never called, nor meant to call it so; for, in truth, it was nothing less-it was the war of the court. By the court the project of taxing America was conceived, and the people were taught to believe that their money would be saved, and their burthens eased by a revenue drawn from another country. because it was held that the British parliament had no legal right to tax America, that the project of taxing her was opposed. The Americans, indeed, did maintain that the British parliament had no such right; but he, and many others who opposed the measure, admitted the right, and he was still of the same opinion. What, then, was the ground of the opposition? It was not any actual suffering on the part of the Americans: they themselves allowed that the taxes attempted to be imposed were of the most easy and unoppressive kind. But although these taxes were so, they had no security that heavy and oppressive taxes might not, at some future period, be imposed upon them by a/legislative body, in which they had no representation, with which they had no very close connexion of common interest, and over which they had no means of control. He, therefore, and those with whom he had the honour to act, thought this want of security, for what they were not then ashamed to call the rights of man, a sufficient cause of resistance. They justified the Americans in that glorious resistance, for which they were then called the advocates of American rebels, as some of them, though too familiar with such charges much to heed them, were now called the advocates of the French. That glorious resistance was ultimately successful, and to that success would yet be owing the liberties of mankind, if in this country they should unhappily be suffered to perish. Jealousy, too, was a good cause of change, or even of resistance-not jealousy captious or malig nant, but jealousy founded on well-examined and rational grounds of suspicion. Men were not bound to wait till their liberties were actually invaded: prudence called for means of prevention and defence; and to justify these, it was sufficient that they saw a clear possibility of danger. Now, in order to shew that the House in its present state was unfit for the functions which it ought to discharge, he would refer to the history of the American war. It was dangerous to make a concession in argument; for on that concession was generally built some assertion very different from what had been conceded. He had once admitted, that the American war was popular in the beginning; and on that had been built the assertion, that he had called it the war of the people. He Thus were they first deluded, and then bribed by an appeal to their pockets, into an approbation of the scheme of the court. This was no assumption of his, for it was perfectly well known, that when a considerable addition to the standing army was proposed, the country gentlemen were induced to agree to it, by hints that the expense would be defrayed from another quarter, instead of falling upon them. In compliance with the wishes of the court, the House passed the memorable stamp act. The stamp act was resisted and repealed; and the repeal was as popular as the passing of it had been. Was this a presumption, that the war was the war of the people? Was it not, on the contrary, a clear proof that the people had no definite idea of the object of the war? When, by subsequent acts of the same nature, and similar resistance on the part of America, the war was brought on, then, indeed the indignation of the people was excited by the supposed ingratitude of the colonies to the mother country; their passions inflamed; the love of military glory, natural to the minds of a great and brave nation, roused; and the war became popular. But the war itself was the act of the court, deluding the people by the subserviency of the House of Commons. The House passed the stamp act; the House took all the other measures that led to the war, and voted that it should be supported, not as the organ of the people, but as the obedient servant of the court. What was a successful war, he was somewhat at a loss to know. The American war from the beginning he had always called unsuccessful; but he was, year after year, told that he was quite mistaken, and that the success was fully adequate to every reasonable expectation. At length came the final blow, the capture of lord Cornwallis and his army-the war was acknowledged to be unsuccessful. and the House put an end to it, but not till several years after the people had begun to send up petitions and remonstrances against it. In some of the petitions on the table the accumulation of the public debt was imputed to the defect of the representa tion, and he was sorry to see such an absurdity in them. The accumulation of the public debt was the necessary consequence of the wars which we had been obliged to maintain in defence of our constitution and our national independence; and he, for one, had no scruple in declaring, that every war in which we had been engaged, from the revolution to the American war, was both just and necessary. He would, therefore, acquit the House of all the debt contracted, except for the American war, and as much as might fairly be imputed to too remiss a superintendence of the expenditure of public money: for all the debt contracted to support the American war, after that war became unpopular, the House of Commons was undoubtedly answerable. It was not enough for preventing wars that we were disposed to cultivate peace, if our neighbours were not as peaceably disposed as ourselves. When, therefore, the petitioners talked of preventing wars by reforming the House of Commons, they forgot that the work would be but half done, unless they could give as good a constitution to France as England would then be possessed of. But when he mentioned this, he raised no argument from it against the general prayer for a reform in the representation. His right hon. friend (Mr. Burke), on presenting his plan of reconciliation with America in 1775, made a speech, in which the virtues and the efficacy of representation were displayed with a force and clearness unparalleled. Were the people of Ireland uncivilised and unsubdued after a forcible possession of their country for ages, what was the remedy? Representation. Were the Welsh in perpetual contention among themselves, and hostility to Englishmen, what was the remedy? Representation. Were the counties of Chester and Durham full of discontent and disorder, what was the remedy? Representation. Representation was the universal panacea, the cure for every evil. When the day-star of the English constitution had arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within and with day, and meditate on it by night; let them peruse it again and again, study it, imprint it on their minds, impress it on their hearts: they would there learn, that representation was the sovereign remedy for every disorder, the infallible security against popular discontent; let them learn this, and give to the people, not the "unreal mockery," but the efficient substance of representation. He came next to consider the conduct of the House since the American war. When the India bill, which he had the honour to propose, was lost, was it because the bill was unpopular? By no means. Whatever odium had been afterwards excited against it, the people had then expressed no disapprobation. The chancellor of the exchequer had no hand in its defeat; for, ready and able as he was to speak against it, it passed the House of Commons by a great majority. By whom, then, was it thrown out? Let the merit be given to those to whom it belonged-it was thrown out by certain bedchamber lords, acting under the direction of those who had access to advise the king. The dismission of the ministry followed the rejection of the bill, and the House of Commons adhered to the discarded ministers. The right hon. gentleman would surely allow, that the House, in order to execute its functions, ought to command respect. Did it command respect on that occasion? Was it respected by the crown, by the peers, or by the people? The advisers of the crown disregarded its remonstrances; the peers came to resolutions censuring its proceedings; and the people treated it, not as their organ in the constitution, and the guardian of their rights, but as a faction leagued to oppress them, and with whom they had no common interest or common cause. Since that period the House had not only commanded respect, but praise, from those who were permitted to advise the crown, not by opposition, but by prompt obedience; not by a watchful and jealous guardianship of the interests of the people, but by implicit confidence in ministers, and pliant acquiescence in the measures of the court. Thrice had that House of Commons of which he had spoken, and which he should never mention but with honour, resisted the influence of the crown, and nothing Let gentlemen read that speech by then was talked of but a reform of par out. -Simul alba nautis Defluit saxis agitatus humor; Unda recumbit. * See Vol. 18, p. 513, * liament. The House of Commons had been now for nine years a complaisant and ئے you must take care to conciliate the advisers of the crown by a ready subserviency to whatever they require. If you presume to counteract them, you may enjoy the consciousness of serving the public without hope or reward; but from power and situation, from all the fair objects of honourable ambition, you are for ever excluded." confiding body, and the cry of reform | nion, and the House acquiesced. He from those who were formerly the loudest would neither allow the House of Comand most active was heard no more. Re- mons to judge in the first instance, nor, form was then the only thing that could through him, look for the opinion of the save the constitution: the very sound of people in the second. He was to collect reform was now pregnant with the most the opinion of the people, and tell those imminent danger. When that House of who ought to be their representatives, Commons resisted the influence of the and the organs of their sentiments, what court, they were told that they were not that opinion was. The lesson thus held the representatives of the people, and out to every man in the House was this: that they were not so chosen as they" If you look for honour or for power, ought to be. The people felt that the charge was true in part, and were easily induced to give credit to the whole. Had that House of Commons been chosen in a less objectionable manner; had the people considered them as their representatives, could they have been so contemptuously treated and so ignominiously dismissed as they had been? No; the people would have seen that the cause Having thus shown that the House of of their representatives was the same with Commons, as now constituted, was neitheir own they would have given them ther adequate to the due discharge of its their confidence and their support. duties at present, nor afforded any secuBut, it was said, a House of Com-rity that it would be so in future, what remons so chosen as to be a complete representative of the people, would be too powerful for the House of Lords, and even for the king: they would abolish the one and dismiss the other. If the king and the House of Lords were unnecessary and useless branches of the constitution, let them be dismissed and abolished; for the people were not made for them, but they for the people. If, on the contrary, the king and the House of Lords were felt and believed by the people, as he was confident they were, to be not only useful but essential parts of the constitution, a House of Commons, freely chosen by, and speaking the sentiments of, the people, would cherish and protect both, within the bounds which the constitution had assigned them. In the case of the Russian armament, what had been the mode of proceeding? The minister thought proper to arm against Russia, and the House of Commons was called upon to vote the supplies. Were they allowed to inquire into the necessity of that armament, or to judge of its propriety? No; they were told that to ministers it belonged to judge, and to them to confide; and on this implicit confidence they voted the sums demanded of them. In the mean time, the people showed their disapprobation of a war with Russia; the minister adopted their sentiments; called on the House of Commons to agree with him in this change of opi mained for him to answer but general topics of declamation? He had sufficient confidence in the maxims he had early learned, and sufficient reverence for the authors from whom he learned them, to brave the ridicule now attempted to be thrown upon all who avowed opinions that, till very lately, had been received as the fundamental principles of liberty. He was ready to say with Locke, that government originated not only for, but from the people, and that the people were the legitimate sovereign in every community. If such writings as were now branded as subversive of all government had not been read and studied, would the parliament of 1640 have done those great and glorious things, but for which we might be now receiving the mandates of a despot, like Germans, or any other slaves. A noble lord (Mornington) had discovered that Rousseau, in his Social Contract, had said a very extravagant thing. He was not very well qualified to judge, for he had found the beginning of the Social Contract so extravagant, that he could not read it through, but he believed it was one of the most extravagant of that author's works. He did not mean to say that the noble lord had produced an extravagant saying from Rousseau as a novelty; but it was somewhat remarkable, that an extravagant thing, from the most extravagant work of an extravagant foreign author, should be produced as an argument against し a reform in the representation of the people of Great Britain. Reverence for antiquity was then appealed to, and gentlemen were asked, if they would consent to alter that which in former times had been productive of such important acquisitions to liberty. With equal propriety our ancestors might have been asked, if they would alter that constitution under which so great an acquisition to liberty as Magna Charta had been obtained; and yet after the acquisition of Magna Charta, the condition of this country had been such as was rather to be execrated and detested, than cherished and admired. When gentlemen talked of the danger of rash innovation, and the great advantages of temperate and slow reform, they might find all they had to say anticipated in a much more pleasant treatise than any of their speeches, viz. the Tale of a Tub, where brother Jack's tearing off the lace, points and embroidery from his coat, at the hazard of reducing the coat itself to tatters, and brother Martin's cautiously picking up stitch by stitch, exhibited an abstract of all their arguments on the subject. The septennial act, in the opinion of many, had been the means of preserving the House of Brunswick on the throne. But had such a House of Commons as the present been then in being, what would have become of the House of Brunswick and the protestant succession? "What!', they would have said, "adopt so violent an innovation as septennial instead of triennial parliaments; do you mean to subvert the whole fabric of the constitution? Triennial parliaments were sanctioned at the glorious epoch of the revolution; to triennial parliaments we owed all the prosperity, all the glory of the reigns of king William and queen Mary; to triennial parliaments were we indebted for the victory of Blenheim." As rationally might they have said, that to triennial parliaments they were indebted for the victory of Blenheim, as it might be now said, that to the right of Old Sarum to send members to parliament we were indebted for our annual exports being increased seven millions. If to such sources as these, national prosperity was to be traced; if for the essence of our constitution we were to repair to a cottage on Salisbury Plain; or, for the sake of antiquity more reverend, let us take Stonehenge for Old Sarum; then might we undertake pilgrimages to the sacred shrine, and tell each admiring stranger, "Look not for the causes of our envied condition in the system of our government and laws; here resides the hallowed deposit of all the happiness we enjoy; but if you move one of these rugged stones from another, the British constitution is thrown from its basis and levelled with the dust."-An hon. friend of his (Mr. Windham, who was chairman of the Downton committee), had been lately employed for many weary days in examining the divisions of burgage tenures, to be found in trench at Downton. Had it occurred to his right hon. friend, that in this trench he was searching for the most essential principles of the constitution, the investigation would have been somewhat less irksome, the labour somewhat less fastidious. The petition presented facts into which the House was bound to inquire, both in its legislative and its inquisitorial capacity. In the petition it was affirmed, that peers nominated members to seats in the House; and they had a standing order that no peer should interfere in elections. In the petition it was asserted, that bribery and corruption were openly practised at elections; and they had a standing order against bribery and corruption. Let the facts be inquired into, or these idle denunciations be expunged from their Journals. A select committee had reported bribery against certain electors of Stockbridge; and a bill of pains and penalties, which had been founded on that report had been rejected. He was not sorry for it: he wished not to see a poor man punished for selling his vote, while the sale of seats was connived at. The corruption of an individual voter was undoubtedly an evil, but small in comparison of the mischiev ous effects which the sale of seats must produce on the minds of the sellers and the buyers, while both of them knew that it was contrary to law. Let the House inquire and put a stop to such practices, or avow their expediency and repeal the laws that made them criminal. The lateness of the hour, the clearness of the cause, and the danger of rejecting the motion, rendered it unnecessary for him to insist farther upon it. One word only with respect to the time. It was triumphantly said, by gentlemen on the other side, that ninety-nine out of every hundred of the people of England were well affected to the constitution, and he believed that they were right. Where then was the danger of inquiring into the defects of the constitution with a view of correcting them? Could they hope for some golden period, in which the proportion of the ill-affected would be less than as one to ninety-nine? The objection to the time was therefore a fallacy, a mere pretext for putting off what the House could not help seeing to be necessary, but felt unwilling to begin. This manner of postponing, on the most frivolous pretences, what could not be denied to be fit, was more properly the object of ridicule than of argument: the time must come when the House would be unable to disguise, even from themselves, the necessity of inquiring into the state of the representation; and then too, perhaps, they might give room for a new application of the poet's raillery on an individual "Let that be wrought which Mat doth say: Yea, quoth the Erle, but not to-day." The question being put, that the said petition be referred to the consideration of a committee; the House divided: Right hon. C. J. Fox M. A. Taylor J. Wharton Hon. T. Erskine J. Courtenay Lord Weycombe J. R. Birch R. Milbank Thomas C. Western J. B. Church James Martin W. H. Lambton Joseph Jekyll Sir W. Lemon, bart. St. A. St. John W. Lee Antoine W. C. Shawe Edward Bouverie George Byng Lord J. Russell Clement Taylor Sir J. Jervis, K. B. Colonel Macleod Thomas Whitmore W. Plumer John Harrison Sir II. Fetherstonhaugh J.G. Phillips F. Honeywood Tellers. R. B. Sheridan S. Whitbread Appeals from the Court of Justiciary]. May 1. The Earl of Lauderdale said, that he held in his hand a petition of appeal to their lordships, from a judgment of the court of justiciary in Scotland. He admitted, that in several instances since the Union, where petitions of appeal had been presented to that House, from judgments of the court of justiciary, in capital cases, particularly in the case of Mungo Campbell and in that of Murdieson and Miller, these petitions had been referred to committees; and, upon the report of the committees, the House had found that they were not properly brought. He thought it proper, however, to state, that, supposing the matter were now to be taken up, as it stood at the time of the Union, it seemed clear that such appeal did lay; and that appeals from the court of justiciary rested almost exactly on the same footing with appeals from the court of session, which had been uniformly entertained by that House; even with respect to appeals in capital cases, he should be apt to doubt, whether it ought to be considered as finally decided that no appeal lay, so as to put the matter perfectly at rest; in a case, indeed, which came before that House in 1781, viz. the case of James Bywater, convicted of a capital of fence, and sentenced by the court of justiciary to be executed, it had undoubtedly been solemnly determined that no appeal lay; and a very able and learned speech was delivered on that occasion, by lord Mansfield; but though every thing which had come from that quarter must justly be considered of great weight, yet the noble lord seemed, in that case, to have proceeded in a great measure, on a misapprehension, in supposing it to have been clear, established law, that an appeal lay from the court of session to the parliament of Scotland prior to the Union, and to have been equally clear, that no such appeal lay from the court of justiciary; and he was confident he could satisfy their lordships, from acts of parliament and law books in Scotland, that, were the matter to be taken up now upon the footing on which it stood immediately after the Union, there could hardly be a doubt that an appeal would lie to that House, even in a capital case; and it was certainly of much importance to the country that it should do so. But, whatever weight their lordships might have been inclined to allow to the judgments which had been repeatedly given in capital cases, he would submit that the present being only the case of a misdenieanor, it stood upon a |