30} 
spectfully. The crown, for instance, 
might be represented as the power 
paramount to lords and commons, 
and totally, by right, independent 
of their contro]; and the man that 
hadmade such an asseveration, might, 
instead of rebuke and punishment, 
meet with approbation and reward, 
while he, that dared to insinuate the 
contrary, would expose himself to 
the wrath of government. A time, 
indeed, might come, when the prin- 
ciples.that seated the house of Bruns- 
wick on the British throne, might 
be reprobated, and held forth as 
proofs of disloyalty in those who 
maintained them, while those who 
pleaded the cause of the preroga- 
tive, would be abetted by the whole 
authority and strength of govern- 
ment. 
The duke of Bedford was par. 
ticularly severe on that clause of the 
bill, which condemned, to a trans~ 
portation for seven years, any per-~ 
son convicted of having offended, 
a second time, against the purport 
of the bill. He thought the pe- 
nalty far exceeded the offence, and 
spoke, he said, as a man that felt 
himself liable to incur it. He took 
this occasion to condemn, in bitter 
terms, an expression that had fallen 
from bishop Horsley, in the warmth 
of his antipathy to writings pub- 
lished on parliamentary reform. The 
bishop’s reply to the duke’s animad- 
versions was, that the bill referred 
enly to those seditious meetings 
where the discussion of laws was 
attempted by persons incompetent 
to judge of their propriety; nor 
did he know, ‘* what the mass of the 
people, in any country, had to do 
with the laws, but to obey them.” 
An observation of this nature, 
drew, from the duke of Bedford, 
and the earl of Lauderdale, the ut- 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796. 
most abhorrence that words could 
utter. The earl, in particular, af- 
firmed, that had a Turkish mufti 
made such a declaration, in his pre- 
sence, he should have imputed it to 
his ignorance; but to hear it from 
the mouth of a British prelate, ex. 
cited his surprise no less than his in- 
dignatjon. 
It may Rot be out of place to ree 
mark, that these words of the bi- 
shop did him considerable dissere 
vice, not only with the public, but 
with the ministerial party, who were 
abundantly sensible how much their 
cause was injured by such immode- 
rate zeal, whether sincere or af+ 
fected. 
The bill, on the division, was 
carried by forty-five votes against 
three. 
The third reading of the bill took 
place on the thirteenth of ‘Novem- 
ber, when the earl of Lauderdale 
proposed to extend the operation 
of it to Scotland, and to substitute 
it tothe laws provided there against 
the like offences: observing, in 
support of his proposal, that more 
severity could not be requisite in 
Scotland, where the people were 
peaceably inclined, than in. Eng- 
land, where a strong party was 
formed against the existing govern- 
ment. But his proposal was imme- 
diately negatived. 
The biil was again opposed, with 
“great vigour and animation, by the 
duke of Bedford. He felt, he said, 
a solicitude and anxiety on this 
subject, that compelled him to call 
forth every exertion, of which he 
was capable, to bear witness of his 
abhorrence of that bill, which he 
considered as a mortal stab to the 
English constitution, given, in de-— 
spite of every remonstrance, by a. 
ministry, determined to strike at 
every 
