with such tenor the motion under consideration had nothing whatever to do; it merely went to propose the release of Mr. Jones, in consequence of his having been confined long enough for the offence he had committed. With regard to the general doctrines of the hon. baronet upon this occasion, he confessed, that he could not subscribe to them. Indeed, there were some of them which he heard with surprize -When the hon. baronet in talking of that House described it as the inferior branch of the legislature, he really must suppose from the hon. baronet's principles, that he must have made a slip. What, that that House which contained the representation of the people, even such as it was, should be set down by the hon. bart. as the inferior branch of the legislature? If the House were reformed, no doubt it would be so much the better, but whether or not, made no difference as to the description which the hon. baronet gave of it, he must believe, by mistake. one of the gentlemen opposite though proper to suggest, that the further prosecution should be handed over to his Majesty's attorney general. The suggestion was unfortunately adopted, and the author of what had been unanimously condemned in the House as a gross and scandalous libel, was acquitted in the court below. This was the consequence of transmitting the defence of their insulted privileges into the hands of an attorney general. The recollection of this case, which could never escape his memory, held out no inducement to that House, in his mind, to transfer to any court the preservation of its privileges and dignity. No, he would rather prefer the increase of their own indisputable right to guard against and punish the violation of their own undoubted privileges.-But, as to the nature of the offence committed by Jones, and the imprisonment he had suffered in consequence, he must again express his hopes that gentlemen, who seemed disposed to release him, would not allow that disposition to be affected, by coupling his case with any argument advanced by the bonourable baronet. The offence of Mr. Jones ought to be candidly considered, and the extent of the punishment regu The hon. baronet recommended a reference to the attorney general to prosecute for any libel upon that House, in preference to the course which had been pursued in the case under consideration. But on this point he differed decidedly from the honourable baronet. This was a prac-lated by the merits of the case. tice he never could give his sanction to; and by the adoption of which, he had no hesitation in saying he thought the House would be dishonoured. It never could delegate into any other hands than its own, the maintenance of its privileges, without a degradation of its dignity and a dereliction of its duty. He well knew the consequence of confiding such a trust into the hands of an attorney-general. He knew it from experience. He had once the honour of being appointed chairman of a committee appointed expressly in order to ascertain who was the author of a certain gross and scandalous libel against the dignity of that House. The libel proved to be the production of Mr. Reeves, a friend of his own, for whom he felt a very high degree of personal respect, and went the length of stating, that the monarch was the chief prop and strength of the constitution, the root and trunk on which its vigour depended, and which might remain fresh and vigorous, though even the other members of the legislature, the branches, were demolished. This he in the House had moved to be a gross and scandalous libel, and was proceeding to take further steps in consequence, when What then in reality was the nature of this of fence, of which it seemed he was unanimously considered guilty, though now, indeed, the entire feeling of the House appeared in his favour, provided he could be abstracted from the arguments by which the motion had been preceded? Why, he had merely proposed as a subject to be mooted at a debating society, whether certain conduct of two members of that House had been or had not been offensive to the liberty of the press; and in case of condemnation, which had been most criminal. Now this was a question proposed merely to be discussed at the debate of an evening society. He begged gentlemen to consider how far this case then was worthy of serious attention, much less deserving of severe punishment. For himself, he was free to say, that he hated all extremes. While he differed from the honourable baronet's doctrine, that that House had no right to commit any person but one of its own members, for any attack upon its privileges, he could not, on the other hand, agree with the principle laid down by the new Teller of the Exchequer, when he originally brought forward the case of Jones. Jones. To have heard the opening of the their best prop and champion-their chief accuser, one would have thought it a case resource under all the miseries of misrule aggravated in the extreme:-" Read me," and misgovernment, a free press. An says the hon. member for Cambridgeshire, attempt of that description had been made turning to the clerk, (he is not now, in- some time since. He had not then the deed, member for Cambridgeshire, said honour of a seat in that House, but it was Mr. Sheridan, and I hope, for the honour at the close of the American war that the of the people of England he will never experiment was tried. Lord North atagain be returned to this House by any tempted to exclude the public from the portion of that people) "Read me a cer- House of Commons; he had the power, tain page of a certain chapter in the bill and exercised it for above a session and a of rights." Now the passage which he half. What was the consequence? every had desired so pompously to be read, county had its parliament, and every vil merely directed that no proceeding of lage in the empire its delegates: clubs asthat House should be questioned in any sembled, and societies sprung up for the court or place out of doors. Was this discussion of their rights, and the examinmeant to bar all public discussion, all ation of their grievances. The result consideration of politics out of parlia- however was, that the minister seeing his ment? Unless it meant this, it could mean mistake, restored the usual opportunity of nothing; it must prevent the publication communication between the people and of any report of any of their proceedings; their representatives. If he had not done it must carry the order to its utmost ex- so, what might have been the consetremity. Now to prove how conveniently quence? He remembered well that much this principle might be occasionally re- mischief was apprehended, but the danger laxed, he would merely state the contents was dissipated by the restoration of that of a requisition which an hon. baronet freedom which was the most effectual foe had just shewn him, as having been served to danger. Therefore he saw with pain on him, requiring his attendance at a court every act of hostility against the freedom of common council-he did not think it of the press, particularly at the present would be disorderly to mention the name crisis. The House ought not at such a of the hon. gentleman, not certainly as a period to betray any thing like that hosmember of that House, but as an alder-tility. It was inconsistent with the safety man-he was a very constitutional man; it was sir William Curtis: The requisition desired bis attendance at a court of common council to "consider of the prodigal and profligate expenditure of the public money by the House of Commons, in the late grant of an annuity of 2,000l. a-year to lord Wellington." Now if the bill of rights was to be so closely adhered to in every case, why was such a notice as this made public with impunity? What! shall that House thunder its vengeance to batter down a poor debating club, when it would not dare to raise its arm against a wealthy corporation? If this distinction was to be practised and endured, let there be an end then of all that gives our constitution value-repress all discussion-prohibit any county meetings-silence every controul over public men on the part of the people,and by that act deprive parliament of the great stimulus by which it is forced to do its duty. If this principle of the bill of rights was to be acted on at all, common justice required that its extension should be general; and if that were once the case, they would rob the people of their only consolation under suffering VOL. XVI. of the country, and peculiarly so with their own interest. But in the case under consideration their interest, their principles, and their pride should restrain the House from engaging in such conduct. There was something so silly, so small, so ignominous in the contest in which the House was involved, that he could not think of it without pain, and therefore must feel anxious to rescue it from its warfare with the British Forum. Upon these grounds he would take leave to move an Amendment, that John Gale Jones should be discharged in consequence of the contrition he had expressed for his offence against the privileges of the House, and the period he had been imprisoned in Newgate. The right hon. gentleman expressed a wish to know from the chair, whether this mode of applying for the discharge of Jones, or his own application by petition, was the more regular or ordinary course in such cases? The Amendment having been delivered to the Speaker, he observed in reply to the inquiry of Mr. Sheridan, that an ap plication to the House by petition from the prisoner, would be more consonant to B****** the ordinary mode of proceeding in such cases. The Amendment being read, The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that he could not agree either with the original motion, or the amendment. In the first instance, the argument of the hon. baronet had altogether failed; it had been shewn in the course of the debate to have been wholly unfounded: a noble lord (Folkestone) had taken great pains and mainifested no inconsiderable portion of ingenuity in reconciling the statements of the honourable baronet, with principles which those statements went to upset. It had, however, been admitted, even by that noble lord, that that House had a right of committal in cases of contempt, and that one concession, immoveably founded as it certainly was, at once went to the root of the whole argument of the hon. baronet. It had been said by a right hon. gent. (Mr. Sheridan), that Mr. Gale Jones was not to be made a martyr to.the mode of reasoning adopted by the hon. baronet. But he would ask if the House was to sacrifice their sense of their own dignity to principles which they utterly denounced? He could not see why the House should be called upon on the very day on which they had heard a doctrine avowed that went to the existence of their privileges, to discharge a person whom they had unanimously declared as guilty of a breach of their privileges. The right hon. gent. had reasoned as if every attempt on the part of the House to assert their privileges must necessarily involve them in discredit, and put them in a situation out of which they were unable to deliver themselves with either address or dignity.-Yet it appeared,, that when the right hon. gent. had preferred an accusation himself it necessarily became important; then to be sure it originated in sound reason, and was deservedly matter of grave consideration. It appeared, however, from the result, that a jury of dispassionate men, happily removed from the resistless influence of the right hon. gent.'s eloquence, had pronounced Mr. Reeves not guilty of that atrocious libel which the right hon. gent. in the vehemence of his eloquence had attributed to him. If. then, the House never came well out of such causes, the instance mentioned by the right hon. gent. in which that gentleman was himself the mover, was certainly one of the aptest illustrations of the truth of that assertion. He thought that the House should be extremely cautious in admitting the influence of any new doctrine, without tracing that doctrine to its source. The corporation of the city of London had been confounded with a spouting club-the one was a legal constitutional corporate body, and the other was utterly unknown-it was nothing. He had no hesitation in saying that that House ought to pause before it would interfere with the legal exercise of a constitutional body. They were convened by legal authority-they met to exercise a constitutional right-to petition parliament, and in that petition to comment upon the proceedings of their constituents, so that the analogy did not at all hold. He called upon the House to weign well the consequences of making the case of Mr. Gale Jones a precedent-and a precedent it must be if hitherto the uniform practice was that every offender should, previous to his enlargement, send in an humble petition to that House, acknowledging his offence and avowing his contrition; and if, in the present instance, Mr. Gale Jones should be absolved from that hitherto indispensable preliminary. Some stress had been laid upon the expressions of contrition made use of by Mr. Gale Jones at the bar; but such expressions had been made previous to his commitment. The House agreed, after that confession unanimously, to commit him; therefore, some subsequent acknowledgment was necessary; at the same time, he had no hesitation in saying, as far as he himself was individually concerned, that if the person in question should, according to the ordinary and regular course, submit his acknowledgments to the House in the shape of a humble petition, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) should be the first to accede to any proposition for his enlargement; but if that individual should be so ill advised, as to refuse such acknowledgment, the House in his opinion could not enlarge that person without a compromise of its dignity. Mr. Sheridan in explanation said, that he had distinctly stated that that House had pronounced the Pamphlet of Mr. Reeves to be a gross, scandalous, and malicious libel. Earl Temple, if he could not concur in the motion of the hon. baronet, should not consent to the attainment of the same object by a side wind, in agreeing to the amendment. He thought the confinement already suffered by the individual a sufficient punishment for his offence; but would not consent to his discharge till he should by a petition express contrition for his offence. The Bill of Rights was not intended to prevent constitutional meetings, legally convened for discussing the conduct of public men. But he could not consider self-called meetings as entitled to the same consideration as corporation meetings, or county meetings legally convened by the Sheriffs. He should therefore vote against the original motion and against the amendment, at the same time distinctly stating, that if a petition were to be presented, he should vote for the discharge of the individual. Mr. Whitbread was sorry that the hon. baronet had brought forward his motion in a shape, which, whatever way it should be decided, would not attain his object. He could not but agree that the House had the right to commit persons for a breach of its privileges; but he must also add, that in his opinion that House very seldom got well out of such proceedings. It was clear that the honourable baronet had gone the whole length of denying that the House had the right to commit any person, but one of its own members; for he had put his argument in the form of a syl.logism; a court of record only had such a power of commitment; that House was not a court of record, therefore that House had no such right of commitment. He should therefore vote for the amendment. Mr. C. W. Wynn declared his intention to vote for amendment, because he thought the confinement already suffered sufficient as a punishment for the offence. it could likewise imprison for constructive contempt? The former was a power necessary for the performance of its constitutional functions, and had not been denied by him. But he did deny that they had legally the power to call a man to their bar for the purpose of charging him with an offence, and then to inflict upon him imprisonment, the highest punishment, not capital, recognised by the law of this land. In doing this, the House appeared to him to have greatly transcended its constitutional prerogatives. The hon. bart. then proceeded to review the cases that had been adverted to in the course of the discussion, and the comments made upon them. He shewed that not one of them applied to the case under consideration. If any hon. member could shew to him that such a prerogative was necessary to the constitutional functions of parliament, he would submit. They had already abandoned all the privileges which were formerly thought necesary for them, because they had been found obstructions to justice, and they now retained only freedom of speech and from arrest. He had hoped that the learned gentlemen opposite, those luminaries of the law, would have thrown more light upon the subject; but the only case they had produced, that of Ferrars, in the reign of Henry VIII,went to shew that the House in such cases had no separate authority. the learned gentlemen had mistaken all his cases, and misconceived the object for Sir F. Burdett replied to the various ar- which he had cited them, and the arguguments which had been urged against ments with which he urged them. his motion. He had endeavoured to guard the hon. and learned gent. (the attorney against the confounding the simple propo-general) had not been able to shew that it sition, which he had stated, with the ex- was consistent with the law of England ercise of the inquisitorial functions of that House. He could never have had it in idea to assert, that the House had not the power, in the exercise of its constitutional functions, to remove nuisances, that is, obstructions to judgment, a power which every magistrate possessed. All courts had that right, because without it they could not proceed in the administration of justice. What was the legal meaning of contempt? That which throws obstructions in the way of the proceedings of any court, is a contempt of that court; therefore the privilege of the court in such instance was the right of removing such obstruction; but how were the proceedings of that House affected, or at least obstructed, by a libel? Did it follow that, because it could commit for direct obstruction, But that law, which, according to Plowden, was founded upon pure reason-that an English subject ought to be questioned twice for the same offence. The cases he had cited, he referred to only as illustrative of his argument, and in order to shew, by the well digested and able paper of the Judges in the case of Bridgeman and Holt, that the judges acknowledged no legal tribunal in this kingdom but the courts established by the law of the land. The lex parliamentaria that had been so much talked of, was binding upon their own members, but not upon others. did not give that House a power, not possessed by the Sovereign-the power of committing a person for an offence cognisable by the legal tribunals. What was the answer of chief justice Morton to Ed It ward the Fourth, when asked by that | Stockholm and London, as that any evils monarch whether he could arrest a resulting from the illicit trade at St. Barparticular person", " No, Sire, that would tholomew might be remedied. Next, be an act for which you could not be with respect to Portugal and Spain, their questioned, and the party, if aggrieved could flags could not certainly be used to any have no redress; you must make an arrest great extent in protecting the illicit trade. by an officer who will be responsible for When he was at Lisbon in his Majesty's the consequences." It was likewise a service, he was astonished and concerned most material objection against this right to find that from one district of Africa, claimed by the House, that they could there were annually exported to the Pornot proportion the punishment to the tuguese settlements in America, not less offence; as an individual may,by possibi- than from 15 to 16,000 slaves, and this he lity, be confined seven years, or only five was then told amounted to but one half minutes, if a dissolution was to take place. of the whole trade for Portugal. He Much had been said of the dignity of that trusted that our representations upon this House; but if dignity was to be measured head would be found to have had weight and supported by punishment, Jack Ketch in the councils of Portugal; as we might must have more dignity than any other justly be supposed to have some influence individual in the kingdom. If strong in a country in the defence of which we powers were to be given any where, he had voted money for the support of 30,000 should prefer giving them to the King. of its native troops. With respect to He had ever been an enemy to the ex- Spain-Spain he had no doubt traded in ercise of arbitrary power in any quarter, slaves to the amount of nearly two thirds and on the same grounds was led to op- of the Slave Trade of Portugal; the priapose what he looked upon as an usurpa-cipal part of this trade as carried on by tion of an unconstitutional and arbitrary power on the part of that House. The Amendment was then negatived without a division? but upon the original motion the House divided-For it, 14 Against it, 153-Majority, 139. Spain, was carried on between Cuba and the Havannah; and it was but too justly apprehended, that in the intercourse between both the illicit trade was supported by landing the slaves upon the British isles. With respect to America-the Americans had abolished the Slave Trade, yet much of the illicit trade was carried on under the flag of Sweden; this was a topic peculiary interesting to the Americans, and the House had seen in the American correspondence respecting Mr. Erskine, that they shewed their willingness to open a negociation upon this subject; they had said that they could not make any concession affecting their right of sovereignty, yet that, if their ships should be detected by our cruizers in that illicit trade, the owners of those ships would not make any representation to their govern SLAVE TRADE.] Mr. Brougham rose to make his promised motion for copies of the correspondence between the foreign secretary and the ministers of foreign powers, resident in London, upon the subject of the abolition of Slave Trade. The hon. gent. requested the indulgence of the House while describing the object of his motion, and the nature of the papers he intented to move for. He disclaimed all sentiments of hostility to the present ministers as influencing him in the motion he was about to make. He then proceeded to advert to the resolution of 1806, and lamented that, as a general measurement, in the violation of whose laws they it should have proved so inefficacious; more especially with respect to foreign powers. Sweden had carried on the Slave Trade in the island of St. Bartholomew; that island from its proximity to those of the West India islands belonging that he would be graciously pleased ing to us, afforded ample means for supporting an uilicit trade in slaves with many of our colonies in that quarter. The Slave Trade, with respect to Sweden, was merely a nominal- trade, not exceeding six or seven slaves a-year for that island.swers thereunto." He trusted, however, that such facilities of Mr. Canning complimented the hon. intercourse existed between the courts of gent. on the ability with which he had had so suffered. He apologised to the House for the few observations he had taken the liberty to throw out, and concluded with moving, " That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, pray to order, that there be laid before the House, copies of all communications made by his Majesty's secretary of State for foreign affairs, to the ministers of foreign powers resident in London, with their an |