The Sun.
London, England, 1818-03-12 00:00:00

. .
only hold their tights and liberties at the pleasUre
of Ministers.
Mr. LAMae said th-ere bad been one- misrepre-
SentatiOn of his Learned and Hon. Friend, so to-
tally unfounded and so Tout, that it was impossi-
ble he could sutfer it to pass. tie had said, that
he (Mr. L.) had made a coarge of foul disloyalty
against two millions of people. He was sure be
had not meant to say any such thing, and he
thought it was impossible the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman could have so expressed himself, if he
had listened to him fairly and candidly. He had
said that a certain number of agitators still exist-
ed in the manufacturing districts ; but he be-
lieved with the Reports, that these two millions of
persons who resided ih them were sound and
ioyally disposed.
Mr. CANNING said, that if he were to agree to
the doctrine laid down, that the interference of
Ministers had been utterly unnecessary, he might
abstain from troubling the House. But if at this
late period of the debate there were to be any
indisposition on the part of Ministers to take part
in it, it might be imputed to them that they
shrunk from the question. It had been admitted
that the attacking party should take the widest
possible range, and call in all their auxiliaries to
their aid ; but those who were on their defence
were to he compelled to stick to the point. But
how could any man argue on the Indemnity Bill,
without reference to the measures on which it was
founded ? He would not say that the Indemnity
Bill was the necessary cause of the Sus-
pension of the Habeas Corpus Act, though of
all men the Honourable Gentleman who spoke last
was the last person who ought to avail himself of
this point ; for that Hon. and Learned Gentle-
man having last year been defeated in two oppor-
tunities of preventiog the Suspension, consoled
himself on the prospective opposition he should
make to the Bill of Indemnity. In his mind,
therefore, it was connected with the Suspen-
sion of the Habeas Corpus Act. The neces-
sity, however, of a Bill of Indemnity grew out of
the circumstances of the country, in which ne-
cessity the Suspension Act originated. This
state of the country rendered it necessary for
those who acted tinder the Government, if they
meant to do their duty, to outstrip the limits of
the law. The same state of things that produced
this necessity, induced the Howse to make a
temporary sacrifice of that portion of our liber-
ties, and out of these circumstances had grown the
necessity of indemnify them for the acts ,hey had
committed, and of which they could not make a
full justification, without an exposure of the evi-
dence that had been laid !rehire them ; that was,
indemnify them for having committed acts
beyond the law, and to dispense with the neces-
sity of their justifying acts in themselves legal,
but legally not provable, except by evidence that
could not be disclosed. It was therefore incorrect
to say, that the Indemnity Bill w'ss a consequence
of the Suspensoin of the Habeas Corpus Act. 1 lie
Right Hoo,Gent. proceeded to argue that the House
would have been unjust if they had nut risky!) into
their contentplatiou the probability of a Bill of
Indemnity being required ; oth,rwise Ministers
would have been placed in a situation of doing
acts for which they could not produce a perfect
defence. The questiou now was, whether a Bill
of Indemnity from the Lords sho tld be accepted ;
and he would agree that it a case was not made
out for it, the reason mast be, the abuse of the
powers confided to them, aid which would be
a just ground for refusing it. It those alto (Tiros-
ed the measure would look fairly at the qtetstion,
they most see, that if the existing Jews had been
adequate to check the disturbances of the country,
it was not now, but last year, that they should
have refused to grant the Suspension Act, and
then the present Bill would not have been re-
quired. The very nature of the measure was to
enable Government to detain specifically any sus-
pected persons, without bringing them to trial.—
(Hear, hear!)—HonourableGentlemen had denied
the force of precedents; and he was tar from say-
ing that there existed a precedent corresponding
in all its parts with that which Parliament had
sanctioned. But if they looked backward, and
saw the seeds of such a measure, they had a right
to infer the necessity of adapting them to any
future exigency. They must agree that the first
year of King William was as whiggish a year as
could be found in our history; and in that year
a message came down to the House, stating
reports of private meetings for the purpose of
assisting King James, and adding, that his
Majesty had caused persons to be appre-
hended and confined, but was unwilling to
detain them, in case he should do any thing
contrary to the law. This pointed directly
to the case. The Whigs of 1688 sanctioned the
acts committed by the Whig King ; and on these
grounds, if Ministers had abused the powers which
this precedent furnished them with, tar be it from
him to say they ought not to be called to account.
Now, as to the petitions, it was considered by the
Hon. and Learned Gentleman, that they had not
examined them specifically, and he held this out
as a proof of the disregard of Parliament for the
rights of the people. But let any man look
back to these petitions, and examine how far
they were borne out by facts. Was every man
who had been let loose to be allowed to come to
(lie bar and say he had been most cruelly treated,
and was the most innocent of mankind, and that
his merits alone had [whited him our for persecu-
tion ? There were petitions of . every class, and
many which imputed all that had passed to Oliver.
He must give the Gentlemen opposite credit for
lately deploring the situation of that wicked insti-
gator of murder, Ward, though they now found,
it convenient to give him up.—(Hear, hear !)
['or this man the tears and commiseration of that
House had beets invoked, till it was hinted that
their compassion was solicitec for an assassin and
instigatoran of murder. Next the revered Ogden
was held up, for all the sympathy that silver-haired
age and deep infirmity were entitled to (laughter);
arid great st ress was laid on that description ofshock-
tug operation by which his bowels were extracted.—
(Laughter.)—Bat what was the plain story? Why,
f hat he had laboured wider this disease for many
years, and be thought proper to take the advmu-
age or being cured gratis, while lie expressed the
great t!elight that the operaion afforded
(Loud bursts of laughter.)--'Phis might be a very
proper case for the consideration of the Rupture