The Sun.
London, England, 1818-01-29 00:00:00

{PRICE lIVEN Price,

Y. AR. L LA'.:411.1 NT.

HOUSE OF LORDS, AVEDNESDAY, JAN. 28.

•
The-Bishop of Kildare and the Duke of Northumberland
took the oaths and their seats, • •
A person from •1 he Rolls Otlice presented the enrolment of
the Letters Patent.grauting to. George •fiertry Rose,.Esq. the
ofikenf Clerk of Parliaments -in reversion. It was laid on tho
Table.
'The Earl of LIVERPOOL laid on the Table copies of the
Treaties between .his Catholic • Majesty and his Britannip
Majesty, respecting the discontinuance' of the Slave Trade by
the subjects of.Spaio. , . , -,
REPEAL tiF PHE SUSPENSION OF THE HAISEA§.
- CORPUS. • , , .

Caret S,ipmouvi presented a for repealing
the Act, passed in the hst.Session of Parliament,
to.etunower his MajeAty.tosecurg.and detain per,-
sons
,s.nSpeetett of conspiring,against tis Majesty's
person anti Government. . Having read' the title
of the Bill,. his Lordship moved that it be now
read a firsttime. . .
lord HOLLAND rose, but on its being intimated
that it was intended to pass the Bill thiorigh all
its stages that night, he said be would reserve
-what he.tradto say for the third reading.
The Bill, WAS them read a first time.
. After which, on Lord SIDMODTIT'S motion, the
-standing order, No. 36, relative to the progress
•of Public Bills, was read and suspended.
His Lordship next moved the second -reading
of the Btli, he had introduced for repealing the
Habeas Corpus Suspension Aet.
Lord HOLLAND, though be certainly did .not
rise to oppose the motion, could not avoid saying
a few,words on the circumstances which had led
to it. His Majesty's Ministers hail dwelt on the
difficulties they had experienced from the danger-
ous situation of the country, and lie was ready to
acknowledge that, in proposing the present
measure, they had done more than he expected
from them : but whatever might have been the
difficulties of the times, time Bill which was now
iti)ollt to be repealed, he would assert, had been
one of the grea'est calamities the country had,
experienced. Last year Parliament had corr-
sewed, on the represent alloys of .his Majes-
ty's Ministers, supported by erroneous and im-
perfect e%idence, to sanction the measure they
were now about to give up. •• Their Lordships bad
then allowed themselves to be surprised • into a
course; on -the -adoption-of which it was pretend-
ed the slfety of the country depended. His Ma-
jesty's. Ministers hail been either actually the
tools of wicked and designing men, or had been
ltd. away by the desire of obtaining undue power
to theln,elves. Befieving, as he did, that the

whole of their Lordships' proctedings•in passing
the Act for suspending the Habeas 'Corpus hid
rested- upon garbled anti unfair evidence, he
inust state that he could not be satisfiiA with the
were repeal of Char Act, and that he thought an
inquiry into the grounds on which it lia.-I been
Ossed ought to be instituted. No proceeding
could have been more dangerous to the true in-
terests of the country than that to which their
Lordships h;idgiven their sanction on evidence,so
totally imperfect. The right which had been
suspended, he wished to remind them, was not
one which had been.granted by ally Act of Par,
liamCnt Whatever.
.The personal liberty of the

people was no concession. It mai a right antece-
dent to any statute, and equal to the right of their
-Lordships to vote in that House, or to the rightof
she Icing to sit on the throne: He did not mean to
say that there was any absolute Emitatiort to the
power of - Parliament on this subject, when cir-
cumstances rendered such a stretch of power in-
dispensiblei but he did say, that to suspend this
right of the people was an •act of as great violence
as to suspend the prerogatives of the Crow n, and
could only be justified by the clearest evidence of
the most .overwhelming necessity. Consistently
with thit view, he thought their Lordships could
not let the latter pass over with the mere repeal of
all Act which had been so unjustifiably passed. It
was there Lordships duty to show, that a law which
deprived the people of their most important
right of personal liberty, was a calatnity wit kb was
not to be inflicted without proof, or tvit'ooot some
subsequent proceediog, which would demonstrate
to. the latest posterity, that they considered them-
selves pledged to guard against smelt unjust eu-
croachments in future. lie trusted, then, that
Parliament, when all pretence of any danger front
investigation should he over, would institute aft
inquiry into the nature of the evidence'ou which
the act of the last session had been passed. The
evidence on such an inquiry must not be of the
exparte and suspicious nature which their Lord-
ships were induced to accept of last year. It
,"must not be evidence prepared by persons seek-
ing power, or wishing to retain it. Nothing,•
could he 'satisfactory, and nothing would Satisfy
the country, but_ a Lair and impartial investiga-
tion. A full examination into the circumstan-
ces which took place at. the passing of the act,
and all which had. (recut red since, Was whill the
occasion demanded, .when the liberties of did
people had-been so.violently invaded. He Imsted
it was unnecessary for him to urge the importance
of-this right on their Lordships' minds, flat he
•could not helpdwelling upon it. He must repeat,
that it was the-11:1681 ancient of All the rights of the
people ofthis country. It rested 'midterm', t he Magna
iGhartai the Act of Habeas Corpus, or the Bill of
Rights, though it was re-asserted its them. The Act,
61 1672, io the reign of Charles Al. by which irwas
legislatively -enacted, did not constitute the right.
-The ancestor of the Noble Lord whom he now
saw before bitn (alluding, me believe, to the Earl
of Shaftesbury), then' stood up, honoitrably and
►nanfully, for the best right of the pecTle, anal con-
; tribtttej,gteatly to that measure by which it was
confitmed.. And at what time was that import-
ant Act passed? At the moment Wltzn the Houses
of Lords and Commons were in. a state ot the