ciliation, and one more addressed to the | What are those principles? He has told purposes of excitement, I never heard pro- us that there was the Catholic Association nounced. It was a speech tending not in Ireland, and that by violence the Caonly to produce excitement and irritation, tholics ultimately triumphed, as he says. but unnecessarily tending to produce them, What, I ask, is the moral of that? What, because, in the Resolution of the noble but that he pronounces a hope for peace, Lord there was nothing to warrant it. The and at the same time gives an instance of noble Lord said, he would not go into successful violence? He tells the people, these subjects; but my hon. and learned in fact, not to believe what he says, but to friend said in fact, though not in words, do what the Catholics have done before, my only mode is not to adhere to the prin- and to make a grand fac simile of their ciples of the Reform Bill, but to travel out Association. My hon. and learned friend, of that, and out of the House of Commons, again pursuing the same course of moderand to enter upon subjects that will not ation, in terms so as to be within the rules only produce excitement in the House of of this House, says, that he does not wish Commons, but will produce ten times the people to resist the payment of taxes; worse excitement out of doors. The hon. but, at the same time, he who would not, and learned Gentleman had said, 'I hope of course, wish to lead them to erroneous the Government will preserve the peace.' conclusions, has told us what will happen I hope so too; but I must say, that his if the Reform Bill is not passed, for he speech was little calculated to effect that says that the tax-gatherer would be resistobject. The hon. and learned Gentleman ed. I should like to have heard from my said, I hope the Government will be hon. and learned friend a little correction firm. His language is language calculated of the recommendations to that gross misto make them firm-firm at least in the demeanour-the resistance to the payment pursuit of the object he advocated. The of taxes. He does not advise them to do hon. and learned Gentleman said, 'I hope this, but he does not tell them not to do the Government will maintain the laws.' it; he does not condemn it-he leaves it That wish, however, does not seem to be with an unreprehended, but indefinite reheard in the latter part of his speech, commendation. My hon. and learned which, as far as was consistent with the friend (for such I must call him), pursuing forms of Parliament, was, throughout, an again the same subject, refers to the Press. excitation to a breach of the laws. Then, He says that we cannot control it. He says the hon. and learned Gentleman, we does not, indeed, say to the Press-go on have an allegory of the plants meeting to publishing your libels as you have done; choose a King; and he speaks of the olive but he does not condemn that Press-that and the vine being rejected at that elec- seditious Press, which recently recomtion, and, as he says, the bramble was mended to the army mutiny, which elected the King. If I were to reverse the recently advised the people to resist the parallel I should say, that the calls upon tax-gatherer, and which denied to those the people who are to make this election, who in this, and the other House of Parare only calls for misrule, excitation, and liament, were opposed to its doctrines, the peace-breaking. The hon. and learned right to exercise their undoubted priviGentleman deprecates all this; he depre- leges as independent Members of the cates, he revokes, he abjures anything Legislature. He does not, indeed, say to tending to excitement; but in abjuring this Press, go on, pursue the same line of the thing, he uses expressions that forcibly conduct; but he comes to a conclusion recall it to the mind, and he eloquently which is very like it; for he says, 'You deprecates that which in his arguments he cannot control its publications-it has the seems most to inculcate. He recommends right to publish, and it will go on publishpeace-making. Do the Ministers adopt ing.' I do not say, that by this he means this peace-making ally? Does the noble to excite the Press to continue these pubLord at the head of the Government? lications; I know he makes a distinction Does the Attorney General? Does the between them; but the people do not, out hon. Member, the Representative of the of doors, comprehend those nice ParliaSecretary for the Home Department? mentary distinctions to which we are Will they, I say, adopt the peace-making accustomed; he does not, indeed, adopt recommendations of the hon. and learned the principle that the Press should go on Gentleman on his conciliatory principles ? in these attacks, but he pats the principle on the back, and gives it a negative sort of and still open to any conclusion. The encouragement. These are the principal question, he said, was not yet decided topics introduced by my hon. and learned whether the citizen King of the Revolution friend in following the noble Lord, for the of the year 1831, would be able to carry on purpose of proving that he adopted the the Government without demolishing all the recommendation of the noble Lord to solid, rational, and consistent parts of the employ moderation in this discussion. My French Constitution. It must be admitted, hon. and learned friend has alluded to the indeed, that the hon. and learned Gentletimes of violence when a certain King man had been cloquent, but it must also came to this House and extracted from it be admitted that his discretion had been five or six Members, and he has referred in the inverse ratio of his eloquence. to that act as most unconstitutional. While these topics of the non-payment of will put the converse of that proposition, taxes were under discussion, the hou. and and I will say, that it will be almost as learned Attorney General was present: if unconstitutional for the King to go to the the law was not what the hon. and learned other House of Parliament, and put Gentleman had compared it to-a rusty twenty or thirty Members into it. Was it nail, he would set himself in motion. Was violent, was it unconstitutional, to abstract it true that this non-payment of taxes had some Members from this House for having been the subject of discussion? He bevoted in a certain way? The question is lieved it had; and he was sorry that the no sooner put than we receive it with ac- doctrine had not been denied by high auclamations, affirming that it was most un-thority. He should have liked to have constitutional. I follow out the principle, and I boldly assert, that if a Prince of the House of Brunswick puts thirty Members into the other House of Parliament to overrule the proceedings of that House, he will be guilty of an interference as unconstitutional as the violence for which a Prince of the House of Stuart has been so strongly condemned [no, no]. The Gentle men opposite say, no; so that it appears I have not had the good fortune to convince them of the truth of my opinion. But as there are two sides, though I may not have convinced them, I have convinced myself, that everything I have put forward has been fair and constitutional." His hon, and learned friend, the hon. and learned Member proceeded, did not like the principle of combinations among the people-he did not like the idea of the people of Staffordshire marching to London; but, hating these insurrections, and loving peace, and wishing to keep 100 miles from the mention of Jack Cade's name, he yet could not abstain from referring to a former time, when the operatives marched up to the metropolis against a law which was not so important as the Reform Bill, and he recommended a Prince of the House of Brunswick to put himself at the head of the people. His hon. and learned friend might go back to these distant times if he pleased; but he need not go so far back, for the case of a citizen King putting himself in the hands of the operatives, and joining one of the branches of the Legisla. ture against the other, was still in progress, heard from the highest source of legal authority-from the highest Judge of the land-something upon this subject. He himself meant to assert, that where there was a conspiracy to refuse the payment of taxes, there was a crime of a higher kind than some of the peace-making Gentlemen opposite imagined. If Gentlemen would but look into the works of Foster, Hale, and other great legal and constitutional writers, they would find that these assemblies to rob the King of money voted by the Parliament were not a bit-by-bit question, almost amounting to a breach of the peace, as it had seemed to be considered in another place. Those men were no lawyers who, if non-payment of taxes was combined with circumstances of conspiracy, would not say, that it was an offence far advanced in the scale towards high treason. He could hardly have imagined there would have been so much said out of doors upon this subject, or he would have come armed with his authorities for this assertion. Did the House know the sort of publications that had been issued on this subject? He had had put into his hands a pamphlet, with a portrait of his noble and learned friend, the Lord Chancellor; it was a bad portraitbut it was a portrait prefixed to his speech on this question. It was right to publish his speech, and the cheaper the rate at which such speeches were circulated, and the more they were ventilated through the country, the better. He complained not that it had been so ventilated, but that a note had been appended to it in such a question. That preternatural man, whose way, that unless looked at most carefully, intellect was not confined inter flamantia it might be taken for part of the speech mania mundi, had written a composition, itself. The note was this- God grant in which he said that the principle of dis'that all this may be right; but, depend on franchisement was one which he did not 'it, that the watchword will nowbe "pay no agree to. The letter to which he referred 'taxes." He repeated, that unless the had been printed in all the papers, though sword of the Attorney General was, in fact, it was said to have been surreptitiously the rusty iron it had been compared to obtained. The noble and learned Lord, in (though it had ever and anon been proved that pamphlet, had said, that if disfranchisea sword sharp enough), these were publica- ment went beyond a certain extent, there tions that did require the attention of his must be a compensation. That was, then, hon. and learned friend. He would not one of his principles. In another part he say, that the Attorney General would said, alluding to the impurities of the Parneglect his duty in permitting these pub-liament, that they must be removed bitlications to go unreprehended and un-by-bit; but now he said, that this alternoticed; but he would go the length of stating to the Attorney General, that if the language used in that House, bold and unlimited as it might be, by the latitudinarian nature of their forms of debate, was thus permitted to be exceeded out of doors, the law was, indeed, a dead letter. It was quite true, that the British public were not to be governed by the swordbut they were by the laws; and one of those laws was, that the recommendation of peace-breaking, of tumult, of risings against the Government, of non-payment of taxes, was an offence which, by a slight limit alone, was out of the pale of treason. He had now stated briefly the object for which he had risen, which was, to declare that he could not support the Resolution moved by the noble Lord. That Resolution involved two main principles; the first was, the House had full confidence in the present Administration; the next was, the declaration of its continued adhesion to the Reform Bill. He could support neither of these. As to the continued adhesion to the Reform Bill, it must follow that, after the discussions in which he had borne a part in opposition to that Bill, he could not possibly support it, unless he gave way to those risings, those tumults, those excitements, which had been occasioned by it. He could not, therefore, sustain that branch of the Resolution which asserted the propriety of the principle of the Reform Bill. He did not rest there-his opposition to it was strengthened and confirmed by the discussions that had taken place elsewhere; for in those discussions had spoken a" preternatural man" on one side; but he could quote the opinions of that preternatural man-that man whose intellect went out of this world to a certain extent upon the other side of the ative course must not be pursued. At Lord Ebrington rose to order, observing, 1 that it was not fair to allude to the recent The Speaker said, the hon. and learned with regard to their foreign relations? He would not allude to more than two things. The first was that of Belgium? While the Governinent here was scheduling towns and boroughs in England, there were other persons scheduling fortifications in Belgium. Much was wanted to be explained on that subject. Of Portugal not one word had been said, and as to Greece, one would think that there had Sir Charles Wetherell admitted the cor- been no such country since the time of rection; and, after some remarks on the Miltiades. He asserted that Portugal subject, asserted that it was notorious the had been sacrificed to France, that the noble and learned Lord had asserted that interests of our old ally had been sacrithis was not his Bill. There was now a ficed to those of our old enemy, and strange unanimity among them on the Bill. had been sacrificed in the most wanton The united conscience of the united Cabi- manner. He had thus briefly stated his net had required only six months to be reasons for not placing confidence in his submitted to the crucible, before there was Majesty's present Ministers. He had fora perfect amalgamation of all the various gotten to mention one subject, namely, that opinions composing it; though, within of the Game Bill, which the noble Lord that time, there had existed among them had added by way of postscript to his as complete a discrepancy-some of them speech. He thought it was premature in having been supporters of Mr. Canning, the noble Lord to give them credit for that the most decided Anti-reformer that ever measure, as a wise and sound part of the lived as could possibly be. It was too legislation of the Government, for there much, however, for them to expect from had not yet been time to observe its opertheir opponents the same convenient or ation. On the whole he thought this Reconscientious change of opinion. The solution unnecessary. If the Government noble Lord opposite must remember in meant to renew the Bill, why did they what manner the noble and learned Lord not do it at once? [Mr. Hume, “They now on the Woolsack, once in that House, will"]. He was not before aware that sarcastically eulogised a Cabinet of a tesse- the hon. Member knew so well the secrets lated nature, with one row of black and of his Majesty's Government as to speak one row of white, and one of a mixed or in that manner of their intentions. He neutral colour between. The same sort had stated his own sentiments on this of eulogy would apply to the present question, and he believed that those united and unanimous Cabinet, composed around him entertained sentiments of a as it was of violent Reformers, Anti-re-similar nature. The noble Lord had done formers, and the neutral men of no opinion at all between them. He now came to the call for the adhesion of that House to the Ministry on account of their repeal of the candle and coal duties. With respect to the coal duties, he believed that the repeal would benefit all the people concerned except the purchasers, and that, consequently, an important branch of the revenue had been taken off without an adequate advantage to the public. The noble Lord had spoken too of the candle duties; but he had avoided.alluding to the Budget, for it was such a complete wreck, that not a plank was left-not a steam-those who may be well accounted the paboat could be saved from it. One would suppose from the speech of the noble Lord, that the country had no foreign relations; for with what confidence could any one ask that House to support the Ministry what he could to conciliate their favourable opinions and secure their votes, by the manner in which he had brought the question forward; but excellent as the noble Lord's manner was, it would not make him adopt the Motion. Mr. Sheil said, that they lately inquired what the Lords would do? We have now to ask what ought the House-what ought the Minister-and (it is the most important interrogatory) what will the people do? First, then, what ought the House to do? Shall it transfer its confidence from the Government to their opponents-from rents of Reform, to those who would affect to rock, and toss, and dandle it with the hand with which they would have strangled it in its birth? Try them not by their professions-but by their proceedings; by their deeds and not by their phrases. I conformity with the principles which are Let us look for a moment back-the re-inculcated by his imperishable name. It trospect may be traversed with a glance. required some of the imperturbable calm Much of the mystery of Toryism may be which results from a just tenacity to an comprised in a single word. Potent, and honourable purpose, to have stood uncomprehensive name, famous in the topo- moved amidst the bursts of alternating graphy of corruption, renowned and ever- anger and of derision, with which his unmemorable East Retford! with what a impassioned and fearless expositions were ready articulation it drops from the announced. What the Treasury scoffed tongue; but what a train of recollections at, the English people hailed—with a boldand of anticipations it lets into the mind. ness that required no ordinary intrepidity It recals occasions lost-opportunity madly of asseveration; it was averred that the and sinfully thrown away-the noblest nation did not desire Reform; to this asgame played with the falsest hand. sertion the Ministers determined to give a Warning was given to pride-admonition practical refutation. The King went to power-remonstrance was addressed to down, amidst the acclamations of his peoinfatuation. Vainly did reason, justice, ple, to his Parliament, and to vindicate policy vainly did Huskisson adjure the rights of the one he dissolved the other. them. Then it was, that the extremities There was outcry, and clamour, and voto which we have arrived were foretold-ciferation, and then came the booming of then it was that the Sybil was the first the cannon, which was but the precursors time dismissed-then it was, that they were of that voice of thunder that called from told to listen to the mutterings, and to one extremity of the island to the other. mark the flashes of that cloud which had The elections came. England, from her even then begun to overspread the politi-hustings, shouted for Reform. There we cal horizon, and which was mistaken for the vulgar smoke by which the factories of Manchester and of Birmingham were overhung-then it was, that a clue was afforded to the real feelings of those whose sincerity is so elaborate, and whose frankness is so ostentatious; and the means were afforded of plucking the masque from fraud-of uncloaking imposture-and of disrobing disingenuousness of its disguise. You that affect to be advocates of Reform now, what did you do then? In reply to all your promises, professions, and all your vehement protestations in favour of that vague and indefinite thing which you call Reform, it is but necessary to whisper that East Retford in your ears, which remorse should sculpture in your hearts. He would pass to the second great epoch in the annals of Toryism. The great Captain-he who seemed, like the Roman Conqueror, to have set up the statue of victory in the Senate House, and to have overshadowed his Administration with the amplitude of its wings, uttered a singleminded sentence, and the whole fabric of his power, having no base in the public confidence, left not a wreck behind. England swept the Ministers away. The King called to his councils a man who had given a pledge to Reform in his youth, and was resolved to redeem it in his maturer age. Lord Grey selected as his delegate a nobleman whose whole life was in again assembled. We were then told that popular phrenzy had succeeded to public apathy, and that the people, who before were lethargic, were driven mad. We were told too, as a matter of reproach, that we were pledged. Pledged! Is it a crime in those who have covenanted to discharge their trust, to declare it? And by whom was the objection urged? By many whose political being is breathed into them by those who made them according to their own images-by men, who cannot be true to England without being false to friendship, and must elect between perfidy to their patrons and treason to their country. He should pass over the several incidents that marked the progress of the Bill. It was, at least, carried in this House with every circumstance of triumph. It went up, as a message from the people, to the Lords, and by the Lords it was contumeliously repudiated. In the Debates in that House, and in the Debates in this, it was remarkable that not one of all those who professed to be converts to Reform, of all the venerable neophytes upon whom a new light had suddenly and miraculously broken, there was not one who came forward, he would not say with a specific plan, but even with a mere outline or sketch for the correction of the abuses which they seemed to think it a sufficient act of virtue, without any effort at amendment, to deplore; and in |