GENERAL HISTORY. 



[37 



patie ; for their lordships Imd 

 refused *o refer to the committee 

 any of the numerous petitions 

 from persons who stated them- 

 selves to have been aggrieved b}' 

 the Suspension of the Habeas 

 Corpus. The report of a former 

 committee admitted that spies 

 employed to discover treasonable 

 designs had instigated to acts 

 which they were employed only 

 to detect. Did not this warrant 

 the ^ujpicion that many of the 

 persons who complained of the 

 operation of the Habeas Corpus 

 suspension had suffered inno- 

 cently ? Wlien the bill was in 

 the committee their lordships had 

 been told that it was necessary 

 to protect persons who gave 

 information of illegal designs. 

 Here he could not help asking 

 himself whether he was hving in 

 a country governed by law. Was 

 it meant to be said, that if a man 

 performed 4iis duty by giving 

 evidence tending to the punish- 

 ment of crimes, he was liable to 

 assassination ? In what part of the 

 world were witnesses so secure as 

 in England ? Their security rested 

 on a solid foundation; on the 

 publicity of all legal proceedings, 

 and on the excellent practice of 

 confronting the accuser and the 

 accused. Witnesses were safe, 

 because there were no secret 

 tribunals to excite the jealousy 

 and indignation of the people. If 

 bills of Indemnity of this sort 

 were to become the consequence 

 of the suspension of the Habeas 

 Corpus act, a most fatal encou- 

 ragement to the abuse of power 

 would be afforded. He should 

 therefore oppose the bill, unless 

 tlie indemnification were confined 

 to magisti-ates, and spies were 



altogether excluded from 



Its 



operation. 



Earl Balhursi recalled the 

 attention of their lordships to the 

 nature of the motion before the 

 House. It was not to reject but 

 to recommit the bill, for the pur- 

 pose of dividing it into three parts, 

 so that the king's ministers, and 

 the magistrates, acting under 

 them, might be protected, and 

 informers exposed to punishment, 

 or at least be excepted from the 

 proposed indemnity. No ground 

 whatever had been laid for dividing 

 the bill in the manner proposed 

 by the noble lords, nor had they 

 any argument to prove its neces- 

 sity or expediency. The House 

 was aware that all cases of sus- 

 pension of the Habeas Corpus 

 had been followed by bills of 

 Indemnity, which bills had been 

 granted without an inquiry, or 

 without any appointment of a 

 committee. The only exception 

 to this practice was in 1801; and 

 the circumstances of that period 

 were very different from those of 

 the present. On the present 

 occasion the conduct of ministers 

 had been referred to the inquiry 

 of a committee ; which had found 

 not merely that no abuses had 

 been committed, but that no 

 warrant had been madeoutexcept 

 on information on oath. With 

 respect to the secretary of state, 

 he did not conceive him bound 

 to abide by such a rule, but that, 

 abiding by it, he had succeeded in 

 saving the state from all the 

 horrors of anarchy. This it was 

 which afforded the strongest 

 presumption that the powers con- 

 fided to him had been well and 

 properly exercised. 



His ler Jship, in the progress of 



debate, 



