Star. — London, England, 1812-07-14 00:00:00

be 4 that the Clerical . MigistraMagistracy, forid exercising their , power, . particularlydrlte m eta the men to viol on a charge el berg r d ca m Q f t herni had. died ;n • prison, lustily from t :Ceph One an d partly from anxiety; and the G smt d the bill against the other. Thi s Lrc j .thrown utlf as opt a soli•:zry instance of the improper co n d uc e - dz e authorities, and in his mind it would conduce to the peace of the country if the powers of Na tal • trees were curtailed instead of being enlarged, t fit s curious to observe the .different views which . L imo' the same thing at different times. For. it in a crisis of difficulty and danger, the whole antr y was armed, and every Sheriff and district isdowerahle for the preservation of the peace.- 1, was the object of that statute which he had re , It ied to the Watch and Ward Committee, with proper alteratiens, might easily be 0 11 ; ti i te d to meet modern exigencies. The statute p Edw. 1. directed, that arms should be put in every umes h o ds ; but now the practice is to disarm the.' oh: p o pulation. He could not conceive a more ' ino di w g. a more slavish act, and for his own part ta li rather die on the threshold of his door than b ate thearms seized and carried out of his house.— ;me idea that the Member for Bedford should be -- tithea bid instigator of the riots was treated with i s tal i e; but it should be recollected that this sort do d o was believed in the country ; and indeed sto kes and hints of a similar nature were some. t i m es thrown out in that House. Last Friday the r i .,s e astary for the Home Department had hinted t wig (Sir Francis) had some sir tematic design in t iew,though he had not condescended to explain its D atum ; one design, one darling system he had, and & l id have through his political lite, which was, that t t e peopk might be properly Represented; and cor optinilueree be driven from that if iuse. He again p l eated that he saw nothing in the present distur. Imes to justify an infringement ofi the established Is; the safest method would be, to adhere strictly ' et hatlaw which had bees' found effectual already ithe punishment of several offenders. The Hon. Neat then suggested, that perhaps the spies were with the money of Government, and were en din bodies to spread alarm through the country, saground for the present extraordinary measures 1 . litany rate, he was firmly convinced, that the existing lims would be quite sufficient to repress the existing Mr. SMITH said a few words in explanation. . • Mr. GRANT did not think that the present Bill was any departure from the old principles of the Con stitution, but rather an adherence to them. The Ho nourable Baronet had properly said, that the exigency , of the case could alone justify extraordinary measures; this exigency must, indeed, be matter of opinion but he was astonished that the Hon. Baronet, and the Hon. Member for Bedford, could see no symp toms of such a state of critical difficulty and danger in the Report before the House. For his own part, be saw it in the account of societies combined, and • siliated, and bound by a dreadful oath of fidelity. True it was, that no outrage had happened during t the last fortnight, but the seeds of the evil still re-; wined, the actors were still alert, the system was ; and it should be recollected, that a system 1 maybe easily laid aside for a while, and as easily, be it:mulled into action. Whatever were the causes lies disturbances, whether purely arising from depressere of the times, or whether it is, toe de igning persons have taken advantage of mentary causes of excitement, still the effects must be anxiously baked at and guarded ainst ; and he did not think the House would b e jus tstied in parting for the sum mer, without proposing some Legislative remedy against such disorders. Whatever the causes might bare been, it must be recollected, that effects usually ionise the causes which produce them. Although many consider those disturbances as unamnected with politics,he could not view them in that light.—! lie should not refer merely to the Repr.•t of the ; Committee, but to the common feeling and under iundiug of tie country. Was it to i.e supposed, that: these nocturnal meetings--those mysterious associa boo; hitherto unknown to Englishmen—those oaths ...that vigilance of nightly drilling—were all these sfelitoms of nothing more than common discontents, %trom commercial pressure ? And yet some nris Members conceived the laws as they note , stand I Nte sufficient. The disturbers, however, laeghed 1 gibe laws. It was under the shelter of the laws ; that they planned the overtbtow of all law. It was ander the very wing of the Constitution that they hatched their plots to subvert the Constitution. The l'etalar march of justice and the law was slow 'and deliberate ; too slow to 'keep pace with tire crimes thatmay be committed in times of turbulence. It was quite an abuse of terms to talk of presuming every one innocent in the face of convicted and daring guilt. He must, therefore, invoke the Constitution to put fo r th i ts powers, and assume the energies which belong to it, to overtake the - kapid march of crime, I thich the slow -pace of ordinary justice could not keep ; to arrest the career of sedition and anarchy, 1 ,2 1°1 by any new principles, but by those which ; I _7 inherent in it, to restore to peace an d soc i a l ...'l,'Psess that which now appeared lullof turbulence , danger. ( C onsiderable applause, and cries of hear.) . „ 51 , 4 . FRAN LAND was; afraid that any thing he , rid say would only lessen the effect of the adnrira- ' 1 7, Vetch they had just heard from the Gentleman ia rlo spoke last. The Committee had been appointed the manner the most conformable to all precedent, and se . hen th e i r report was attacked, he did not think ' that it could be said that they had either reported is or assigned moti ves w hi c h did not exist. As j ti the facts,gas he knew n ot hi ng hi mse lf, an d t h ere f ore ~s posed to takethem from those who were trust- tu to consider con remedisider them an d ma k e the Report ; but as to reie es which were proposed he dcubted much ie etb rnus er they w ou ld not produce a contrary effect.— the s . t own, th a t h e f e l t di ffi cu l t i es hi mself upon I übject ; an d i f the same di ffi culties were felt by si *ls, when the Bill came into the Committee, he ! r Gtid gladly agree toa modification et tke measures rmsed. He h a d great hopes that - those distur 4tes would soon , cease without the applicatio n of ; limese.,_ asesm edies. !re was a liabili t y ;in the body welt as in the natural body, to temporary zaso Li m ..e ations, and feverish s y m p toms , w hi c h o f ten h u ls:h!r own,eure without the assistance of via l ie r emedies. There were epidemiek disorders in ertin tke a al as well as the physical world, which were elm ;pleated by the remedies prescribed to cure I 10 follow up the illustration, he would say, that in both cases they generally proceeded from ob atructioni and want of proper circulation, which af terwards produced inflammation and feverish symp toms. If there were predisposing causes it was not to be supposed that the disorder was to be cured in a ' day. To chronic diseases *a course of alterative me- j &eine Must be applied ; and we must b. content to Strait with some little patience for the cure. In ex traordinary cases, it must be allowed that extraordi nary powers were necessary, not for the sake of in creasing the sum of human suffering, but for the sake . of humanity to diminish it. He conside-ed that the most noble remedy whiclehad as yet been administered to the disorder.was the - virtuous resign a ti on an d p at i ent suffering of the Master Manufacturers, who had con tinued generally to employ their workmen to their own very great loss. It was natural, that on this question a reference should be made to what had happened in Ireland on a former occasion. The de tails of what had been done in Ireland, to put down the spirit of insurrection, were hideous and disgust ing ; and, although he might look to Ireland for an example of the dreadful mischiefs of a civil war, he! certainly would never look to any thing that was c done in Ireland, as a remedy to prevent those cala mities. If he wanted to find a remedy, he must look to some other school. Disorders of long standing could only be cured by remedies of slow operation.— He believed that there were, and naturally must be, some disaffection in this as well as every other coun try. It you were to change your government and laws every day, there must still be men discontented with their situation, and who conceived they did not possess as much of rank, power, or the good things of this world as they were entitled to. He tl• ought that it would be therefore perictitly in vain for Parlia mentio hope by any measures which they should re solve upon entirely to put down disaffection. Tf the proposed measu-, s e erg to be adopted, he thought that it would have a very good effect, if they were accompanied by a proclamation of pardon, which was a thing by no means unusual among measures for putting down distm bances. Mr. BROUGHAM began by saying, that he • hardly knew how to characterise what had ifillen from his Honourable Fr lend who spoke last. If he were merely to call it a speech, it would appear like not treating with sufficknt respect the rili dical sci ence it contained; and if Le. were to call it a pi IJscriii tion, he thought it was much tor. long.. (illasish.)— lie was afraid that his education in that science, had been too dnfective to enable him to grapple with the inateria medica of his Honourable Friend. He was, however, perfectly convinced in his own mind, that the remedy which Ministers proposed was a great dial worse than the disease. If the country did not abscilutely die Of the doctor, lie was convinced it would suffer much by his prescription. He fell the full force of the speech of his Honourable Friend (Mr. -Grant) which had been so much admired by the House. He, howevir, had had many other opportu tunities of witnessing the display, f those talents,_and, therefore, although equally pleased, he felt less sur prized. He must, however, grapple with what had fallen' rom his two Honourable Friends. The first of them (Mr. Grant) had gone - so much..,into gene rals, and the other so much into the details of another i science, that they both appeared to lose sight of the question under discussion thii night ; which was, ! whether the Report of the Committee was of such im portance, as to authorize or justify the Monti! in adopting the measures which were proposed? In the Report of the Connnittee he could see nothing bnt vaguegeneralities; and neither of them had alluded to any particulat facts. He would allow that effects., were apt for some time to survive the causes which ' prOduced them ; and it was on that very account that he, attributing the disturbances merely to distress, thought that till , should wait some weeks, he might say some days longer, to see whether those distu; bances would not subside of themselves, without the necessity of any new measures. It was very natural that he and his Hon. Friend, the Member for Bedford( Mr.Whitbread ) should contend that Parliament had a•ready provided a sufficient remedy for the disorders, in repealing the Orders in Council. It did not follow, indeed, that the effect was to be absolutely instantaneous, but he believed that the remedy had acted as rapidly as could be expected, and that of itself it would be found quite sufficient. An Honourable and Learned Friend of his (Mr. Stephen) had just entered the House, and fitter rather a long absence, now giatified their long big eyes. (A laugh.) He underse od th a t he me ant to contend that those disturbances were not at all connected with commercial difficulties, or the Orders in Council, and were not at all affected by their r - peal. He should, however, beg leave to state a few facts which would shew the contrary. He should first appeal to the information which he hpd received upon that subject, in the correspohdence of a Chari table Association, to which he had the honour of be longing, as well as his Honourable and Learned Friend. In mentioning a Charitable Association, he could not avoid saying, that in those institutions Eng land was most admirable, and fdr excelled any other nation upon earth. Here, in times of the greatest pressure and difficulty, there never are wanting mu nificent subscriptions in aid of any thing which comes recommended by charity, and more particularly for the relief of the distresses of our own manufacturers. In the Association to which he alluded, the Duke of York was the President, and many, not only of the most loyal men, but even of the men who most con stantly opposed Administration, were members. The accounts which were therefore transmitted to that Association, and entered in the records of its corres pondence, must be considered as 'quite above any sus picion of partiality or faction. In examining those records, he found it completely confirmed, that the distress which prevailed was great, general, and un exampled. He had looked over alt the correspon dence for twenty-two districts, and found that the dis turbances were so much connected with the distress, ,that you might directly trace them to it; and when ever you found a district where the distress was the greatest, -in that district also you would find disturb. ante. In all the correspondence, the digress was stated. as proceeding from a want of work in conse.i quence of the peseta state of the manufactures ;" and many letters referred it directly to the Order, in : Council, and expressed the strongest pleasure at their repeal, and their hopes of this measure being an effec tual remedy. He should now state a few strong in stances of what be had already traced the disturb. l antes to. At Dolton, in Lancashire, there was a po pulation of 17,000 persons, of whom 3000 were'pau 'pets, besides a large number of persons driven from their homes by the distress, and a still greater num ber who received relief. This was the town from which most of the disturbances in Lancashire origi nated. It was from this place that the forty persons came who assembled on Dean-moor. This was a place in which, as it appeared by the correspondence, there were fewer steps taken for the relief of distress, than in almost any other town. This scat of distress, then, became the principal seat of disturbances in Lancashire. If he could have come before the Com mittee (for as for his being a Member of a Commit tee so chosen and sn packed by Ministers, there was little chance of -Oat) he could have laid before them many facts much more important than those upon which they reported. At Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, the distress was still greater than at Bolters ; it was stated in the correspondence, " that the distress here was great, unexampled, and wholly beyond the power of relieving ; that applications were constantly made for relief in vain, and that not even the most_, feeble attempts were made at relief." The town or Huddersfield, so - circumstanced, became what Bolton was in Lancashire—the principal seat of disturbance in the county. On the other hand, the town of War ton, near Preston, in Lancashire (where there were 5000 inhabitants, manufacturers as iu Bolton, but who received a considerable relief) was perfectly free from disturbance. At Warton soup tickets were given u well as clothes and other relief; and the conse s quence was, that the town remained perfectly tran grid. He had it in his power to give many other examples, and in fact to show that the gradations of disturbance in the different districts corresponded with the degrees of &stress. He would not allow that the bare existence of disease justified us ingultiug .down the first remedy that any one suggested. fie thought that if it appeared that the disorder was de ' creased, common sense would require us to exert a reasonable degree of From this correspon dence it evidently appeared, that the medicine which had been administered in rescinding the Orders in Council, was producing themou tranquillising effects. In a letter, dated the Bth of July, from kludders. , field, acknowledging the receipt of 56150, sent from the association in London, the Secretary, after suitable acknowledgments of the gift, dwelt on the pleasure they felt at the removal of the Orders in 'Council, and mentioned that " the yet meagre coun tenances of the inhabitants were beaming with•joy, and that wink was now found for numbers of them." It was evident that those meagre faces which began Ito beam with joy, anti those hands now employed in wrrk, could not be now supposed busy in contemp lating or perpetrating acts of murder. He must say that he had another and a very strong objection to granting these extraordinary powers to the Magis trates; and that was, that he suspected some of the Magistrates as men not to be entrusted with i.uch powers, and likely to abuse them. In this he allu ded merely to Lancashire, and principally to that one Magistrate whose representations appeared to have bad so much influence on the Report of the Committee. His letters were so inflated with fear and fancy, that he could not conceive him a man of sound judgment; and in a Court of Justice he would doubt any fact stated by so fanciful a man. In one of his letters he talked - of the restoration of peace, a when the present generation of disturbers should be swept into oblivion." Although fehm his expression 'he should consider him a man of unsound judgment, he considered his acts as of much more Consequence. lle had absolutely charged with a capital felony a niostrespeciable Dissenting Clergyman,whom he had 'asses red to have been present, aiding and abetting at 'the destruction ef sonic mills ; and when afterwards he was called upon . for his „newt icy for so saying, his i.nswer vva>, that lie had it horn a dying man.— He must take the liberty to doubt that the dying man ever did say such, a t!,nsg ani even if he did, the assertions of a man at the g:tilows are known to ,:be very bad evidence indeed. '1 he Learned Gentle man then mentioned the case cf a Gentleman con rected with some Magivrates, .;.sting their warrant, and with a party of Scots Gre.:s taking a Methodist Preacher out of his pulpit up LI the roost coolish sus picions, and thereby irritating very much a body of men who were peculiarly disposed to be peaceable and loyal. A man of the name of Hares, who un fortunately lived in -ne of those disturbed neighbour hoods, was actually compelled to join one of these unlawful meetings, end to take the oath. This man was impe..ched by the spies who attended the meet- ' ,ing. He was net rich enough to crop toy a Counsel. and if he had, such Counsel could not have addressed the Jury on his behalf. The Jury, however, on his own plain, unvarnished, simple statement of his case, atti from the activity and bustle which they saw among those spies, in the Court and about the Jury box, acquitted the man, and saved him from the ma chinations of those attendants on the Magistrates.— There was another mischief also to which the un happy people in those disturbed districts were liable,i and against which the House should be careful how it enlarged the means of increasing it. This was the insulting a spy. These gentry had of late been raised to such extraordinary consequence, that to insult one of them was scarcely one degree removed from the Crime of insulting a Magistrate. He then mentioned an instance of a woman who had been met in a public street by one of those spies, who had taunted her I l with her husband's conduct; and on her expressing her resentment of his unmanly behaviour in rather warm terms, she was seized, taken before a Magis trate, and punished for insulting this spy. He was happy to think that his own abhorrence of those de- I testable characters (spies) was countenanced by the I high authority of a late Right Honourable Friend of his, whose lt.cs the House, as well as he . himself, would long deplore CMr. Windham) who had al ways held them in the greatest detestation, and spo ken of them as.miscreants, and pests .of society.— When it was considered, too, that these men were paid a very great-price for their services, (some of them 30s. others 40s. and some two guineas and a half a week, besides all their expences i ) it was not to be wondered at that the Magistrates were their stre nuous supporters. Here was a -view of part of the secret service money ; and when waggons were tra velling about the 'Northern Counties loaded with money to pay this host, was it nothing to have the disposal of it—was it to be supposed that all this money passed through certain hands without some of it sticking to their fingers? The House should also consider the vast source of patronage it created.j and'hoW that patronage alight be ;lads I available almost on the eve of a general election.. These spies had endeavoured r-n various occasions to induce unhappy men who had been arrested to make allegations against the highest and best of characters : he instanced die name of the Member for Bedford, • (Mr. Whitbread), and himself, in comparison, he would allow, a very humble character. They, how. ever, from their station in life, might smile at the malice and baseness of these miscreants ; but persons who were not so happily situated, and who I:ved fortunately in disturbed neighbourhoods, were liable to be exposed to the most dreadful injustice, and free qnently to ruin. These spies were the a. tise :igents of the Magistrates, and the House slicalif be guarded how they enlarged powers which might be used to suck mischievous and oppressive pusposes.—(A cry of Quettion, Qmstion, from Me Min;tierial knehes.) He then mentioned a case in which a poor fellow had been arrested as one of the rioters, who was in the employment of a manufacturer of very good character and large property, .and who had been to him a most generous and kind master. As soon as 1 possible after he was in their power, the spies ap. I plied to him with an assurance of " drawing him throngh," if he would inform them of any thing he bad ever said against Govern:yent. He answered them, that he had never heat d any thing of th- kind. What! said they, did you never hear him say any thing against the King?—No. Nor against any of ' the Royal Family ? No. At length, after assailreg 1 him in various ways, they offered . 1 to draw /tins through," if he would say that his master told him if be (the man) would take against the King, he (the master) would back him; th • poor fellow burst into . tears at being supposed capable of so base a return to. the kindness of sogood aMA ster, an d resolutely rel used. But this sheaved what base arts and means hid been resorted to ; and it was, in his of inion, too great a trust to enlarge powers, and trust them in the hands of a set of men who had a Ire a.ly shewn themselves too busy in invading the rig.it. and privileges of E men, their fellow sit frjee ts.—(A loud cry of question, question, from the Ministerial side of the House ) There was one of the meetings where it had toe en loudly trumpetted, that a number of disaffected versrms had been seized with all their hooks and papers, at a nightly meeting, from wh'eh seizure wonder-11d dis coveries of treason and dierffectien was exp cte ! to ! a made. This terrible meet'ng, however, turned •-t to be so far a nightly meeting indeed as h:tviag been held after thernen lett their work; and their ;tespei ate batiks and papers were a copy of a petitio: agai st the Orders in Council, and a list of names which had been written down, of those who signed the petition ; which petition, with . the real names, he hid pr e sented to the House ; and if the powers had been then .granted which are now asked for, the House would never'have seen that petition, and he should have been deprived of all the benefit he and the counts' had derived from its authority both in argu ment, and in the number of signatures attached to it. —There was also another circ'emstance still more alarming, which was, that these Magistrates, now be. fore they are armed with those extraordin try powers to be given by the present Bill, had• not contented themselies with searching for warlike instruments, such as pikes aiid others made of iron, but they had also been keen in their researches after more precious I metals, such as gold and silver ; they accused partie cular men of the crime of hoarding, and thereby shew. ing themselves inimical to the G , vernment. They went to a house in search of deserters ; after ransack. ing the yard, and ail the out-houses, withoUt finding any thing in the shape of a soldier, they went i nto a room hind the tradesman's sh ip, find desired a certain drawer might be opened. The man drily ob served, 4 , they could hardly expect to find a deserter soldier in that drawer." Opened however it must he, and there appeared about ten pounds in silver, which this tradesman had collected for the convenience of change in his business. They seized the money, however, as a hoarding against the Government : and when after a hearing before the Maeistretes it was found to be no crime of which they could legally take notice, they returned this tradesman £lO ita Bank-notes instead of the silver lie had been lo long collecting, or, as they termed it, " h oa rdi ng ." (A very loud and general cry of question, question, from the Ministerial side of the House). Mi. lhoughans observed, he knew from what catlike .111 r cry pro ceeded, but he was glad to think that not eithstand ing the indecorum of some hkmbers, he, had rot stated one word less than be originally meant to do. Mr. BANK ES spoke at considerablesa saying g h oli l e e l g bethought n A M ; your of die Bill, and concluded by y his Noble Friend (Lord Castlereagh) -and his Col. leagues had been very moderate in the measures uro. posed, and was afraid they had not gone far enough. Lord ALTHOKYE bad thought, that the disturs bances would gradually subside. Either strong mea. sures were necessary to be taken at once, or else Par. liament should be kept sitting. Great as the latter inconvenience was, lie would prefer it to doing any thing contrary to the Constitution. Mr. W. BOOTLE believed, that the Learned Gentleman (Mr. Brougham) had received informa. I tion, but that it was misrepresentation respecting th e conduct of the Magistrates. Gentlemen in the Southern Counties might find the duties of Magistrates I easy ; but they knew little of d i p sacrifices and trouble of those who discharged similar duties in the menu at considerable l engt h i n facmturr.insgTdzisptctEs.l4 spoke vindication of the measure, which, if it had, in his view, any demerit, it was on the score of its not being stronger. He then contended that his Learned Friena (Mr. Brougham) was inconsistent in the arguments he had adduced; since, in the whole of the examine. tioti on the Orders in Council, his object had-been, with all his own witnesses, to spew that there was no disloyalty or disaffection existing among the menu facturers, but merely a want of employment. He also stated some circumstances relative to the Clia. ritable Institution for the manuf ac t ur i ng poor, from l which he withdrew himself, on account of its being I said that the charity was intended not so much to relieve sufferers, as to find means of protecting the Orders in Council. In his Learned Friend he had expected to fidel an advocate for this measure. He took this opportunity of passing a warm eulogium on the conduct of the persons called Methodists, than whom there were none more loyal or better a ffected to the Church as established-. nine more distinguish. ed for philanthrophy and benevolence. Mr. BROUGPIAM explained. The H i p. Mr. LAMBE thought the El t