part of his natural rights to obtain those disguise many acts of outrage had been that belong to society; in a word, that he committed. It might, Mr.Burke ludicrously should forego part of his liberty for the observed, be thought a scandalous act of security of the remainder. It was this oppression to prevent the subjects from social principle that induced men to unite the enjoyment of a public masqueradeand frequently to deprive themselves vo- but the state of the times rendered it luntarily of their freedom, that made them necessary. It was needless to go into a desubmit to a temporary inconvenience with tail of the various prohibitory laws. The the view of making it afterwards perma- whole history of the police contained exnent. Thus it was that in a siege it was planations on the subject.-Mr. Burke then found necessary to stop all intercourse took the opportunity of denouncing the between the besieged and the besiegers, several clubs of France that had bestowed to prevent all opportunity of desertion, upon him such marks of obloquy. This and modes of injurious communication. denunciation he considered as an act of Under the pressure of certain difficulties, reciprocity, because they had been partiit was usual to raise the draw-bridges, let cularly attentive to him. I should not, down the portcullises, und actually to said he, be very glad to see in this counimprison themselves-their object being try the Visite Domiciliare. It is a very the ultimate preservation of their liberties. pretty expression, but I confess I am not The enemy of England appeared now at over zealous for its practice. There again our gate; and however contention may is the Tribunal Revolutionnaire, which I at times prevail between parties aiming never wish to see introduced here, howat power, or influenced by different poli- ever highly the French republicans may tical opinions, this was a situation which extol the system. And last, though not admitted of no disunion. Dumourier, in least, the Douce Fraternité. All which advancing into Holland at the head of his happy assemblies I hope will be confined barbarians, considered his acquisition in- to France, and that no attempt will be complete, without carrying his constitu- made to force them on the people of this tion along with him. Every civil or po- country. Mr. Burke proceeded to read litical restriction whatever that was new, from the Moniteur of the 17th instant, must appear a hardship upon an English- the following extract from the speech of man; but those restrictions were imposed citizen Lasource in the Conventionto secure advantages of the greatest pos-"The moment is not yet arrived in which sible magnitude and importance. We may be seen at the bar of the Revolutiohad nothing less to apprehend than sla-nary Tribunal, that Orestes of the British very and submission to a foreign yokethe last of all calamities. He would wish Brutus to submit to Cæsar, or Cæsar to yield to Brutus, rather than that Rome should be subdued by any foreign conqueror. So it was with England. Any internal inconvenience which might result from granting unusual power to the ministers of the crown, even if badly exercised, was infinitely preferable to the situation we must be in if Dumourier and his barbarians were to come amongst us, and, with an appeal to the sans culottes, convoke primary assemblies, to rob, and at the same time to legislate for the nation.The present bill was neither contrary to reason, nor repugnant to law. A variety of instances might be adduced to prove this assertion. It was no greater hardship on the subject to say, you shall not aid or assist the common enemy, than to say you shall not keep tools or instruments for coining in your possession. An act had been passed prohibiting men from wearing publicly black masks, because, under that parliament, the madman Burke, that insolent lord Grenville, or that plotter Pitt. But the moment is arrived, in which the public have summoned them to the bar of their opinion. The moment is arrived in which they are consigned to the detestation of all nations, whose execrations and anathemas they so richly deserveScourges of the earth, and vultures preying upon the vitals of the people, they have failed not to scatter their crimes, and their gold, to distract a nation which they despaired of being able to conquer. Contented with her own liberties, France felt no wish of carrying her arms beyond her frontiers, till she was provoked by unnecessary acts of aggression. Her anger is now roused, and those against whom it is directed, shall feel the tremendous effects of it. The machinations of these men are discovered. Their gold and their infamy are scattered in vain. Let these conspirators against the human race know this and tremble. We have swords, and we have men to wield them. They have misrepresented the independence of the French nation. They have invariably represented us as robbers and as cannibals. Soon shall they be laid prostrate before the statue of liberty, from which they shall rise only to mount the scaffold that awaits them, and to expiate, by their death the evils in which they have involved the human race."Mr. Burke made various comments on this passage, and went on to observe, that there was a considerable difference between a well-tempered vigilance and watchfulness, which calmly pointed out to an administration the errors of their plans and the necessity of changing them and the frivolous, cavilling, vexatious, petulant opposition, which thwarted every thing from obstinacy, peevishness, and envy. Whether the conduct of certain gentlemen bore a greater resemblance to the one or the other of these, he would leave it to the country to judge. For his own part, he would soberly, rationally, and firmly support a war, which involved in its event the safety of the constitution; conscious, that by entrusting a portion of discretionary power in his majesty's ministers-which he would not withdraw till he saw it abused-security might be obtained; which by with-holding it, would be lost. Mr. Sheridan said, that the right hon. gentleman had, as he usually did, made a very eloquent speech, and, as usual also had applied his wit, his mirth, and humour, upon subjects which did not perhaps call for either-wars, treasons, murders, and massacres. He had begun with saying he was always desirous of appeal ing to the House, on the sense of what he called the good times of the constitution. Mr. S. said, he should be glad to join in that appeal, if he saw it done with an honest intention, or if he did not see that it was done by gentlemen who only referred to those times when they had to introduce any subject which had for its object the increase of their own power, and who took references from times of danger, for the purpose of quoting the degree of confidence which was then thought to be necessarily reposed in the officers of government; the better to prepare the people at this time to the same confidence, when the same danger did not exist, and consequently where there could not be the same reason for such confidence and power. Here the right hon. gentleman's deception began. He | said, that immediately after the declaration of rights and the bill of rights, came a power by which the king was enabled to order any person to be taken up, and that on suspicion only, of being an enemy to the state. Having advanced thus far, the right hon. gentleman then came to a conclusion directly, that what was done on that occasion should certainly, by the fairest reason, be done on this; for, said he, would you not do now, what the wisdom and virtue of your ancestors prompted them to do under similar circumstances? The answer was plain and short. The circumstances are not similar. We were at the time that the right hon. gentleman alluded to, at the era of a Revolution. Was that the case with this country at this moment? Did the right hon. gentleman mean to say, that we are now in an equal degree of danger as we were at the time of the revolution? If this was answered in the affirmative, then there might, upon that answer, be an end entirely to every barrier which the subject ever had against oppression; for if we were now in a state as alarming as at that period, the argument would go to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus act, and to place the whole kingdon under martial law. But it seemed that the present time was to be considered similar to that of the Revolution to a degree. To a degree! To what degree? If two or three factious persons could be named in this country, was that to be considered as similar in such a degree to the time of the Revolution as to render it necessary to introduce the same measure of precaution as at that period? But who were these very factious persons? Upon this the right hon. gentleman had come to something like a pledge that he would name certain persons of that description at some future day. He should expect of the right hon. gentleman the names of the conspirators; who they were; and what measures they had taken to manifest their intentions, and consequently to justify the right hon. gentleman with loading them with the black appellation of traitors. He should expect also of all the supporters of the Bill, some proof of its necessity. If they failed in this, then he must declare them to be calumniators of the people. At the period of the Revolution, something like evidence was gi ven of the necessity of the measures which parliament adopted. A plot had been formed against the king's life, and the king himself came to parliament and informed them of the discovery of the plot, in a speech which he delivered from the throne; the speech began with stating, "That there was a plot to assassinate his majesty; that there was a plan laid for the sudden invasion of the kingdom; that some of the conspirators were already in custody, and that care had been taken to apprehend so many of the rest as were discovered."* Now, he wanted proof, something like this. For, how stood facts with respect to sedition in this country? Why, he believed, there was one editor of a newspaper who had been frightened by ministers, and had run away; an attorney was under prosecution on a charge for which he had given bail, and a bill-sticker was in gaol. These were the mighty proofs of the whole country being in a state of insurrection! But, to come nearer to the right hon. gentleman's doctrine, and the consistency of his conduct -he had, in the course of the discussion of this subject, maintained the right of the legislature to alter the succession, and to support the principle of punishing those who asserted a contrary doctrine; and yet, if the right hon. gentleman was to be judged by his first pamphlet on the French Revolution, he would be the first to incur that penalty.-Having said this, he returned to what appeared to him to be the real spirit of treason, and he desired the learned gentlemen on the other side to refute him, if they could. The true way of defining treason, was by the intention of the party, and the overt act was only evidence of the intention. As to the observations of the right hon. gntleman on the necessity of rights remaining in a state of inaction for a long time, that they might require new vigour, and the simile of sleep to the body natural being the same as inactivity for a time to the body politic, there was no doubt of its being beautiful enough, and applicable too, for the minister had often sung a sort of lullaby to the constitution. But as sleep was the sister of death, and yet relieved the human body from the weariness of labour, surely there was no justice in comparing it to the affairs of human life, and the benefit of civil rights; for although a human being might sleep to recover his health, there was no necessity for rights in society to be suspended in order to be preserved. The only objection he had to * See Vol. 5. p. 987. the figure was, that it had no truth for its foundation, for there was none of the weariness which required rest to any of the rights of the people of this country. The right hon. gentleman had made some allusions to a fortress, and had said, that it was in some degree like a prison; but it became so only in consequence of a siege. Here, again, truth was not attended to in the figure, and upon this occasion he could not help coming to some facts well known to the public. This he did to show, that there was no ground for alarm in this country, and when he had done so, he trusted he should have answered the right hon. gentleman upon his observation of a fortress, evidently designed to prepare the people of this country for slavery, by comparing the island to a besieged fortress; then he must ask, whether there was any real cause for alarm when the duke of Richmond converted the tower into a fortress, and gave it all the appearance of a place preparing to hold out against an attack? Was there any information of designs being formed for the taking it? Were there any well-grounded apprehensions of danger to happen to it? If there were, then the precaution of the noble duke was right. If not, he must say, that this was part of the system adopted by ministers for a well understood purpose; they raised an alarm which themselves did not believe.-The right hon. gentleman said, it was not necessary, in all cases, to prove the existence of the crime before he produced the remedy. Here again, the right hon. gentleman was wrong in principle; for it was the essence of justice never to enforce a hardship without a proof of its necessity. As to the right hon. gentleman's observation upon a law which prohibits a certain number of people going together with blackened faces, which he instanced as a proof that the law prohibits a thing perfectly innocent in itself, for the sake of preventing an evil that might possibly attend it, he must say, that here again he was wrong, for this very act was not passed without proof of there being a number of persons who had frequently disguised themselves in that manner for mischievous purposes, and this was enacted to prevent further mischief. However, he was far from saying that a man should never make use of any art in support of his virtuous intentions. If any person carried a concealed dagger, for the purpose of assassination, he was ame nable to the law; but if he only brought it with him, concealed, and made use of it for the purpose of heightening the effect of an oratorical attitude, in the delivery of a sublime speech, he certainly was not. Again, the right hon. gentleman had alluded to the act of parliament which prohibited ships of a certain size and form from being employed in certain parts of commerce, in which the revenue was interested. An act, Mr. Sheridan said, which was harsh enough, and such as he did not approve of, but yet it was not passed before there had been proof laid before parliament of the evils existing, which this act was proposed to remedy. Thus far, he had chosen to follow the right hon. gentleman on his own ground, that laws were made against things in themselves entirely innocent, for the purpose of preventing mischief. The fact was certainly so. But then the right hon. gentleman forgot to add a few words, a little essential to the sense of the maxim-" After some proof was given of the necessity of such a law,"-the whole of this had been totally neglected by the advocates for the present bill.-The right hon. gentleman said, that as to the destruction of the constitution, he had no apprehension of it, and that he had no thought of giving it up; and then he launched out, as usual, into bitter invectives against the new state of affairs of France. Mr. Sheridan said, he had no objections to our avoiding to imitate the French, and to act for ourselves in every thing. He wished that French principles old as well as new, should be avoided; but if in resisting the new, we inclined to imitate the old system of government in France, we should have no reason to congratulate each other upon our prudence. If we hated anarchy, it was not necessary that we should fly from it into the arms of despotism. The old system of that country united all things that were hateful to a lover of liberty. It was kept up by the most abominable mode that was ever known in any part of Europe-by military insolence, instead of civil law by extraordinary trust and confidence in the king's ministers, instead of watchfulness and jealousy-by tame acquiescence in all his measures, instead of resisting or examining any part of them. He wished, therefore, that as we rejected the new system of politics in France, we should take care not to fall into any imitation of the old one. As to what the right hon. | gentleman had said upon giving up, if that became inevitable, the liberty of his country, and of the observation made upon the Roman empire, he had said that were he Brutus he should rather yield to Cæsar; or, were he Cæsar, he should rather yield to Brutus, than to the great monarch of Persia. The situation of this country was not so bad as to make it necessary to enter into the imagination of any man that there was any danger to be apprehended to us from any disputes between individuals to any number, much less between any two individuals. But there might be danger in placing such confidence in any one, as to be blind to the tendency of his measures, and suffering him to proceed without opposing them. For when Hannibal penetrated Italy, and arrived at the gates of Rome itself, notwithstanding all that devastation Rome recovered. After the Romans were attacked, and the city sacked by the Gauls Rome recovered. But after Cæsar had usurped the dominion, it never recovered : nor should he think this country safe, if any man in it should be suffered to proceed proudly, haughtily, and arrogantly, as if he were above the law, and should afterwards, by raising a false alarm among the people, by saying that the constitution was in danger, and that there were traitors in the country, ultimately obtain his object-the placing himself in his situation with an establishment of despotic power.-The next point to be considered was, the charges against the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Burke) in the National Convention. That right hon. gentleman had taken upon himself, on that occasion, to make use of the visites domiciliares as practised in France, as a proof of their violation of the principles of justice. It was certainly harsh enough; but upon this point, the right hon. gentleman might find some topics at home that would very worthily employ his wit, if he pleased; for to him the grievances and distresses of mankind were subjects of mirth. He might see in this metropolis the visites domiciliares thriving wonderfully under the auspices of Mr. Reeves, and the society of which he was so worthy a president; as also under Mr. Luke Ideson, and sir Joseph Bankes. These gentlemen, by themselves and agents, particularly the latter, had entered into a great number of houses, and had called upon the occupiers of them to give in a particular description of their inmates, the sex, the age, the sta ture, the colour, the complexion. Sir Joseph particularly had examined into these circumstances, with all the curiosity of a naturalist; and he must say, that unless we abandoned this practice, we should complain with an ill grace of the visites domiciliares. executive power to make it no offence at all. He was proud of the support which he gave to the government in this bill, whose preamble was its principle, and which principle he took to be this: it was a bill which intended, by the tenor of example, to avert that species of adherence to the king's enemies, which made our subjects their store keepers, their bankers, their indemnity, their convoy, and their allies. With respect to commerce, as far as this bill touched upon it, he would cut the knot, and would say, "Let it perish, if to keep it alive the war must be fed by the expenditure of more blood, and by the increased peril of all that was dear to us, in the continuance of so dangerous a conflict." As to loss and profit, he would ask, with whom are we engaged in this traffic? With common enemies? With enemies who warred, in a general view, for profit and loss? No. With enemies who lived by confusion; who hated all that was likely to be of permanent good, even amongst themselves; and profited by the convulsions of order in trade, as well as in every thing else. He justified the severity of this bill, in what he called the single word "fraternity," a word familiar at Paris, and engraved upon all the bayonets of our enemy in the field. It was the love, the patriot and protecting love to us which he deprecated; they loved us a little too well Mr. Hardinge said, he would explain to the House upon what grounds he approved the expediency affirmed in this preamble, namely, the expediency of preventing with more effect all treasonable correspondence and assistance to the king's enemies. He thought it expedient in every war, first, to declare doubtful cases of treason; second, to make treasons that were clear in point of law, better and more generally known; third, to enact new treasons, if the exigency of the case naturally pointed them out. He said, the hon. gentleman had said, that he hoped the new treasons would not be adjudged by the mere act, but would be determined by the purpose; that he hoped in God they would not, in mercy, to the individuals warned against the of fence, and in sound policy for the public. If the legal criminality of these acts were to depend upon proof as to the purpose," ne exeat and the "ne redeat," by a it would be a death's blow to the policy of the bill, and would ensnare the individuals, leaving them at the mercy of a loose interpretation upon the motives. He applied himself here to the acts of parliament which made the return to this country penal, and in times that gave to us those famous whigs the Cavendishes, the Bentincks, and the Russells. In these acts, the return to the country being constituted the offence, offenders were tried, and pleaded the purity of their motives. Lord Holt, the most enlightened of all judicial men, resisted their plea, and after "Among the hasty or strong expressions commending the policy of these new laws, which might have fallen from Mr. Windham affirmed the offence to consist in the mere in the course of a warm debate, the greatest fact prohibited. Two men had, in the triumph was assumed by the opposition of the teeth of the act of William and Mary, reday from that of perish Commerce, let the Constitution live.' But it is curious enough, that turned to England, and on their trial ofthis remarkable sentiment, which was first fered in mitigation of the offence that they charged on him in a pamphlet under the fictihad no bad intention in returning; but tious signature of Jasper Wilson, and was afterthat greatest and most respectable of jud-wards echoed and re-echoed through the counges said, that he neither knew nor could consider what their intention was; the act had in mercy told them what they should not do, and it was their business to know and be guided by it. He commended this bill for softening that hint, and converting the offence from treason into misdemeanor, with a power operating upon the responsible discretion of the "Tantum infelicem nimium dilexit amicum❞— they embraced our disaffection, and they declared their wish to overturn the constitution, as a favour to the English patriots. Why should the English be resident try, had in fact never been uttered by him, but was owned by Mr. Hardinge. Mr. Windham, however, though he denied having spoken the words, justified the sentiment, under the explanation which he gave of it, namely, order, and the British laws, above mere wealth a preference, as an alternative, of government, and commercial prosperity." See Amyot's Life of Mr. Windham, prefixed to his Speeches in Parliament. |