HISTORY OF EUROPE. [125 



to individuals or the public, still it 

 was unnecessary to resort to this doc- 

 trine of confidence. A secret com- 

 mittee, fairly and impartially cho- 

 sen out of gentlemen on both sides 

 of the house, might be appointed 

 to examine into the grounds for sus- 

 pecting that a conspiracy against the 

 state was in existence, and their 

 report would prove completely sa- 

 tisfactory, though any part of their 

 information were withheld from the 

 house. On the question being put, 

 that the suspension of the habeas 

 corpus till the first of February, 

 1801, be read a second time, it was 

 carried by 98 voices against 12. — 

 It was afterwards read a third time, 

 on the twenty-fifth of February, and 

 carried up to the house of lords, 

 where it was read a first time. 



On a motion that it should then 

 be read a second time, lord Holland 

 exclaimed against the indecency of 

 hurrying a bill of such importance, 

 so rapidly through the house. 



Lord King said, that before their 

 lordships could judge of the pro- 

 priety of vesting such powers again 

 in the hands of his majesty's minis- 

 ters, it would be necessary to know 

 how they had been formerly exer- 

 cised. He therefore moved that 

 there should be laid before the house 

 a list of all persons confined by vir- 

 tue of the suspension of the habeas 

 corpus act, with the places of their 

 confinement, and dates of their 

 commitment ; which was ordered. 

 And a list of the persons, confined on 

 treasonable charges, was, on the 

 twenty-seventh of February ,laid be- 

 fore the lords, when the third read- 

 ing of the bill was opposed by 



Lord King, who had always 

 been taught to look up to the habeas 

 corpus as one of the strongest and 

 most sacred barriers of the consti- 

 tution. It was the opinion, he ob- 



served, of all the most celebrated 

 political writers, that the habeas 

 corpus act ought never to be sus- 

 pended, but upon occasions of the 

 most urgent and imminent necessity. 

 Those occasions had been pointed 

 out in 1798 and 1799- They were 

 an apprehension of foreign invasion, 

 of internal insurrection. But now 

 their lordships were desired to conti- 

 nue it still farther, without any 

 shadow of reason whatever being 

 adduced as an argument for so do- 

 ing. The present mode of pro- 

 ceeding, by his majesty's ministers, 

 he had begun to consider as a pre- 

 lude to making the suspension per- 

 petual. When was there a likeli- 

 hood of putting an end to it .'' If 

 their lordships might believe what 

 had been said in another place, not 

 tilljacobinism was extinguished. If, 

 however, there were really eighty 

 thousand of those incorrigibles, as 

 had been asserted by a great master 

 of that kind of political arithmetic, 

 [Mr. Burke] and, if what had been 

 also said on another occasion, were 

 also true " that those principles of 

 jacobinism, once imbibed, were 

 never to be eradicated : long indeed 

 he feared it would be before this 

 great bulwark of liberty and secu- 

 rity would be restored. His lord- 

 ship highly condemned the great 

 length of time which had elapsed 

 since the imprisonment of the twen- 

 ty-nine persons now immured in 

 different jails, some upwards of two 

 years, without being brought to a 

 trial. He allowed that persons so 

 taken up ought, if there were just 

 cause to suspect them, and not suf- 

 ficient evidence to convict, to be 

 confined a reasonable time, in order 

 to procure the necessary evidence. 

 But he thought eighteen months 

 more than reasonable time, and 

 some time ought to be fixed, in 



