HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
vember, the bill for the safety of 
the King’s person and government 
was formally read, and produced 
long and spirited debates on its va- 
rious clauses. ‘The duke of Leeds 
moved, that, instead of the word 
government, in the Second clause, 
the words, consisting.of king, lords, 
andcommons,should be substituted, 
as defining, more specifically, the 
constitution thanthe word govern- 
ment. ! 
The lord chancellor and lord 
Grenville were of a different opi- 
nion; but lord Thurlow asserted the 
difficulty of defining, with exactness, 
the terms government and consti- 
tution ; the penalties enacted by the 
second clause appeared to him un- 
duly severe. Was it equitable to 
criminate a man for saying it was 
an abuse, that twenty acres of land, 
near Old Sarum, should send two 
members to parliament? The laws 
in existence were, in his judgment, 
amply sufficient to punish ever 
crime and iisdemeanour therein 
alluded to; without needing its 
assistance. He reprobated the 
system of adding new laws and pe- 
nalties to those already enacted, and 
condemned the whuie of this clause, 
together with the following one, by 
which ministers were empowered 
to prosecute discretionelly. 
Much surprise was expressed by 
the lord chancellor, at the opinion 
delivered by lord Thurlow. The 
enormity of the offences, at which 
this clause was pointed, must, he 
said, be acknowledged by all who 
read the publications of the day: 
they were, in every , sense, directed 
against the existence of the govern- 
ment and the constitution: they ex- 
plicitly told the people, that they 
were in no wise bound to submit 
to their rulers: that monarchy was 
[29 
an usurpation of national rights,and 
aristocracy an oppressive institution: 
they boldly gave the public to un- 
derstand, that beth these branches 
of the constitution ought to be lop-, 
ped away, and democracy alone to 
remain ; threatening, at the same 
time, to lose no opportunity of car- 
rying those purposes into execution. 
Were such flagitious designs, said 
the lord chancellor, permitted to be 
avowed, in the undisguised, insult- 
ing manner they had so long been,, 
to the astonishment and indignation 
of the sensible part of the public, 
what must become of the authority 
‘of the state, and of the safety of all 
its component members ? Wasit not 
evident, that all the evils which had 
afflicted this nation, in the last cen- 
tury, and all those experienced by 
France, at the present hour, would 
be renewed in this country, did not 
the legislature proceed with expe- 
dition and spirit to puta stop to 
the dissemination of those principles 
that tended, so manifestly, to pro- 
duce such calamities ? 
The lord chancellor. was sup- 
ported by lord Mansfield, and op- 
posed by lord Lauderdale, who no~ 
ticed, that instead of encountering 
the arguments of lord Thurlow, he 
had described the pernicious ten- 
dency of the writings circulated by 
the democratic faction, which had 
not been denied, and which were 
no less deprecated by the parliamene 
lary Opposition to ministry, than by 
ministers themselves, But the fact 
was, that we lived in times, when 
the partiality to ene branch of the 
constitution was, such, that revilers 
of the others might go unnoticed 
and unpunished, while that alone 
would be fenced and protected by 
clauses and penalties against those 
that spoke, or wrote, of it disre- 
spectfully. 
