716 



BRITAIN. 



Britain, 



1310. 



Speech of 

 Mr Pon- 

 sonby. 



not to be found in an attempt to take away their 

 privileges. As to what had been said about Magna 

 Charta, and that no man could legally be imprisoned 

 by the law of the land, unless tried by his peerdf it 

 might as well be said, that many of the laws were 

 contrary to Magna Charta ; for instance, the canon 

 and the ecclesiastical laws, which are not to be found 

 in Magna Charta ; but nevertheless they are the lex 

 feme, and from immemorial usage, as much as if en- 

 tered in Magna Charta. The privileges of parlia- 

 ment, acted upon from time immemorial, were as 

 much the lex terra as any of the written laws ; but 

 then it had been said, that the house could not com- 

 mit libellers to prison, because they would become 

 judges, jurors, and executioners, in their own cause, 

 and Magna Charta would not permit this. But did 

 it ever occur to the modern writers, who threw out 

 such an opinion, when they saw daily the judges of 

 the land punish persons for contempt of court, by 

 committing them to prison, that the judges were 

 then judges, jurors, and executioners, in their own 

 cause. The judges exercised that mixed right, and 

 who could question it ? Was it to be expected, 

 that the judges would wait for a trial by jury before 

 they could punish for a contempt of their authority ? 

 Were they to stand waiting at the door of a grand 

 jury room, waiting for their finding a bill, subject all 

 the time to the virulence of popular clamour, and 

 without remedy perhaps, for six, twelve, or eighteen 

 months, until relieved by the verdict of a jury F The 

 privileges of parliament, he said, were not inroads on 

 the liberty of the subject, but its safeguards. The 

 commons, who represented the people, were their 

 natural guardians, and their interests were identified. 

 The people, he might be told, would not bear the 

 exercise of those privileges ; but our ancestors, cer- 

 tainly as high mettled, as watchful of liberty as the 

 present generation, had borne them, when they de- 

 clared, that one power and privilege vested in the 

 commons defended the liberties of the people. It 

 had been argued, that the crown would protect the 

 people's rights. What ! in a constitution framed like 

 oura, was the crown to be the defender of the peo- 

 ple's freedom ? No ; for (with personal reverence 

 to the reigning monarch ) the crown was disposed to 

 be (though not essentially) the enemy of liberty. 

 Why else were there checks put upon it, but that it 

 was natural for man possessed of power to dislike 

 controul ? Had the history of England exhibited 

 the crown as the defender of the people's rights ? 

 If at any time it should be found, that the house was 

 tdo much an instrument in the hands of ministers, the 

 remedy was easy, it was only to alter the constitu- 

 tion of it ; but never let discretionary power be 

 wrested from it. If the Court of King's Bench are 

 to decide on this question of privilege, they might 

 with equal propriety decide on all the privileges of 

 the house, if called in question. If the serjeant at 

 arms was intrusted to execute the orders of the 

 house, and the person on whom they were to be ex- 

 ecuted chose to resist, and to beat the serjeant, or 

 the messenger, and actions were to be entered against 

 the party offending, the person might say, why, your 

 officer behaved impertinently, and I beat him ; and 

 then the law courts must decide on this, and all the 

 2 



Britain. 



privileges. Was public opinion (he asked) to be 

 the limiter of the judicature of the house ? One po- 

 litician would abridge them of one privilege, another G *JJ M1 

 of another, till, between factions bidding against 

 each other at the auction of popularity, the house 

 would have no privilege left." 



The motion of the chairman of the committee, al- 

 ready mentioned, was then put and carried. It was 

 next moved and carried, that the attorney -general be 

 directed to defend the speaker and the serjeant at 

 arms against this action. Mr Wynne rose to inquire, 

 whether, in future, it was to be generally under- 

 stood, that any body might bring actions of this sort 

 against the house, without fear of its exercising the 

 privilege of commitment. A recent case had bee: 

 determined before the House of Lords, upon a ques- 

 tion of privilege, which he therefore considered as 

 analogous to the present. A Mr Hesse, a justice of 

 peace, had acted under the immediate orders of that 

 house, for the purpose of suppresing a riot. An ac- 

 tion at law had been brought against him for his 

 conduct ; but the House of Lords committed both 

 the principal and his agent, and would not consent 

 to release them, until they gave Mr Hesse a dis- 

 charge from his action. Was the house now to be 

 understood as abandoning that course of proceeding ? 

 The chancellor of the exchequer said, that he was 

 not then prepared to give an answer to the general 

 question ; but he would say, that, in every particular 

 case, he thought the house was perfectly at liberty 

 to exercise its own discretion ; and, in the exercise of 

 his best discretion and judgment, he did not think 

 that it was necessary to commit the agent of Sir 

 Francis Burdett. 



On the 18th of May, Mr Grattan brought for- Motion fc 

 ward a new motion for the emancipation of the Irish the emanc 

 Roman Catholics. We have noticed, in a former {>*" 

 part of the history, how strong a prospect (a pros- Iics 

 pect coming near, if it did not amount to, an abso- 

 lute pledge) of Catholic emancipation had been 

 held out at the time of the union, to conciliate a 

 larger portion of the Irish to that measure. Two 

 years after the union, Mr Pitt, when leaving office, 

 had declared his opinion, that an extension of the 

 rights of Protestants to Catholics, was as innocent 

 and safe after the union, as it had been dangerous be- 

 fore it. 



Of the cause, it has been truly said, that there Argumen 

 is not one name which has been loved in our own infavonri 

 times, or will be revered hereafter, by any sect or ^bolie^ 

 school of politicians, which is not ranked among " 

 its supporters. In times when Popery was still 

 formidable, Locke and Judge Blackstone had anti- 

 cipated the time and circumstances for enlarging the 

 bounds of toleration, which time and circumstances 

 were now arrived. In latter times, Adam Smith 

 had pleaded in their favour ; and Dr Johnson, thirty 

 years ago, had pronounced, that those who would 

 cry, No Popery, in these days, would have cried, Fire, 

 in the time of the deluge. Pitt, Fox, Grenville, 

 and Windham himself, men who differed in their 

 views of all other reforms, coincided in this one. 

 Within the pale of the English church, the cause 

 of Catholic emancipation had been approved by no 

 less authorities than a Watson, a Paley, and a Ba- 



