heartily convinced, however, as I am, that, to secure the peace, strength, and happiness of the country, we must maintain the constitution against all innovation; yet I do not think so superstitiously of any human institution, as to imagine, that it is incapable of being perverted: on the contrary, I believe that it requires an increasing vigilance, on the part of the people, to prevent the decay and dilapidations to which every edifice is subject. I think, also, that we may be led asleep to our real danger by these perpetual alarms to loyalty, which, in my opinion, are daily sapping the constitution. Under the pretext of guarding it from the assaults of republicans and levellers, we run the hazard of leaving it open on the other and more feeble side. We are led insensibly to the opposite danger; that of increasing the power of the crown, and of degrading the influence of the Commons' House of Parliament. It is in such moments as the present, that the most dangerous, because unsuspected, attacks may be made on our dearest rights; for let us only look back to the whole course of the present. administration, and we shall see, that from their outset to the present day, it has been their invariable object to degrade the House of Commons in the eyes of the people, and to diminish its power and influence in every possible way.

The minister has