The Sun.
London, England, 1805-04-26 00:00:00

(PRICIE SIXPEITCE.

I him. lie felt he was in this situation—that he re_
fused to answer questions Which tended-to crielinate
himself so that he ally be involved in legal ;sand-
ries, though he had acted m..rely as the Deistic), iets
a person judged criminal by the Cornmissiene.ts,
and could not, of course, have incurred any masa'
guilt. If it was not intended that the clause of in.
demnity should have some eifed, why was it in.
• serted in the Ad, and what less etre& could it have
than to shield a man who had no discretion, ne in.
tention of committing any criminal aet, who was
but a mere instrument, the hand that held the pen,
or like the pen itself that wrote the words. The
Hon. Member here stated, that the clause of in.
demnity was introduced late in the progress of the.
Ad, not on any light of faditious grounds, but in
the other House by the Noble Lord at the head of
the law department. This provision would be
very badly carried into eireit indeed, if every l),-
son who took the benefit of it was to be pronounced
• guilty, and to suiTer the worst penalties of guilt.
Mr. Wilson had expressly
.dectlared he had no share,
in the emoluments made of the public moncv : there
was nor, by the ads he had done, .eny stain can on
his moral charader to induce his ditinirat. , When
• the House.should have come to any resolution, or
otherwise sliewn a belief that he was guilty, he
would be ready to obey, and conform to that sense.
Till then, whatever private refiedions should lee
cast on him within doors, whatever odium without
doors, in popular
.pidures, he would not he guilty
ofisuch an at of tyranny and weakness,; as lo
miss man mall appearanceguilty of no crime, anti
deserving of no censure. Neither did he consider
this us any disparagement to the House of Com.
mons, which had come to no resolution upon the
case ; nor to the Legislature, when no few lead been
broken. The reason, the law, the justice, and the
humanity of the case, were all with him.
Air. FOX, in explanation, said, he had been
I misunderstood if it had been conceived that he urged
it as a ground of vindidive proceeding Against this
Printer, that the Hon. Gentlem en had acted in the
manner he had done. He instanced the circumstance
of the Hon. Gentleman's cundud as an exempliti.
cation of a case in which the House would be this.
posed to take up certain libels and not others. The
circumstances in which the House WAS, and the cir.
cumstancesof the Hen.Gentletnen's protesting against
the sense of the House, with resped to Mr. Welson,
wee n motive to the House to at with peculiar
;jealousy.' He was decidedly of opinion, and if he
was in error it was error in which he should die,
that" the House of commons ought to be more
jealous when great Ministerial Men were the
enemies Of its proceedings. In this instance le
would be more correct it he spoke of the sense of
Parliament in general, rather than that of the House
of Commons. • He considered it a very •destind
question, whether persons, have a right, to retetee an-
swering questions with a view to save themselves
from punishment, anti whether they •had a right,
having refused to satisfy their employers as to their
condo.% to be continued in office.

111 r. CANNING said,' he had expresdy heard it
charged, that the Treasurer of the Navy had shewn
a defiance of the House of Commons.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL was not sur.
prised that this was one of the periods at which the
Hon, Gentleman opposite was particularly culled
upon to assert the privileges-of the House. ,It was
quite natural, that when the Honourable Gentle.
:ct ta i uepi ng. °
things n itn
o submitted man found himself in a minority, he should not
chink it peculiarly the propel. time to press the House
,for such decisions, but when he had the happiness
to find himself in a majority that 'was by the samereasoning peculiarly the proper time to call for such
• a determination. A cursory reading was not suf.
fi
mind, . Whether the pars.
g
was a - proper objectfir pro.
s tis.lautteisshtfarodn his' happened to him to have had
many to him which lie did not
think fit objects for prosecution, though they eon.
tained a few libellous words in parts of them. 1-la,
wished that the House should not come to any resolu.
tion, but that what the Hon. gentleman had douse
to bring this matter before the House to.nights
be rather understood as a notice of motion, that the
House may have time to consider of the course ssf
House
that ought to be adopted. When the
House was grossly and falsely charged with intern.
perste conduit, he was of opMion the case was one
on which the Huns: ought not to be prosectitor and
judge. It was a safer way to refer the matter to
another tribunal. With respell to Mr. Wilsol;'s
ease, he thought his' Right Hop. Friend perfecq •
justified in continuing him in office after the ex.
planation he had given. He agreed that persoos
in situations of public trust "refusing to account
to the Public for the objeCts of. that ' trusts
ought to- be dismissed s- but if explanation should
totally alter the" view' of their conduet, it would
not be just to punish. Thus it appeared, Wil.
,son ailed only as a deputy, and therefore noSno.
ral guilt could attach to him, though he may be
legally involved. There could, under these circum.
stances, be no ground for punishment nor reinovsl.
He had been averse to the introdation of the clause
of security against. self.criminefion, not bee ruse he
wished to gtve the Commissioners an inquisitorial
power, but because this being a general principle- of
the common law, required no Statute provi4inn.to
enforce it. If no such provision' bad been io-
eluded in the Statute, and the Commissioner., had
thought proper to commit persons refusing to.
answer questions tending to criminate themselves,
these persons would beset etdiberty by the' law,
and would have'an anion of false imprisonment
against the Commissioners. Tut if refusing to an.'
aver questions, having this tendency, was CO have
tic direct cd.:4l, of betraying the person into the
wors wi-chiefs of estisblOird guilt) Ow law) 11014.
.