BRITAIN. 



713 



i. blamcable neither for sending out the expedition, nor 

 *\~ ) delaying to evacuate Walcheren. The army and na- 

 EDRG>:11I. vy were, by the same vote, absolved from censure; 

 1810. anc j trtp whole blame was laid on the state of the wind 

 and weather, altogether unusual at the season of the 

 year. In this opinion of the army and navy, it is pro- 

 bable that t!ie nation fully coincided with its repre- 

 sentatives ; but it may well be doubted whether they 

 were satisfied with the wind and weather being ex- 

 clusively to blame, and,likc Lear, they might exclaim, 

 in their mortification, " I tax not you, ye elements, 

 with unkinilness !" 



ase of The discussion of the Scheldt expedition was close- 



jhn Gale jy followed by another question, of which the issue, 

 in the opinion of one part of the community, danger- 

 ously affected the liberty of the subject ; but, in the 

 opinion of others, was a necessary assertion of the 

 constitutional privileges of parliament. On the 21st 

 of February, Mr John Gale Jones had been comnrit- 

 ted to Newgate, by an order of the House of Com- 

 mons, for a libellous hand-bill, containing general and 

 individual reflections on the members of that house. 

 The offender had not been three weeks in confine- 

 ment, when Sir Francis Burdett moved the house for 

 his liberation, not upon the principle that he had been 

 sufficiently punished, but that the house had no right 

 to assume such a power of punishment. The war- 

 rant of committal, Sir Francis said, was illegal in all 

 its parts, but eminently so in its conclusion. A le- 

 gal warrant must conclude with the words, " till the 

 party be delivered by due course of law." This 

 warrant ended with the words, " during the pleasure 

 of the house." He valued the rights of the house ; 

 but from whatever part of the constitution an exer- 

 tion of arbitrary power came, it was the high and so- 

 lemn duty of every Englishman to oppose it. In 

 such a matter there were two obvious questions of 

 justice, " crime, or no crime ?" The next question 

 was committal. The house, he said, by such a pro- 

 ceeding, assumed at once a judicial, executive, and le- 

 gislative power. This was in the very teeth of law. 

 In the due administration of the law, it is provided 

 that the same men shall not take two steps together. 

 One set find the bill, another decide on the fact, 

 another on the law; but that house which administers 

 no oath, which squares itself by no form, which 

 makes no previous examination of the fact, jumps at 

 once upon its dangerous and most alarming conclu- 

 s.ion, and finds the accused guilty. Contending, there- 

 for, that this committal was in principle an infringe- 

 ment on the royal authority, -as well as on the right 

 of the subject, and a violation of the law of the land, 

 he moved, that " Gale Jones should be discharged." 

 The attorney general, after shewing several cases 



Gcoitatfll. 



IHJO. 



which Sir Farancis Burdett had quoted, of the power Britain, 

 of the house being resisted by the judges, to be inap- 

 plicable to the present question, contended, that' 

 Jones might have appc il. -d 1. 'My for redress, if he 

 thought Tiimself illegally committed. He might de- 

 mand to be brought up to the King's Bench on a 

 habeas corpus, and then the question would be set at 

 rest. The court would then decide, not on the pri- 

 vileges of the house, whether the particular libel wa 

 a violation of them, but whether he had been com- 

 mitted according to the law of the land. The ques- 

 tion, however, had been tried before in the Common 

 Pleas, in the case of Mr Wilkes, where the then lord 

 mayor was committed, for committing a servant of 

 the house in contempt. It was then alledged, that 

 the house had no right to commit for a contempt ; 

 but Chief Justice De Grey expressed, as his own 

 and his brother judges' opinion, that the house had 

 a right, by the law of the land, to commit for all 

 contempts. Mr Sheridan, and some other members, 

 moved an amendment, that Mr Jones should be re- 

 leased from Newgate, his punishment having already 

 been sufficient ; whilst they disclaimed the principle 

 of Sir Francis, that the committal had been illegal. 

 The original motion was however put, and rejected 

 by a very large majority. 



Several days after this debate, Sir Francis publish. T he House 

 ed a letter in Gobbet's Weekly Register, addressed of Corn- 

 to the electors of Westminster, in which he declared, mom re- 

 (among other irreverent expressions,) that the house, 80 

 inflated with their high blown fanciful ideas of ma- 5' 

 jesty, and tricked out in the trappings of royalty, Burdett t 

 thought privilege and protection beneath their dig- the Tower, 

 nity, assumed the sword of prerogative, and lorded 

 it equally over the king and the people. This indig- 

 nity, like the hand-bill of Gale Jones, the friends of 

 privilege were determined should not pass with impu- 

 nity. Mr JLethbridge moved two resolutions, that 

 the letter in question was a libel on the house, and 

 that Sir Francis Burdett had been guilty of a breach 

 of privilege. They were both agreed to ; after 

 which it was moved, that Sir Francis should be com- 

 mitted to the Tower. The motion of committal was 

 also carried. This was in the morning of Friday the 

 6th of April, and the speaker issued nis warrant for 

 the commitment of Sir Francis immediately. The 

 serjeant at arms repaired with it to the baronet's 

 house, but not finding him at home, returned between 

 five and six in the morning, exhibited his warrant, 

 and required obedience to it. The baronet replied, 

 that the warrant was not one which he was bound to 

 obey. The serjeant, unprepared with the necessary 

 means of enforcing obedience, withdrew. On Sa- 

 turday morning, the serjeant at arms, with his me s- 



-voi.. iv. PART 



For approving the undertaking of the expedition, ... 27 > 



Against such approbation, ------- S32 



Majority, ... - 40 



For censuring the keeping our soldiers so long in Walcheren, 284 



Against such censure, - ..---- 275 



Majority, ... . 51 



For approving of the keeping our soldiers so long in Walchercn, 253 



Against such approbation, .-..--- 232 



Majority, - - - 21 



4 x 



