32] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



of ]801, though different, was a 

 just principle also. It was, that 

 the names of persons who had 

 given information should not be 

 disclosed. What their lordships 

 decision on this point ought to 

 be, it would be for them to con- 

 sider in the committee ; but if 

 that principle was one which 

 ought to be acted upon, there 

 was another which possessed a 

 claim not less urgent on their 

 lordships' attention, namely, the 

 protection of the magistrates who 

 had executed the laws. To leave 

 these individuals who had caused 

 such arrests, to contend with the 

 multitude of actions which would 

 be brought against them, would 

 be to allow them to be over- 

 whelmed and crushed with an 

 incalculable expense. 



As to the chief point in the 

 noble lord's question, he wo+ild 

 state his opinion, for which such 

 allowances should be made as his 

 practice, confined to courts of 

 equit}^, required. It certainly- 

 appeared to him a point of great 

 importance ; and speaking what 

 occurred to his mind on the 

 subject, he could only say, that 

 he did not think a man discharged 

 in the way described by the 

 noble lord, would be discharged 

 according to law. But this 

 formed precisely a case in which 

 the magistrate ought to be pro- 

 tected. If, M'hen a rising against 

 the government was apprehended, 

 a magistrate arrested on informa- 

 tion a number of persons suspected 

 of engaging in a treasonable 

 design, was he to be punished for 

 discharging those persons when 

 the danger was over, and when 

 he conceived he had no longer 

 any right to detain them ? Surely 



no clearer case for granting in- 

 demnity could be suggested. 



The House having then gone 

 into the committee, the Lord 

 Chancellor proposed that they 

 should consider the preamble 

 first, instead of postponing it as 

 usual ; his reason being because 

 it was closely connected with the 

 enacting part of the bill. His 

 lordship was supported by Lord 

 Redesdale, but was opposed by 

 the Earl of Lauderdale, the Earl 

 of Carnarvon, and Lord Grenville; 

 and in fine, the two former peers 

 gave up the point. 



The Earl of Lauderdale moxeiS. 

 as an amendment, that the 4th 

 of March should be substituted 

 to the 1st of January, as the 

 period to which the operation of 

 the Indemnity act should be ex- 

 tended. What he wanted to 

 understand was, whether the 

 Indemnity bill was a consequence 

 of the Suspension of the Habeas 

 Corpus ; for if it was, the indem- 

 nity should extend only to the 

 period at which the suspension 

 had commenced, and not, as the 

 present bill was drawn, to a 

 period long before it. 



The Earl of Liverpool said, 

 that abandoning the particular 

 case (on which he had made 

 some remarks) he should make 

 his stand upon the general prin- 

 ciple, that government might, 

 upon its own responsibility, take 

 steps for the general security of 

 the kingdom, before parliament 

 had passed the bills which it 

 would afterwards be bound in 

 strict justice to recognize. How- 

 ever, as he was not aware that 

 any acts of this nature had been 

 done antecedent to the meeting 

 of parliament, he should have no 



objection 



