HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
rized the magistrate to commit to 
jmmediate imprisonment whomever 
they thought proper to charge with 
seditious language, or behaviour, in 
any popular meeting. This they as- 
serted was to constitute them, at 
once, judges and jury. The earl 
of Moira took pointed notice of an 
expression that had been used by 
the earl of Westmorland. The words 
of that nobleman were ‘* send the 
people to the loom and to the anvil, 
and there Jet them earn bread in- 
stead of wasting their time in sedi- 
tious meetings.”” This, said lord 
Moira, was degrading men below 
the condition assigned to them by 
the Almighty, who certainly could 
not have intended that any part of 
mankind should be doomed merely 
to work and eat like the beasts of 
the field. They too were endowed 
with the faculty of reasoning, and 
_ had certainly the right to use it. 
Strong and cogent arguments 
were produced, by lord Thurlow, 
to prove that the yovernment of 
England could not, in justice to the 
nation, fetter it with new laws, 
merely to prevent the possible con- 
sequences, in this country, of those 
principles, the importation of which, 
from France, wasapprehended. Af- 
_ ter signifying his general disappro- 
bation of the bill, he pointed out 
its variations from the provisions of 
the acts of Charles II. and George I. 
Tespecting seditious proceedings. By 
the latter, known by the name of the 
riot-act, people unlawfullyassembled 
did not, however, expose themselves 
to capital punishment, unless they 
_ persisted in ating ina disorderly 
and tumultous manner during a 
whole hour after the act had been 
read tothem. But, by the present 
bill, if people were assembled, in or- 
_ der to take a subject relating to the 
public into consideration, and con- 
[45 
tinued together, however peaceably, 
to the number of twelve persons, an 
hour after proclamation made, they 
were adjudged guilty of felony, with- 
out benefit of clergy ; and the pre- 
siding magistrate was authorized to 
use violence, even to death, in up- 
prehending them. This clause was 
so unjustifiable, that he thought him- 
self bound to oppoce the bill, were 
it solely from this motive. 
The lord chancellor made a long 
and elaborate reply to lord Thur- 
low’s objections, without advancing, 
however, any thing new in support 
of the bill. The question for its 
going into acommittee was carried 
by one hundred and nine votes against 
twenty-one. 
The house of lords went, accorde 
ingly, into a committee upon the 
bill, on the eleventh of December, 
when the duke of Norfolk opposed 
the clause extending the operation 
of the bill to three years, and moved 
that it should be limited to one. He 
was seconded by lords Scarborough, 
Darnley, Radnor, and Romney. But 
the term of three years was support- 
ed by lords Grenville, Spencer, and 
Mulgrave, and voted by forty-five 
toeight. On the fourteenth of Decem- 
ber, 1795, the bill was read a third 
time and finally passed. 
No law, enacted by the British 
legislature, was ever received by the 
nation with such evident and gene- 
ral marks of il] will and disapproba- 
tion as these two celebrated bills, 
on which the public bestowed the 
appellation of the Pitt and Gren- 
vilie acts, in order to set a mark 
upon their authors,and hold them 
out to the odium of the people. 
These two acts were consider- 
ed the most restrictive of any that 
have been passed by an English 
parliament since the reigns of the 
Tudors; @ family of which the ree 
membrance 
