HISTORY OF EUROPE. 275 



Hvered to the Commons of the 

 l2th. He moved, that the report 

 of the secret committee of that 

 House should be referred to a se- 

 cret committee of the House of 

 Lords. 



This motion was opposed by 

 Lord Stanhope, on the ground of 

 the papers differing in those respects 

 ...materially from that report ; which 

 could not, for that reason, he con- 

 sidered as fair and impartial. But 

 the motion for a secret committee 

 was carried. This committee sta- 

 ted to the House of Lords, on the 

 -a2d, that having compared the re- 

 port of the committee of ihe Com- 

 mons with the papers it was ac- 

 companied with, it had come to the 

 same resolutions that had been 

 adopted by that comm.ittee. 



Lord Grenviile moved in conse- 

 .quence, that, in order to strengthen 

 the hands of governmeut, the Ha- 

 -bcas Corpus act should be suspend- 

 ed. He supported his motion with 

 arguments similar to those that had 

 been employed for the same end 

 in the House of Commons. 



Lord Stanhope opposed the mo- 

 tion in the same style of reasoning 

 with which it had been combated 

 in the- Lower House. He repro- 

 bated the bill of suspension as a 

 .counter-part to the Bjstile and the 

 Lcttres de Cachet. 

 , Lord Thurlo-.v expressed himself 

 witli great caution on this subject. 

 He acceded to the bill, he said, 

 merely on the presumption that its 

 necessity had been proved. From 

 his inspection of the report, it coii- 

 tainedj in his opinion, many facts 

 amounting to real sedin'oi, but not 

 ip any higher crime. The suspen- 

 sion would not, he said, invalidate 

 the Habeas Corpns act, which 

 would remain in tull force, those 



cases only excepted where an in- 

 dividual was detained on suspicio; 3 

 well founded. 



Lord Lauderdale spoke vehe- 

 mently against the bill of suspen- 

 sion. Ministry, he asserted, WuS 

 pursuing a revolutionary system in 

 this country by a chain of innova- 

 tions fundamentally destructive of 

 the constitution. It was hard to 

 decide, he said, which was the 

 greatest calamity to a state, — a suc- 

 cessful struggle for an increase of 

 despotic authority, or the introduc- 

 tion of hcentiousness. The bill, 

 he contended, should not extend 

 beyond the societies under accusa- 

 tion ; otherwise it would establish 

 that system of terror which we so 

 much reprobated in France. He 

 concluded by moving an adjourn- 

 ment. 



Other Lords sp'oke forandagainst 

 the bill. 



Among a variety of arguments, 

 it was alleged by the Marquis of 

 Lansdowne, that the societies novv 

 so grievously accused, w ere in truth 

 the offspring of those societies that 

 made so much noise in this country 

 towards the close of the American 

 war j and to which much more re- 

 proach, if any were deserved, was 

 due, for having led the way in this 

 method of calling upongovernnient 

 to do justice to the public. But 

 the English Jacobins of that day 

 had lenounced the;r principles, and 

 were now persecuting the Jacobins 

 of the present. As to the demands 

 insisted on by the Jacobins of both 

 epochs, if they were justly founded> 

 such was the disposition of the peo- 

 ple and the nature of the constitu- 

 tion, that they must ultimately be 

 granted to them in despite of all 

 inmisterial opposition,— unless in- 

 deed one were to supposs that the 

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