laid great stress on the word "resist," as if it was an expression of a most indefensible nature. If gentlemen took the whole of the paper together, they would, however, find the word "resist" uniformly coupled with some words, importing that nothing but a legal resistance was contemplated, They would see, "to resist "the doctrine," "to resist with their « voice," &c. It was impossible, he contended, without giving to the words a forced construction, that any thing improper could be inferred from them. If the House was in any doubt on this subject, he held in his hand certain declarations of the great lord Chatham, which must at once convince them how dangerous and unconstitutional it would be to give such a construction to a term so innocent in itself. In these declarations the noble lord expressed a hope, that old as he was, he might see this House, of which he was then a member, and the country in general, once more united to oppose a despotic minister; he hoped to see measures fairly disputed; if not, might discord prevail for ever. It was of no consequence, the noble lord contended, whether the question was stated as applying to a despotic minister, or to the House of Commons. When they saw an authority such as this, he presumed the House would be slow, on a word of so slight a meaning, of passing so severe a judgment. There was another offence also imputed to his hon. friend with equal injustice, as if he wished to represent the Bill of Rights as having been converted into a Bill of Wrongs. This was by no means the fact. The reverse indeed, was the case, as any gentleman might see who chose to read the passage throughout.-Here the noble lord quoted the whole passage as it stands in sir F. Burdett's Letter, which runs thus: "But in order that nothing may be wanting to render truly ludicrous every part of this proceeding, which, inverting the laws of the drama, as well as all other laws, begins with a farce, and ends with a tragedy; the House of Commons imprison Mr. Jones-under the sanction of what law, think ye? The Bill of Rights. Well might Paine call it the Bill of Wrongs, if it could be thus converted into an instrument to oppress and destroy the liberties of the people; those liberties for which it was expressly framed, claimed, demanded, and insisted upon to protect. Mr. Yorke has discovered a new meaning VOL. XVI. in the Bill of Rights; and, because the Bill of Rights declares that a member of parliament cannot be questioned any where out of parliament for words spoken, therein, he has sapiently concluded, that the people are prohibited from exercising their understanding, for the purpose of discussing or censuring the conduct of the gentlemen who sit in that House," &c. On reading this passage gentlemen would be convinced, that though Mr. Yorke might be entitled to find fault with it, the House had no right to complain, still less any constitutional power to punish, for it. The hon. baronet, so far from reflecting on the House, had gone out of his way to liberate them from any charge on this head. Another passage had been alluded to as the ground of serious charge against his hon. friend. The passage was that, where (speaking of the House of Commons), the hon. bart. stated that they, "inflated with their high blown fanciful ideas of majesty, and tricked out in the trappings of royalty, think privilege and protection beneath their dignity, assume the sword of prerogative, and lord it equally over the king and the people." Now, he must say, whatever might be attempted in the way of ridicule, that he agreed with an hon. and learned gent. below him (sir S. Romilly), that he did not clearly understand this passage. Yet, whatever these words were, every one of them, he believed, had been before used by the hon. bart. in his place in that House, when he moved for the liberation of Gale Jones. He was sure they had been used by him on other occasions. He did not state that as a justification, but only as to the fact of their not being unprecedented. As far as he could make out their meaning by the context, he pre sumed that by "assuming the sword of prerogative, and lording it equally over the king and people,' was meant the power assumed by the House of Commons, of punishing where the law did not order it, and of doing acts beyond what the king or the other branch of the legislature had the power to do. That was the best interpretation that he could put upon it. The passage might perhaps be offensive; and they were told, that it was the more injurious as it was unintelligible. There might really be some ingenuity in this reasoning; but he could not perceive why the House should be the more inclined to punish, when sitting in judgment on a passage they did not clearly understand, 2 H It was called scandalous and libellous. He spoke in the hearing of learned persons when he said he believed, that to be scandalous, it must be false, and to be libellous, a bad intention must be shewn; which he had not yet heard urged. He could see no right to infer any bad motive from this publication, unless it were from the word "Resist;" for which, he declared, he could find no ground. was, what was a Privilege? The definition of the term seemed to imply, that it was an exemption from the law as applied to others. This clearly implied that such privilege must be distinctly defined. The ancient privileges of the House were, freedom of speech; and freedom from arrest for themselves, and even for their servants, except in cases of treason, felony or breach of the peace. The noble lord believed, the reason of these privileges was to prevent the members from being impeded in giving their personal attendance in parliament; what was complained of in the present case, however, did not come under any of them. The right hon. and learned baronet said, that freedom from libel was necessary for the members of the House to enable them to give their minds to the consideration of the subject, which might chance to be before them. It would be giving a wide interpretation indeed, to the privileges of the House, to maintain that they were to be extended to the length now contended for. As to hissing or hooting the members in coming to or returning from the House, that was very different from the present case. He was far from objecting to the right of the House, to remove ob The right hon. and learned gent. however, had said, that the paper in question reflected on the just rights and privileges of the House. The House, therefore, was called on to determine not only on the scandalous and libellous nature of the publication in question, but also on the justice of its own rights and privileges. The paper in question, it was to be observed, was one in which the worthy baronet proposed to explain to his constituents, more fully than in the usual method, his sentiments on a particular question. The noble lord did not pretend to know how far that was right. He was aware that it was considered as a violation of their rules, that any account of their pro ́ceedings should be made public; but of this he was also certain, that for many years the violation of this rule had been systematically connived at, till the instructions to its proceedings, but the prefringement of the order had become more a matter of right than the observance of it. It was well known however, that even while the right of keeping their proceedings secret from the public was rigidly acted up to, it was the constant and uniform practice of members to send to their constituents, daily, weekly and monthly accounts of their proceedings, particularly so far as the individual member was himself concerned. Gentlemen were, therefore, to determine, if this was an allowable practice in members of that House, whether in a case of this kind, they were entitled to proceed entirely from recollection, particularly when so many members were present now, who had not been present when the speech of the worthy bart., so communicated by him to his constituents, was made? In considering this question, too, the House must take into view that they were called on to pronounce this a libel in the particular circumstances he had mentioned. No person, the noble lord presumed, would venture to assert, if one were satisfied that the right did not exist, that he was not entitled to say so. In the first place, therefore, the question to be considered sent was not a case of that kind. The right hon. and learned Master of the Rolls had stated, that it was necessary the House should have the power of commitment. He did not state, however, that it was necessary they should have this power as a privilege. Chief justice De Grey, too, had said, that it was necessary the House should have this power. What was this but saying, that it was necessary the House should have the power of removing all obstructions to their proceedings, a power which nobody thought of denying? Here, however, there was nothing of that kind. In the offence committed by Jones, there was nothing that could have obstructed the proceedings of that House, had no question been raised on the subject. In former cases they had gone on equally well without any committal. They had done so in the cases of Stockdale and of Reeves. It had been said by the right hon. and learned baronet, that all courts had a power to punish for contempt against themselves. Then, he submitted, it was necessary to shew what contempt was. It must, he was satisfied, be something calculated to obstruct the proceedings of the court, or to load it with contumely. | in the removing of obstructions to their Lord Kenyon had laid it down that contempt might be committed out of court; but he had only adduced one instance to this effect, which was the case of an Under-Sheriff, who had neglected his duty in putting in force the process of the court. In the Court of King's bench, Mr. Bingley, a bookseller, had been brought before lord Mansfield, charged with publishing libels against the court, and on his refusal to answer, insisting that he had a right to be tried by his peers, was committed to prison, where he was detained for two years, still refusing, during the whole of the time,to submit to the jurisdiction of the court. Finally, he was discharged on the motion of the Attorney General, on the ground that his imprisonment had been of longer duration, probably, than he might have suffered had he received judgment for the offence. This, however, instead of being an argument for, was an aggravation of the of fence originally committed, and which had been weekly and daily repeated by Mr. Bingley during the whole of that period. If a contempt, therefore, had in that case been committed in the first instance, it had been aggravated, and the court had been foiled in the attempt to In the recent case of Hart punish it. and White, printer and proprietor of a newspaper called the Independent Whig, for a libel against the court of King's bench, that court had not proceeded against them as for contempt, but they had been tried, and were convicted by their peers. In the same way on former occasions, that House had not committed Stockdale and Reeves for contempt, but had ordered prosecutions against them. An hon. gent. had asked, if the worthy baronet denied the right of that House to commit any person not a member of the House, why did he not object to the committal, during the last session, of Huxley Sandon? That case, however, had no relation to the present case; there then was an obstruction of the proceedings of the House. It was essential that the House should have it in their power to take every step to enforce the exercise of their own privileges as a court of inquiry. If, therefore, they had a power to examine witnesses at the bar, it was essential to the due exercise of this right that they should be entitled to inforce compliance with it. He contended, however, that the House was entitled to exercise this power only own proceedings.-At one time it had been assumed as the privilege of that House to imprison a man for a week, a month, a year, or any other indefinite period. Now, however, it was admitted, that no such power existed. It was obvious, therefore, that this could not be meant for punishment. . The House could only commit during its own sitting, thereby clearly shewing that the power was conferred solely to prevent the obstruction of their own proceedings. If otherwise, and the power were given them for the sake of punishment, what would be the inference? that for a petty breach of privilege one man who was guilty of it on the first day of the meeting of parlia ment might be at their mercy possibly for seven years, while another person who had committed a grievous offence on the last day of their sitting must be liberated on the very same day? If the power, therefore, was meant to be conferred for the sake of punishing offenders, he submitted that this uncertainty could not have been tolerated. The privileges of that House were to be regulated by Magna Charta and the law of the land; and Magna Charta itself declared that the subjects of this country were to be imprisoned only per judicium parium, vel legem terræ.' Even in the reign of Charles the 1st, there was a direct acknowledgment to this effect, by the three branches of the legislature, where it is declared that no freeman can be confined or detained in prison:-That a writ of Habeas Corpus cannot be denied to any man:-And that, if any one should be committed without just cause, he ought to be delivered up or bailed. This was at a time when the House was assuming to itself great powers, and when it was contending with the crown as to the power of commitment. The House of Lords, too, had declared this right on the part of the Commons to be an assumption of power against law. And in the case of Asby and White, it had been resolved, that neither House had any such power, so far as it was not warranted by act of parliament. These Resolutions passed during periods of heat and contention, and when the House had assumed powers which nobody would venture to deny were illegally assumed. Undoubtedly, the House would not go to the Journals of the House of Lords to learn what their privileges were; but when they were called on to make a moderate use of 6 brought up till a distant day. The other case was that of Mr. Wilkes, who having refused to attend in consequence of the order of the House, the House again fixed the Friday for his attendance, and to avoid meeting the question, adjourned on the Thursday. their privileges, they could hardly act amiss in seeing what were the opinions of others on the subject of these privileges. Each of the three branches were at all times anxious enough to deny such a privilege to each other; but they were all, in their turns, alike eager to assert it to themselves. There was another circumstance, too, which might be worthy of consideration. "On what ground did either House claim this privilege?" The House of Lords might assert it in their legal capacity; but that House could lay claim to it only as a branch of the legislature. The right hon. and learned gentleman who spoke last, had said it was necessary that no slur should be cast on that House. Were they, however, to be in this respect more protected than the crown? The crown could do no more than order a prosecution in case of a libel against its authority: so could that House without resorting to the present extraordinary privilege, without which they would be equally protected with the crown. The right hon. and learned gentleman, however, went on to say, that this privilege was agreeable to law, and that there were instances of complaints of the kind from the earliest period, when there was any necessity for making them. This he denied: as the first instance of such a complaint was in the case of Hall, in the reign of queen Elizabeth. The right hon. and learned gentleman had also said, that there had been a regular and undisputed custom of committing on such charges. This he must also deny. In the case of Crosby and Oliver, the House had undoubtedly proceeded to commitment, and the judge had refused them the benefit of the Habeas Corpus, although it was declared to be the right of every man, but this they had done on the ground, that these two persons had been committed for an infringement of the law of parliament, which was unknown. This, he presumed to think was a dangerous doctrine, but he left it to abler hands to discuss it. In the case of Mr. Wilkes, however, the House had not ventured to commit, for he had resisted their authority. There were only two cases of the kind in which resistance had been made, and in both of these the commitment had been prevented. In the year 1680, Mr. Stowell was ordered to be committed, but he resisted the order, and the House finding itself in a dilemma, voted that he was sick, and could not be The noble lord then proceeded to notice the case of the Kentish petitioners. One of these, a Mr. Culpepper, afterwards petitioned against a return of one of the members, alleging that he had the greatest number of legal voies, and a Commit tee of that House reported on his petition, that he being one of the petitioners in the scandalous Kentish petition, was not duly elected. Could there, he asked, be a stronger specimen of the feelings of such a parliament, and of the danger of such an arbitrary right as this? He begged the House to recollect that the two cases deci ded by chief justice De Grey were determined on this ground, that the law of parliament was unknown. Lord Shaftesbury too, was refused to be released on similar grounds, but from this additional reason also, that he had been guilty of a breach of privilege in facie curia, so that his conduct might have amounted to an obstraction. Were the subjects of this country to be tried by a law which was not known? Were they even to become amenable to a secret tribunal? If the House had a right to call before them persons not members of the House, to answer for their conduct, would not such persons in reality become subject to a secret tribunal? Would they not be deprived of their fair trial by their peers? become subject to a tribunal not bound down by the solemnity of an oath; and where the privilege of counsel would not be allowed them? He had felt it his duty to say thus much as to what he conceived to be the law on this subject. He had done so to shew what would be the grievous oppression to which the public must be exposed, if persons, not members of that House, were liable to be so called on and so treated. He hoped the House would recollect that they were called on to determine a ques tion of the most grave consideration, and which was so doubtful in the opinion of a great majority of that House, that they adjourned the consideration of it for a week. The worthy baronet had not had the opportunity of hearing the observations against him, or of making any reply to them; he hoped, therefore, the House would come to the consideration of the question not with the feelings of advocates | ferent opinion; for when this word came but of judges. The hon. gent. who had He to be coupled with and applied to particu- "It is therefore now time to resist the doctrine upon which Mr. Jones has been sent to Newgate; or it is high time to cease all pretensions to those liberties which were acquired by our fore-fathers, after so many struggles and so many sacrifices." "Either the House of Commons is audi-thorized to dispense with the laws of the land, or it is not. If the constitution be of so delicate a texture, so weak a frame, so fragile a substance, that is to be only Lord Binning said he did not think it spoken of in terms of admiration, and to possible to overstate the importance of the be viewed merely as a piece of curious paper thea under the consideration of the but unprofitable workmanship; if Magna House, because, it attacked, in the most Charta, and all the wholesome laws of gross and violent manner, the just privi-England be a dead letter; in that case, the leges of that House, without a due respect affirmative of the proposition may be adfor which they must soon sink into insig-mitted; but if the constitution lives, and nificance because the present were not is applicable to its ends; namely, the ordinary times, nor was the hon. baronet, happiness of the community, the perfect who was the author of it, an ordinary man. security of the life, liberty, and property The hon. baronet had, for a length of time, of each member, and of all the members in furtherance and support of his favourite of society, then the affirmative of the prochild-a reform in the representation of position can never be admitted; then the House of Commons-taken every op- must we be freemen, for we need no betportunity to blacken the character of the ter security, no more powerful protection House. From time to time, the House for our rights and liberties, than the laws had heard that they had not a leg to stand and constitution." on; and in the course of the last session the hon. bart. had even said, that the only place in which the people of England were treated with contempt was in the House of Commons. Some gentlemen had, in extenuation of many passages in this paper, said, that they were nonsense; he had no inclination or intention to deny the truth of the observation; but that, in his mind, made very little difference. Certain facts, stated in a certain way, might be equally mischievous in their tendency and effect, whether done nonsensically or with ability; and, if the House wished their privileges should not be trampled under foot, it was high time to assert them. The noble lord had said a great deal on the word resist-but all he had said amounted only to this, that it meant humble petitions. He was, however, of a dif "To these laws we have a right to look with confidence for security; to these laws the individual now imprisoned has through me applied for redress in vain. Those who have imprisoned him have refused to listen to my voice, weakly expressing the strong principles of the law, the undeniable claims of this Englishman's birthright. Your voice may come with more force, may command greater respect, and, I am not without hope, that it may prove irresistible, if it proclaim to this House of Commons, as the tongues of our ancestors proclaimed to the kings of old, Nolumus leges Angliæ mutare, or in more clear and not less forcible language, The laws of England shall not be changed.' These passages, he must contend, meant a resistance far beyond the noble lord's explanation of humble petitions. The |