racterise those bills, were too hyperbolical for the effusions of practical exaggeration. Another honourable gentleman, who has always been the champion exclusively of the democratic part of the British constitution, has said, that if he was by rank entitled to demand an audience, he would beseech the King to exert that power vested in him by the constitution, of putting his negative on these bills. What! does the honourable gentleman think it would be decorous in a grave hereditary counsellor of the crown, to go to His Majesty with his advice to reject these bills, which are to be offered to him by the other two branches of the legislature, as a testimony of their concern for the safety of his royal person, and which comprehend a saiutary enactment in support of their own constitutional rights? That honourable gentleman has gone so far as to say, that such a counsellor would receive immortal honour by such advice. The right honourable gentleman who spoke last†, would advise His Majesty not to put his negative on the bills, but immediately to dissolve his parliament, which he said was his constitutional right. It certainly is part of the power and prerogative of the crown, to dissolve the parliament: but there has been a time when that right honourable gentleman was not quite so well convinced that such dissolution was an unquestionable exercise of a just prerogative; on the contrary, when the loud voice of the people was heard from all quarters, about twelve years ago, against a particular public measure, that honourable gentleman not only questioned the constitutional right to dissolve in such circumstances, but branded the dissolution which took place, as perfectly unconstitutional. If His Majesty should have advisers that would give such counsel, I shall only say, that they will not be those who are in the habit of giving His Majesty advice, and are responsible for the advice they give.

A strong proof to me that the crisis to which I have referred is determined, is the different language which I now find to be held by the right honourable gentleman. He has no longer

any hopes to prevent the bills from being enacted, but he trusts to the people in order to have them speedily repealed. I am glad to find that the right honourable gentleman is become so far a convert to the system of moderation, that he looks to see how many he can bring to concur with him in endeavouring to procure the repeal of the bills, if they should pass into laws, and not with how many he may think it prudent to resist their operation. I am glad to find that this doctrine of resistance, on which so much stress was laid in an earlier stage of the business, is not at this time uppermost in the mind of the right honourable gentleman. I trust that the avowal and justification of this doctrine will not sink deeper in the minds of any part of the community, and produce that impression which such a principle is calculated to make on violent and unenlightened minds. Should their ignorance be misled and their passions inflamed, dreadful indeed may be the consequences on their future conduct. I trust that the danger incurred to the public peace, will operate as a warning to prevent gentlemen from rashly and hastily broaching doctrines in the heat of debate, which may produce the most pernicious effects on the minds of others, long after their better judgment and more mature deliberation have eradicated them from their own.

Having noticed these general topics, I proceed now more particularly to consider the nature of the present bill. The subject resolves itself into two points. I shall first advert to that part of the bill, which affects the existing law of treason; and secondly, to the particular species of misdemeanour to which the bill is calculated to apply. First, the bill makes a conspiracy to do any thing that may tend to the King's death, to maim or to do him any species of bodily injury, to restrain and im. prison his person, or to seek to make him alter, by force, the measures of his government, a substantive treason. These by the statute of the 25th of Edward III. are only made overt acts, of compassing and imagining the King's death. By the present bill they are made direct and substantive treasons. By the other part of the bill it is made treason to levy war,

to overawe the legislature. The right honourable gentleman has asked, might not the people attempt to influence the decision of the legislature by the force of opinion, by the violence of prayer? He forgets that the bill does not preclude the people from any peaceable and legal mode of bringing forward their opinion, in order to influence the sentiments of the legislature; that it does not interfere with their right, or prevent them from carrying to their representatives, in decent and orderly language, their sense of public measures. The treason described by the bill attaches only to those who levy war in order to overawe the legislature. Will the honourable gentleman contend, that levying war has any connection with that mode of expressing opinion, which is intended to influence the proceedings of a legislative body? The right honourable gentleman objects to the preamble, which, by the bye, he seems not to have read. [Mr. Fox expressed some indignation at this charge.] I do not mean, that the right honourable gentleman ought to have read the preamble as part of his speech; but undoubtedly he seems not to have attended to the latter part of that preamble. He said, that he liked no preamble, which did not state truth. He affirmed, that the preamble made the attack on His Majesty the foundation of the bill, and contended, that though the bill purported to be for the security of His Majesty's person, and the preservation of his government, it did not, in fact, tend to give to either any additional security. If the right honourable gentleman had gone farther, and read the latter part of the preamble, he would have found, that it was not so narrowed and confined as he has described; that it stated not only the attack on His Majesty, as the ground of the bill, but also the seditious speeches and publications of evil-disposed persons.

In opposition to the right honourable gentleman, I maintain, that the provisions of the bill are calculated to give greater security to His Majesty's person and government, and that the grounds stated in the preamble, are commensurate to all the objects which the bill has in view. In all times, when the person of

the sovereign has been supposed to be endangered, a law of this nature has been passed. We are not now, for the first time, bringing forward a speculative act, of the probable consequences of which we cannot pretend to judge, but we are copying the wisdom of our ancestors -we are adopting the salutary precautions of former times. Acts, of which this is a transcript, were passed in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, and of Charles the Second. Elizabeth has been reproached as an arbitrary princess. It is certain that her life was threatened from many quarters. But how far is the charge that this act is a weak and inefficient measure, consistent with the description which has been given of her character? If she was an arbitrary princess, it surely is not likely, that where her own preservation was concerned, she should adopt measures inadequate to the purpose. The parliament of Charles the Second has been accused with making many sacrifices to the throne. It is not, therefore, probable, that in the excess of their loyalty, and the superabundance of their zeal, they should have neglected to put a sufficient guard around the King's person. Thus does the reasoning of those gentlemen, so far at least as concerns the efficacy of the measure, retort upon themselves. Such laws having passed in different periods of our history, and having in no instance been found insufficient, we have a strong and well-grounded presumption that they are well calculated to afford security to the person of the sovereign. They apply directly the penalties of treason to that species of offence against the person of the sovereign, to which, before, they could only have circuitously been brought to attach. They constitute substantive treasons, acts which before could only have been brought to prove the criminal intention. But an instance yet fresh in our memories, and which made too deep an impression on the House to be easily forgotten, will best illustrate the proposition. Supposing the person who threw the stone at His Majesty, on his way to parliament, to have been discovered and brought to trial, he would not have wanted an able and eloquent advocate to have pleaded, "that by throwing the stone

he had no intention of seriously injuring the person of the sovereign; that he was actuated by no deliberate, malicious purpose; that he was carried away by the impulse of the moment; that he meant, by throwing the stone, only to mark more strongly that sentiment of indignity to His Majesty, which excited the clamours of disapprobation among the surrounding multitude, and to express his own feelings of resentment from the continuance of the war." It is possible (I do not say that it would be justified by the sound construction of the law) even that such a defence, dressed up with ingenuity, and enforced with the eloquence with which it would not fail to be supported, might induce an honest jury to pronounce a verdict of acquittal. The intention of this bill is to cut off the possibility of such a defence being made in extenuation of such an act, to remove from the offender all hopes of escape by subterfuge and evasion, and by making the remedy more simple, to diminish the danger.

But it was said, why not make a new declaratory law? It was necessary that the present should be an enacting and not a declaratory law, because it only made that which was already treason by the statute of the 25th of Edward III. treason under another branch, and to be laid in a different manner in the indictment. As to the present bill making new treasons, which were not before known to the law of England, in contradiction to so injurious an assertion let me refer to the most grave and respectable authorities, to the writings of Lord Hale and Sir Matthew Foster. These learned and venerable Judges have given a history of the different statutes of treason, accompanied with their own comments. The object of the present bill is clearly to define the true meaning of the old law, which is now only to be drawn out of a long series of judicial expositions. It is in order to guard against all ambiguous and doubtful interpretation, at a time when it may be necessary to provide against a positive and immediate danger. Must not such be felt to be the case, when a daring attack has so recently been made on the person of His Majesty, and when the instance of