The Sun. — London, England, 1801-06-06 00:00:00

-' r Gentlemen, he confessed he could not see. Utit beforci he adverted to other arguments which the slionourable, Gentleman had brought forward, he should take a view of the general principles and reasons that applied to the present measure--It was stated [ha f t this was not to protect any persons who - had- done:, any. thing which was wrong, but to prevent them froin being subject to vexation upon cases-upon which they, had done that which was tight ; 'and.that was rightly stated,--The necessity of a measure of this sort seemed to be founded on the peculiar natu r e ,of the present proceeding, namely, " That those whO have aded .under the Law, and who mux depend on the information of others—lnformation which it is not. to•the adiantage of the Pub is to be made known, have acted only in the execution of their duty, and therefore, 'ought to. be protetled."—This measure, therefore, in one View of it, was to be considered, properly speaking, as a -measure for the }notation of the rublic..agititist an injury which they might sustain by an individual being called upon to produce the justi. ficatiou under which he acted..—Now he was ready to contend that it wet s not to the interest of the ?übiic, that a persOn who had acted in the service of the Public should be so placed, and as to the ihconveniencies which were supposed to he intro duced by this, pradiCeof taking secret information for the safety of the Public, he should be disposed to close with the Hon. Gentleman, and say, that the inconvenience of 'putting an end to the pradice Would be greater than the inconvenience of con tinuing, it, for he allowed the inconvenience was considerable on both , sides. He would say, there. fore, that an individual who bad acted, for the nenefit of the Pubiie, ought never to be put in the situatio n , such as many persons would be in, if the Bill now before the House should not pass into a ' Law. The Hon. Gentleman's argument upon this occasion *a s not only calculated to slew' that the imprisonment 'of peisons under the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus At, was oppressive, but it went the length of sliming, not only that the Com mitment of pe rsons under this authority was harsh, but also, ihat all proceeding whatever, _upon such authority,. w a s improper. - It went the length of - saying, that no proceeding whatever . &Would have .taken place upon any Secret Infor nlition although the House had always intended, and had frecrently expressed such intention, that such roceedings- should take place. It being so in theview of the House, it would not be inconsist ent with its duty, to att upon that idea. That be. ing the state of the case, these p e rs ons must, or they were •'r least likely to be in a situation in which' they hod done right, and what the - House intended, and yet, if they were not protedred by a Bill of this sort, they would be open to vexation, accusation, and, probably to punishment, unless they produced that which it was inconvenient to the Public to have produced. This, he apprehended, was something of an evil. But the Hon.,Gentlernan said, we must con. .upon. this occasion, the precedents which ;p -peared in our Parliamentary history, and he urged a very hamane maxim, tO•which, under certain heations, there could be no objedion. ', That it was better that many 'guilty persons should escape, than th at one innocent one should be,condemoed. In this humane maxim, he agreed with' the Hon. Gen . Heenan ; but not in the application of it.; because the case here was not, whether any innocent person should be sacrificed that was imPossikk , sinc e the Utmost an innocent person could endure was im., trisonment, .convided he never could be without clear and ,atisfaetory proof ofguilt ; and here he felt himself disposed to,elose with the Hon. Gentleman, that the inconvenience to the Public would be .greater On the other side, fur under the apprehen. lion, (because the thing was possible) that some JR* - would misuse 'his power in some individual rase, no power. should. be given at all to any ; that is 'to say, if _power be given, tile person exercising it shall, at all risks to the Public Safety, ,either„ give up the information °I) which _he acted, a thing most mischievous in Same eases, or the party using it, shall be liable to 'Punishment, a .thing most to be avoided, ,on account -of the discouragement it would throw. in the way of • rnen_who have arduous public duties, .to perform,— would not. endeavour to stew, what indeed it was. hardly 'possible to, shew, the exac t p ro p or t ion • there was between the inconvenience:le ,the:grle and 'the other of these cases, but he was deceived if } there was any difficulty in, deciding the matter. — However, that must rest with the jUdgment of the douse, The Question to be asked , of the House 3s thi s " Do, you, upon. the %%hole,' think that the h ' ) vils, which have resulted from the power which Suspension e " to those' 'who have .acted tinder the t slich, as of the • Habeas * , COrpus At have been that it will be better to expose to prOsecu. not perhaps to persecution, those Who have - only acted conscientiously, but under your own authority ? And will you piace them in a situation in Which they may be punished for 'their virtue (for If they .are sued in a Court of, Law' for .aaing as rue have done, they will be punished if they re use to d e liV er . up the evidence on which they 40 0, the disclosure of which may he high l y inju ftiOus t o t h e PUbli c , an d therefore to punish men (11 such refusal is to punish them for the i r virtue), brwill you prated, them' for it ? ThiS, it must remembered farther, was not' the whimsical or capricious conduit of individuals, but the ‘414 of persons who had acted under, the Au. 0 , ' n ritY of the House. This, he said , ho we v er, offered to the House, and not to the H onour n , - Gentleman, for he . had said that he, would ne t proceed at all on InformatiOn of:a -Secret • fqr dice . of taking c was against the whole ira urutition from Spies and InformerS. h mode c rejeOing a ll Information froM Informers, was a tor t of a specific adopted Of late for certain pur- . 1)-1 ) ses; and to anwer certin complaints, which entlemen on the opposite side of the. House had t 4 6 n. under their roteaion. We know,' that a g'inst Secret Combinations, fortified and concealed ~ ' as they were b y t h e o bli gat i on o f t he most wicked Oath, 'but on th ose wh o took them, most binding k " He would 'ask, therefore, what means were we to 11 51 ' 1 1 . ‘ s e of- p rocee di ng to Orotett 'ourselves against h evil sPirit-$,• if we had not Secret Information ? deferencVe to Political Maxinvi, When they were a b t i le to the •subjed. in discussion; but here _ , those quoted by the .14e;tiourable Gentleman_clid not - apply, The remedy now to lie adopted, Must he different from any that had been formerly tried in the Affairs of State, because the .complaint to which it was applied was different; and w e w ere now in such a state, that if any man was bent on the total deitruaion' of this Country,. he could not do better for his purpose than to counsel us to fol low, nothing but what has been the praaice of for mer times ; by so doing, under the cloak of at tachment to precedent and reverence for antiquity, he might soon work the ruin of thiS Country : for in that course, nothing could be found that was ap. plieable to the present political condition of things. But it was not an uninteresting thing, this mode of proceeding on the part of some Gentlemen on the other side of the House. The vogue at present was to say, " we ought to be tied to ancient precedent" we are' to do nothing that we cannot sanction by the authority of former proceedings." The short an swer to that was, that there is in fa&.no precedent for the present condition of things--We might ask, what precedent them was for Rebellion of the sort which we had before us ?- , -We had indeed a Re bellion in the year 1715, and another in /745, and they had some *resemblance to one another, but he apprehended that the. first elementary book which led us to comprehend subjeds in the way of reason, would teach us that it was , an inevitable Conse. quence that two things must be of the same nature if they happen to be of the same name. He therefore apprehended that the Rebellion of 1715 or 1745, were not the same as the present state of things, merely because they might be both called Rebellion. —He maintained that all reasoning which was to be made use of was not to depend on maxims alone, but was to be considered with reference to the case before us and all its peculiarities.—ln thefirst place it was a little odd to say, that since the French Re volution had taken effect, we are to be guided by old maxims : that is to say, we are to be guided by cold maxims when all moral principles are changed, and we are in a state of things in which the Authors of the new order boast they wipe off with - a spunge every thing that was old.—lt was a little hard that while there was so much invasion of right, so much overthrow of custom in the pradice of the present, there should be nothing new in the remedy that was to be applied to the evil, and that we should all at once become so much attached to old maxims of Government. Besides, the thing became a little more extraordinary when we compared this fondness for , precedent with the opinions which had been expressed by some of our Reformers. We had some principles which he hoped would be permanent, notwithstanding any attempts that might be made to alter them ; but others were changing in the variety of human affairs.. The earliest usages of the Constitution of our Country, the purity of which was formerly proverbial, the Hon. Gentleman would have• us change with as Much facility as one could one's gar. inent : but he would have no Law altered. No al teration whatever was to take place in any part of the Law, but the Constitution itself, as was proposed, by some Gentlemen, might be altered most readily. He knew not whether it was a Toast at the Whig Club or not, but he thought it would do well enough to illustrate the doarine contended for to-night— " fixt Laws and a moveable Constitution." But our Laws were not to be changed : there was nothing that should make such change nbw upon that subjed lie could only say, that if the. French. Revolution had not introduced a change in human affairs, he knew of nothing that had done so since the General Deluge. Notwithstanding all this change, the Laws were not to be imnioveable, and Gentlemen were become at once mysteriously fond of old maxims, and of none more than Stare super vias antiquas. Our Laws. were become ,fixt and unalter able, like the Laws of the Medes and Persians ; he really: thought that Laws should be made to suit the affairs of mankind as they arose, and that which was now before the House was of that charader, and he conceived that to be an answer to most of the oh. servations of the Hon. Gentleman on the other side, as well as to his Quotations from Tacitus, and from MontesqUieu—Tacitus was a luminous historian, he wrote well from what he knew, but nothing that was to be found in his work had any resemblance to the present condition of political affairs; and as to 'Montesquieu, he was a man of great learning cer tainly, ,but he was entirely a theoretical writer, and therefore his labours should be perused with all the allowances which belong to labours of that kind, let . the .author haVe whatever skill be may. If, however; that author were now living, he was per. suaded he would be one of the first to admit that, .although he thought his observation's generally true, yet they were .not all applicable to the pre_ sent conditiOn of the politics of Europe. The Honourable Gentleman had dwelt on a topic which had, ,no great influence; perhaps, on his own opinion, he meant the mode of appointing the, Secret Committee. Upon this he could not help observing, that when lie said the Committee was composed of those 'who were interested more or less in the subject that was referred to it, he thought that objedion a-little inconclUsive ;or although the question of interest, supposing that to be so, in another view, they were fitter to be on that Com mittee than others.. It was true, that it was a thing to •be desired, that the Committee should be com posed of those who were - impartial ; but it was de sirable also, that they should be enlightened—Upon that part of the , subjed, the very Gentlemen who had Teen objetled to .on the principle of partiality, - were the fittest on the score of information. They had long, been in the pursuit of information on this subject, and therefore, if they could .be sup posed to have a partiality which it was desirable to remove, so, on the other hand, they possessed "advantages which made them superior to other Gen tlemen; so that taking the thing altogether, the ,Re port of the. Committee bad all the weight which the Report of a respectable Committee ought to have. — But, there was a point on which he had for • some time Wished for an opportunity of saying a 'word • or two, and that was not so much to the credit of the Committee as for the credit of the House itself-t-he meant the mode of forming a Committee by ,ballot. That had been - .made a ground of charge, 'as if that. mode of shusinga Committee did in it self lay-- a presumption of something done unduly, or with a sinister deSign. A tolerable answer to the objeCtion wouldl)e,foldnd in saying that such 'W:dihe:usual mode ; but he wished to give, the ob jeaion a further answer, and that for the character of the judgment of the House. In truth there was no Other , There WitS; he thought, in the reign of BENRY IV. a 'Parliament which, for want of information, was 'called Pddiamentum bidoager, and the present House would be subje& to a similar de nomination if it followed the doctrine of the Hon. Gentle Man. Questions were usually answered by Yes or • ; but it might possibly 'happen that a question might be so pUt as that neither of these answers could be striCtly applicable to the question. Suppose a road diverged at a certain place and branched out into several roads;' if the question were to be answered by Yes or No, we should be obliged put the question upon every one until we came to the last, and when that came to be so, the logic of inferior animals Was supposed to be equal to the task of deciding the poim—Now supposing the course to be taken here to put the question upon each individual, taking 21 out of 658, with all the possible changes that such a mode of proceeding ‘vouldlead to, it would appear by a mode of calcu lation, which thine- who were disposed to •it might find in a book of no great profundity, that allowing for the interruption of a number of Dissolutions of Parliament, and allowing that this world were to last a great'inany hundred times more than it hitherto had, there would not be sufficient time to come, to a conclusion upon the choice of a Committee of 21 out of 658 Members of that House; that is supposing all changeable modes were to be put, and which each individual would have aright to insist upon ; besides, there was another idea to be, attended to, if ornmittee were to he thus nominated, for a question might arise upon the relative fitness of a Member, 'in the opinion of others, as he was nominated for instance, when a Member was nominated, another might say, " I . cannot agree to his name, unless I know .who is, to - , be joined to him, for Mr: Such a one will 'clo very well,. if Mr. Such a one is coupled with him ; but . Mr. Such a one joined to another Mr. Such a one will never do, they differ so much in their way of thinking, Sze." So that upon a moderate computation, allowing each individual in the House to give his opinion, and . the ballot weretto be thus formed, several centuries would elapse'before one Member could be chosen. Having pursued this' subjea with admirable ridicule for some time, he ended with an allegatiop that, therefore, a ballot was the only mode of chusing a Committee; he proceeded to observe, that most unquestionably those persons who had been confined, or, who' might hereafter be . confined, were objects of attention ; but the Question was, Whether if this measure was not to be adopted, we should not lose to the . Public more' than should' be gained to individuals by abstainiilg from it,- for it was after all , a matter of balance -of advantages and dis advantages—lt was, hoWever, not a Bill for the establishment of any system ; it was to be made up plicable to faCts as . they should appear to arise, nor was there any thing now to be done but what should be subjeCt to the controul of future 'Parliaments and as td e his Right Hon. Friend the CIiANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER' having said on a former day that if necessary he 'should claim to he indemnified in like manner as this Bill is intended to indemnify others, he meant by it only, if he had laid the same grounds for that indemnity as are laid now.—As to the complaint of Gentlemen:that 'there were not a 'greater number of them in Committees that were balloted for,, the. thing was perfedly natural, for the Majority of the House would chose those 'whose politics they liked, and that-would continue to be the case, - notwithstanding all that had been said of im partiality, unless ,it could be proved that the House, in order to ahoy its . impartiality, were to chuse those whose politics they disliked. In a word, the choke was the judgment of the House, and the judgment of the = House was in that re spea the Representation of . the Country, and the Minority stood in the opinion of the Country 'in the same situation as they. did in that House, and that they must feel whenever they refleCted upon the subject. He concluded with observing, that it : did not become him to say how the powerwhich this Bill recognized was used, it was , for the House , and the Country to judge ; but, he was convinced, that without this Bill the sources of information would be . cut up, and with. mg applying . , opprobrious terms, to Informers, he would say, that in the preSent state of things they were necessary to correa the mischief of those cri minals who wished to bring the State to ruin, but who must be countera6ted by means as adive and powerful as themselves. Upon these grounds, and independent of any self-interest, he gave his sup port to the Motion now .before the House. Mr. 3. H. TOOKE said, that 'upon this occa sion he was actuated by no motives of personal en-. tnity ; on the contrary, he wished to speak can didly and kindly upon the question. He was far from thinking that the Members of the present Ad ministration would follow the example of those whom they had succeeded. His reason for enter ' raining that opinion was, that the unfortunate per sons whoM it was found necessary to take into 'cus tody, were now treated in a: very different manner to what they used to be ; all they now suffered was' deprivation of liberty, whereas those, who had for. merlY been taken up, had been treated with the greatest severity. He did not impute this treat ment to any wish of the late Ministers that such conduCt should take place, but . he attributed . it to' their neglect. With respeft to the Right Hon., Gentleman, by whom the Bill was introduced, he . could.not but consider the. Bill, as his Brief, and the' Chancery and a future Peerage s•his fee [Here there was a cry 'of Order]. He conceived he was perfealy in order ; was stating these circumstances, not as a charge against the Right Hon. Gentleman, but as his excuse. Within the last forty, years, no less than twenty Peerages and ten millions of money had been showered'down upon, Gentlemen of the Bar, and therefore he really thought that flesh and blood could not stand against, such temptation. Be iv.is old enough to remember, and withoUt arty surprizc, that the Crown Lawyers had upon all occasions uni formly defended all the ' measures which had been proposed, though many of them had been: after wards admitted to have beep improper. He even recollc6ted that once a person very high in the pro. fession of the Law,, maintained a peoonsition to be • Law, when a passage out of his own b.)ek. *ai; read which maintained a &redly contrary pritreiple; Was much hurt when he heard a Right lio.e.Getitle. man (Mr. Witiom)' say, that because the times were new; that therefore we ought to depart from our old Laws. The Rig!it• Hon'. Gen:leman had even considered it as a ludicrous eircUmstance, that the Laws should .be fixed, and the Conititutioti changeable: His Hon. Friend (Mr. 'GaAs() had not said that the Laws should never be al wea r ' because they were altered every day, but .he bad contended that the maims upon which tl.e Laws were founded should never be altered, such as that .a man should never be a Judge in his own cause, &e. because these were principles which could not. change. With respea to, this Bill, ifdte knew any fair and honourable means of preventing the passing of it, he would willingly lay down three lives, if he had them. The ATTORNEY GENERAL said, be . would very shortly dispose of that part of the Hon. Gen. tleman!s Speech which applied to him. Every thiMg which the Hon. Gentleman bud Said applied not personally to him, but to the l'roleisioo of which he was, and the Hon. Gentlem-in wished to have become a Member ; and., to any such general attack he did not feel - himself called upon to make a reply. It certainly.was not from any motives of dis,. • respea to the House that he, had not risen more' early ; he had risen almost at the comaienceinent of the debate, because he was anxious to state the grounds upon which he thought this Bill :ought to pass. He thought the Bill ought to , pass, 'not as,a matter of favour to the late Ministers, but as a mat. ter of stria justice to them, and as a measure abso- • lutety necessary to the future safety of the Country. Even if they; from any high mindedness, should not desire this Indemnity, he thought it ought to be forced upon them, because in bringing in this he did not contemplate them but the future security of the Country. He was very glad he had not lit.. tei fere& before the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. WINDHAM), because he should have been extremely sorry, to have deprived the House of „that instruc tion, entertainment, and convidion, which he' was sure , that most able Speech had p . roduCed.— Many objeaions had been made during the Debate to the mode in which the CoMmittee had been con. strutted. The Committee had been chosen in the only manner they could have been chosen, and the " persons appointed to that Committee would not have been seleaed, if they had not possessed the confi dence of a majority of the House. Every Gentle man knew that any attempt to procure the .ap.. pointment of a Committee that did not enjoy the confidence of the HouSe, would not only have been ineffettual, but the person who made the attempt would have his disgrace recorded by the aelettion of another Committee. It had been said, that no person had been chosen out of what was called the Opposition, to .sit on 'that Committee. He would state the ground upon which that seledion,had 'been made-7-ft was this, that, considering this to be , a subject of the greatest importance as affedirig the safety of the State, it _otight not to, be submitted to the-consideration of Gentlemen, who, judging from their former language, might be inclined to treat it with levity, or who might perhaps (he would explain what he meant by the vtpression) disclose the circumstances awhich were laid before them.— Because Gentlemen who treated the whole of thiS • Subjed as frivolous and ridiculdus, could nor .be tuated by the same feelings as those were, who considered this as'one of the most important sub, jeas that could be submitted to their consideration. For his own 'part, he could not think- those Gen, tlemen fit Members of this Committee who:could state that the Report contained only ludicrous mat ter----who could contemplate regular planseof aotaa_ sination, formed with the most cool deliberation, which. the Report detailed, with feelings of levity —who could consider with levity plans for eradi• caring every sentiment of Religion and Morality, for substituting a regular system of, Atheism.— Those who could consider subjects like these as matters o'f ridicule and levity, should never by his ootnination be upon any Committee apOiiinted to consider of.grave and important questions, such as had been referred to this Committee Those who could think that the dreadfld . traosaaions in Ire_ land, where mutder had been re,luced to a system, where persons were regularly :devoted to itssassina. tion, were' matters of pleasantry, ,could not, in his opinion, be fit Members of this Committee. There. fore: he made no apology to those Gentlemen, in wishing to exclude them ; he acted upon the best and most conscientious exercise of, his judgment.--e- Bin it had been said, that. the Committee lad gone beyond its powers in recommending the adoption of particular measures ; upon this point, however, he' would appeal to ate House, whether it was not ustral for Committees to draw inferences from, the faits laid before them, anal() recommend such mut. sures as appeared to them necessary or proper.— One of the objeaiona to the formation of this Corn. mittee , was, that sonic of the persons who composed it, would be themselves benefited by that indemnity 'which - they recommended. This assertion was' hardly true—certainly, not to the extent to which it had been made, For ,of the Members of the late Administtation who were upon that Committee, not above one could derive any benefit from the At of Indemnity-, for there was only, one of them by whom any Warrant of. CoMmitment could have been signed. He had stated before, that he'did not consider this as a twitter of , favour to the late Ministers, but as 'a matter of right ; nay, even if their declined it, 'it, ought 'to ' be forced upon them, not' so much with a vicw'to.. their safety, as to that of. the State.' The princi. plc of the Bill was-this,' that the State ought to in. demnify thOse persons whom it deptii.ed of the Icgal means of their defence. The question then was, whether it was right to.deprive those persons of the legal means of justification which they pos sessed Most undoubtedly it was, because those ..persons could nOt enter itito,that detente which was. • necessary for their . justification, Without disclosing circumstances which would e prejudiciiil to the Public, because it would efreaually destroy , those means of informittiori by which Govetonvnt had hitherto acted upon to preserve the , ronora safety. In formet cases, where Bills of Ind tl eninity - L had been passed,.they were much less necessary thsui