GENERAL HISTORY. 



[IIJ 



s tumultuous body, and to make 

 those who did not disperse when 

 called upon, liable to punishment. 

 With regard to the third point, he 

 had to observe, that in many parts 

 there were not magistrates suffi- 

 cient to enforce the law with due 

 vigour, and on the borders of the 

 disturbed counties offenders might 

 escape to another jurisdiction. He 

 would therefore propose, that for 

 the time being, the magistrates in 

 the disturbed and adjacent counties 

 should have a concurrent jurisdic- 

 tion. He concluded by moving for 

 a bill " For the preservation of the 

 public peace in the disturbed coun- 

 ties, and to give additional powers 

 to the justices for a limited time 

 for that purpose." 



Mr. Whitbread declared that he 

 was by no means satisfied with this 

 proceeding. The consequence of 

 not being allowed to enter upon 

 the verbal evidence was the jejune 

 report with which the house had 

 been affronted, and which left it 

 in comparative darkness. The no- 

 ble lord had made a statement of 

 what he called facts, which in 

 many parts was wholly unwar- 

 ranted by the report on the table. 

 His own wish had been to try the 

 truth of the anonymous informa- 

 tion, but though he had twice di- 

 vided the committee, and had in 

 one instance 7 out of 17, and in 

 another 9 out of 19, they were 

 obliged to content themselves with 

 the intelligence which government 

 had thought proper to supply. The 

 honourable gentleman then called 

 lu question many of the assertions 

 of the noble lord, particularly with 

 respect to thi- existence of an armed 

 force among the rioters, of regular 

 leader?, distiuct combinations, and 



depots of arms. He strongly ob- 

 jected to the proposed measure of 

 searching for arms, and alluded to 

 the horrors which measures of that 

 kind had occasioned in Ireland. 

 He hoped the revocation of the 

 orders in council would cause part 

 of the evil to fall of itself, but 

 said that peace was the only radical 

 remedy for all our grievances. 



Mr. Wilberforce said, that con- 

 nected as he was with that part of 

 the country which was the seat of 

 these disturbances, he could not, 

 without the most painful feelings, 

 contemplate the necessity for the 

 measures now proposed ; it, how- 

 ever appeared to him that these 

 measures did not outgo the neces- 

 sity of the case, and even if govern- 

 ment had asked for larger powers, 

 not for the purpose of carrying 

 them at once into execution, but 

 of cautiously feeling their way 

 according to the situation of the 

 country, he should not have hesi- 

 tated to bestow them. As to the 

 source of these disorders, he could 

 not concur in the opinion that they 

 proceeded from an interruption to 

 commerce, or a scarcity of pro- 

 visions. He was convinced that 

 thedisease was of a political nature, 

 arising from certain mischievous 

 publicationsindustriously circulat- 

 ed to alienate the affections of the 

 people from the laws and govern- 

 ment of their countr^^ 



Several other members spoke on 

 the subject, and the debate at 

 length digressed into a discussion 

 of the severities employed in Ire- 

 land at the period of the rebellion. 

 Lord Castlereagh's motion was in 

 fine put and carried without a 

 division, after which he brought 

 in his bill, which was read a first 

 [I 2] time. 



