The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-08 00:00:00

position to take from a Jery the right of trying prisoners, and
in defence of the Sheriffs he had manly come forward.—
( Hear, hear.) He did not know whether other great per-
sons connected with the City had acted as they ought. If
not, he hoped they speedily would.—( Hear, hear.) If
they were found lax—if they were found voting the wrong
way, or absta'ning from voting, he hoped they would be
remembered at the next election. They must have no
lukewarm —no milk-and-water supporters —no shirk-
mongers, no cowards, and, above all, no spies.—(llear,
hear, and laughter.) With these observations he begged
leave to read the resolution which he had been called
upon to propose. It was purely inoffensive, and per-
fectly true—( Hear, hear, hear)—and was as follows :
" That this Common Hall has learned with surprise and
alarm that William Evans and John \Vheelton, Esqrs., the
Sheriff of London, and the Sheriff of Middlesex, have
been interrupted in the due execution of the law by the
order of the House of Commons, directing them to disobey
the Queen's Writs, which they had sworn duly to execute
and serve; and for the non-compliance with which order
of the House, they have been and still are deprived
of their liberty by the said House."—( Cheers.) He hoped
that before the morning dawned the Sheriffs would be
with their families. (Cheers.)
Mr. JAMES WILKINSON seconded the resolution.
A great seal had been said about the law of the case—
what were plain men to do ? how were they to understand
this matter when lawyers differed respecting it among
themselves?—( Cheers.) All they could go by was Acts
of Parliament, and it was curious that he saw no-
thing respecting these privileges in them. But it would
appear there had been a great dispute about them, and as
Blackstone had taken so much notice of them, he sup-
posed he had deemed them of importance.—(The speaker
then read an extract from " Blackstone's Commentaries"
and " Wade's History of England," and proceeded.) Could
any thing be more clear than the opinions of these au-
thors ? Now, he wished to ask if any of the Newspapers
had published what Messrs. Hansard had published, and
that Stoekdale had brought his action against them, and
had obtained a verdict, whether the House of Commons
would have stopped that action, and prevented the
money of tile Newspaper Proprietors from passing
into the pocket of Stockdale ?—( Hear, hear, hear.)
He had no connection with the gentlemen who had nr-
sainbled the meeting, but he was equally anxious with
them that justice should be done ; and, however inade-
quate he felt himself, he had the mind of an Englishman,
and though his party—for he was a Radical—had been
accused of wishing to commit spoliation and robbery,
lie wished to give to every man that he desired himself,
and he maintained there was nothing in Radicalism incon-
sistent with Christianity. He wished not to exclude but
to participate—( Near)—and, therefore, he stood up to ad-
vocate the law in preference to the tyranny of the
House of Commons, and the House of Peers, or that of
a king himself. He would maintain the laws that were
made by the whole body. He considered Mr. Fielder was
the only truo Radical in the House of Commons, and lie
had uniformly voted against this unfounded claim of pri-
vilege. The gentleman who preceded him had tripped
him up as to what he had to say, and he would not repeat
what had been said, for he could not say it so well, and
he should, therefore, do no more than say he cordially se-
conded the resolution, and hoped it would be unanimously
carried.
The Loin Mann was then about to put the resolution,
when—
THOS. KERBY, Esq. (formerly Sheriff of London) rose
to move an amendment, and proceeded amid great clamour
to make a variety of observations connected with the his-
tory of his own shrievalty, and was proceeding to censure
the course adopted by a Court of Alderman twenty-four
years ago, when, after loud cries of " Order,"
The LORD MAYOR said that he was sure that the
meeting would give every gentleman an opportunity of
declaring his sentiments—( Hear, hear)—but he called on
the worthy gentleman who had risen to propose an amend-
ment to the first resolution, to read that amendment,
which he tnought would be the fairest course to follow, and
he hoped that gentleman would have some regard for their
time.—(Cheers.)
Air. KERBY then proposed his amendment, which
was as follows :—" At a meeting, or assembly, of the
Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and the several Companies of the
City of London, in the Common Hail assembled, to take
into consideration the imprisonment of the Sheriffs of'
London and Middlesex, by the House of Commons, for
a contempt of its privileges; at that meeting a resolu-
tion had been proposed, to which the following is an
amendment :—" That the Livery sympathise with the
Sheriffs in their imprisonment, but decline to go into any
opinion on the great conflict—(Off, off, off)_between
the law of high privilege of the House of Commons and
the venerable Judges of the common-law and statuto-law of
England, as the best means of preservinc, their own ancient
and constitutional privilege—that of electing the Sheriffs
of Landon and Middlesex, and in the full expectation that
the House of Commons will speedily take into considera-
tion the very peculiar labyrinth of difficulties—( Laughter)
—the Sheriffs were involved in in the suit of Stockdale
against Hansard, and thereon release the Sheriffs of Lon•
don and Middlesex from the custody of the Sergeant•at-
Arms."—(Laughter and confusion.) Mr. Kerby addressed
some more purposeless phraes to the meeting, amidst
cries of " Off, off," and great laughter. He was con-
vinced that if any attempt was made to create a division
between the two conflicting parties, the result would be
to extend the incarceration of the Sheriffs.—(Cries of
" Off, off;" and Hear, hear.) Without a volunteer came
forward to second his amendment, it would fall to the
ground at once.—( Cheers and laughter. No person
seconding the resolution, as a matter of course it fell to the
ground. )
Mr. GEO. SaLIOS then came forward to propose an
amendment. The present meeting had been called to-day
to compassionate the Sheriffs on their incarceration. Now
he begged to present to their notice another side of the
picture. The incarceration of the Sheriffs was not the
question—the real question was the rights and privileges
of the people.—(Cheers.) They had no other repre-
sentatives on the side of the people but the House of
Commons The bulwarks of all the privileges of the
people were the rights of the House of Commons. Three
Estates formed the Constitution of the country—the
Queen, the Lords, and the Commons. Who defended
the rights of the people ? the privileges of the
House of Commons.—( Cries of " All of them?") He
knew he was broaching a subject that gentlemen were not
there to support, but he stood there as the advocate of the
people, and he must designate the whole of the transaction
as " Law versus Common Sense," " Law versus the Insti-
tutions of the Country."—(No, no.) If they wished
the House of Commons to be subservient to every Court
of Law in the kingdom, what would be the consequence ?
Why they would do away with the House of Commons,
and destroy it, and lie would tell them why.—( Cries of
" The law of the land.") lie knew questions had been asked
whether the House of Commons was superior to the
law of the land ; if the House of Commons was to be
amenable to the law of the land it must bend to the House
of Lords, and then it would become its slave ; and then
tld follow ? '

a warrant, silent as to any specific offence, but epproach-
ing nearly to the unconstitutional and tyrannical character
of those general warrants which have been condemned as
universally abhorrent to Englishmen, and subversive of the
best principles of justice."
The subject on which they had at that day met was one in
which the great voice of the citizens of London had
never been silent. The liberty of the subject was
now in jeopardy, and by what power ? Why, by the power
to whom they had delegated the authority of representa-
tives, to enact laws, not to unmake them.—( Hear, hear.)
The resolution of the House under which the Sheriffs
had been committed to durance in a cell of that unconsti-
tutional bastile attached to the House, was a violation of
the great principles of Magna Chute. The petty sub-
terfuge and contrivance which the House had adopted in
order to take the jurisdiction out of the hands of the
highest criminal Court in the kingdom was an
invasion of the Habeas Corpus Act.—Loud cheers.)
He told the House of Commons that he was prepared to
say what he now said before their arbitrary House.—
(Cheers.) A gentleman who had addressed them had
spoken of what he designated the iniquities of the members
of the legal prof !scion ; but he had not so read the law of
England as to know that the authority of one branch of
the Legislature, whether King,, Lords, or Commons, was
an authority above that of the united Legislature. If such
were the case where would be the liberties of England?
The Sheriffs were struck to-day—the Judges might be
te-morrow ; and the Livery had been told they had
better not interfere or the incarceration might be extended
to themselves. —( Laughter.) Had he lived to hear such
a statement in a Common Hall of that Livery who, from
the earliest times, had asserted the laws—laws not of yes-
terday, and which required no Select Committee to know
what they were, which had withstood the despotic power
of the Tudors and the Stuarts—which the power of the
Crown could not crush in the worst days of Monarchy, and
which not even the false decisions of corrupt Judges
could root out of a land of freedom—were those
laws then to be torn from the people of England by
by the resolution of one branch of its Legislature—were
they to hold them in base subservience to arbitrary power
Vs hich had stretched out its hand, not against the offending
Judges, that would be too bold, but against the ministe-
rial officers of the law, who were urged to violate their
oaths by one branch of the Legislature, and on their re-
fusal had committed them to prison, end thus struck a
blow at the rights of every man in England ?—(Great
cheering.) But he believed that those who would not
allow the arbitrary power of the Crown, would not
stand tamely by and see the Sheriffs sacrificed by an act
of tyrannical authority, and that they would not express
mere barren sympathy, but act in a manly and constitu-
tional manner, which would set a great public example,
and he trusted do a great public benefit. He trusted that
when the history of these times was written, and the names of
those gentlemen who were now suffering for principle would
be given. If they c old obtain no redress in courts of law,
or in either /horse of Parliament—if the Throne itself were
inaccessible to justice—stall there was one protecting
power to appeal to, the irresistible power of public opinion.
He felt he should have been wanting in his duty if, while
%hie great struggle was going on. he had not come forward.
He knew their proceedings would be cal ried to the At-
torney-General before sun-set; but in spite of his general
warrants, of the subterfuge by which he had got rid of
the habeas corpus; his sneers at the captivity of the
Sheriffs, and ss.ying they had laid the foundation for the
presentation of pieces of plate ; he, who could never have
had the spirit or capacity to know what it was
to suffer for principle, if he talked in that way—he
hoped they would refuse all sympathy with his power, and
set it at defiance..--( Cheers )
Mr. SEAGER said lie had great pleasure in assisting to
procure the liberation of the Sheriffs, one of whom was
his particular friend, and whom, with his colleague,
he had much pleasure in informing them, he had
left this morning in good health ; and that they
had told him they were determined to uphold
the rights and privileges of their fellow-citizens, and that
they would not swervo from the course they had taken one
jot.—(Cheers.) An allusion had been made to e negoci_
tion which was going on for their liberation, but lie could
assure the Livery the Sheriffs were not the men who would
suffer their privileges or liberties to be negociated for.
They had but one purpose, which was that of
restoring to them the office with which they had
been entrusted, in all the purity in which it was
delivered to them. It was said by some that they
were wrong in the course they were pursuing; but
it was a great consolation to them to have with them
the sympathy and opinions of a Tact majority of the
people, who, if they were wrong, must al oo be wrong
with them. He should say no more than that he had
great pleasure in seconding the resolution.
The resolution was then put and carried with but one
dissentient voice.
Mr. RaMSDIN then came forward to propose the follow-
ing resolution :
That, admitting the privilege claimed by the House of
Commons to publish the evidence upon which it legislates
to be of public utility, this Common Hall humbly submits
thai such publication should be made under laws and regu-
lations known and defined, and not by means calculated to
weaken the authority of the law, to disturb the peace and
security of the country, and to impair the sanctity of an
oath, by requiring the Officers of the Law to decide upon
the expediency of obeying such writ."
In proposing this resolution he begged their indulgence
for a few moments, which he thought he was entitled to,
as it was the first time he ever had the honour of address-
ing them, though ho had the honour of belonging
to their body for the last thirty-five years. The question
before them was so interesting to them, both as citizens,
of London, and as the inhabitants of a free land that,
though he did not intend when entering the meeting to
address them, he could not when called on refuse any ta-
lent he might possess in submitting the resolution to
their notice. He believed that the imprisonment of
the Sheriffs was a gross violation of the liberty of
the subject. It might, it was true, bo beneficial that the
House of Commons should have privileges; but why were
those privileges left in an ambiguous position—why were
they not properly defined, and made part of the law of
the land ? The difficulties of the question would not, he
believed, end where they were now. Parliament would
be dissolved—other actions would be brought, and other
Sheriff's would feel it their duty to execute the law. It
was now time, therefore, that the question should be put
at rest—(Cheers)—and that the sense of the people should
be taken with regard to it. He trusted, too, that the
expression of an opinion on the part of so large,
intelligent, and influential a meeting as that which he
had then the honour of addressing, would have its due
weight with those parties to whom it was to be addressed.
Mr. Casoovr, in scconding the resolution, found
it unnecessary to address the meeting at any
length, as very few among them seemed disposed
to enrol themselves among the serfs of the House
of Commons. There were not more than five or six per-
sons among them who appeared to be ready to sanction
`lie tyranny of the House of Commons, which -