Star.
London, England, 1812-01-08 00:00:00

;••• • '.4,•'7"

~-~~ar-

'Prt

6n no principle be reconciled to the ideas of
Ws; of justice, or of common sense or feeling. It
depended on the humour, caprice, or stomach of
i the person 'sith whom the power was entrusted.—
It would be absurd to doubt the illegality of such
proze.:dings. Nothing could be legal which was ,
not defined. How this power had been used, he
should oot now inquire. It was sufficient for him
at present to cay, th it more informations of this
kind had been fileS within the las: two or three years
than in all the period before, since the R^volution.—
It was impossible not to see, that, in the exercise of
this arbitrary discretion, a great partiality must tale
place—that some persons v-ere called up for judg-
ment and others not. lit one recent case, he alluded
to th At of %Vhi:e, for a libel, even the Judge had gone
the length of anticip uing condemnation, before olio
Jury had given their verdict. When the House saw
these things--When they saw, that in virtue of these
ctitiainalinformatii ns many persons had in the most
arbitrary and unjust man er been scat to distant
jails, must they not be convinced that the liberty of
the press, one of the grandest bulwarks of the free-
dom of these kingdoms, was in the utmost danger of
being annihilated ? When they saw the conductors of
the press held to bail, time after doe, at the pleasure
of the person entrusted with the power of riling these
criminal informations, must they not be surprised that
the press was at all free ? This the Hun. Boronet
conceived was another great grievance; and he felt
surprized that any persons connt-tad with the Fres*
ereremot terrified into complete silence, after the ter-
rible examples they had seen. Even in the case of ac-
quittal, the punishment in the way of costs was severe.
Forthottgh by law they would have been free tram
any farther expence, in the event of the bill net being
found, yct, by this mode of proceeding by crimF
ind information, they were obiiged to glee bill,. to •
renew it from time to time, and to proceed till they
obtained a verdict of acquittal; so much so, that the
costs of obtaining the verdict of acquittal amounted of
themselves to a most severe punis .m Ott. From the
Crown no costs could be obtained. He conressed he
saw no good ground tor any such rule ; but, if the
Crown would carry on unjust prosecutions, partiru-
-1 irly if the Attorney.teneral would file groundless
rx r:fficio informations, he thought the party accused
*rk a well entitlei to his c,is:s. If such en officer was
.4 ail necessary as an cx filer (if informations, he
was abo or opinion that there was more, or at least,
equal ground, fcr making his an office for life, as
that a Judge should be for life. Some of the sentences
recently imposed too, op: rated most unjustly; as for
instance, in the case of White and Hart, where Hart
was sentenced to the sameper iod of imprisonment with
White, although Hart was only the servant. There
was this additional hardship too, in Hart's case, as
he understood it —that he was even deprived the use
of small beer, and was confined to the common jail
allowance of water. The Hon. Baronet contended,
that the unnecessary severity of a Government never
failed to produce the brutality of the people; and,
when that was produced, it would be found a never-
failing observation, that the conduct of the Govern-
ment was at the bottom of it. The education of
a nation consisted not in teaching the people to
read and write, though those were advantages which
he was tar from undervaluing, and which he heartily
wished to see afforded to all ; but still be must say, in
them did not consist the essential education of a peo-
ple. These, indeed, were calculated to produce great
advantages, but the real education of a nation was
produced and matured by the fairness, justice, and
mildness of its government. By all the ',orioles griev-
ances whch he had enumerated, more particularly
by extending the military character to all, and by the
sufferings and burdens under which we laboured,
was this education greedy checked ; if not annihi-
lated ; and sympathy and feeling were almost extin-
guishei f:om the breasts of our oppressed country-
men. On these various topics he should move, That
an humble Address be presented to his Royal High-
ness the Prince Regent. He bad framed his Address
with all respect to the Illustrious Person to whom it
was meant to be presented ; and at the same time
embracing every point which his own sense of duty to
his constituents, and to the country in general, pointed
out to him as essential. The great and important
point, he conceived to be, a full and fair representa-
don of the people in that House. To the want of
that full and fair representation of the people in Par-
liament, he, with full confidence that his assertion
WAS correct, attributed the debt of the hundreds of
millions sterling with which we were now loaded,
and the nomerous other calamities which had been
daily accumulating on the country. He was happy
to think that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent
had a short interval before he should be entirely freed
from the shackles with which he was now loaded,
during which he might have leisure to reflect on the
different topics to which he had felt it to be his duty
to allude in the Address which he now held in his
hand. He had the fullest confidence in his Royal
Highness, that they would receive his serious consi-
deration; and, on a mind so constituted as that
which his Royal Highness was known to possess, he
entertained not a doubt that the grievances of a faith.
ful and suffering people could not fail of making. an
impression corresponding with their weight and on-
portance ; satisfied as he (Sir F. Burdett) trusted his
Royal Highness would be, that on a due attention
to, and on the redressing of those grievances, depend-
ed the lasting glory of his Royal Highness's throne,
and that of his family—
., lii ego gratiora dicta ails este solo, sad me vera pro grala
loqui, etsi meum togenium non moneret, ueceisitu c=ite"
Sir FRANCIS then read his proposed Address, the
pui port of which was detailed in his speech.
Lord COCHRANE rose to second the Address,
and took an extended review of the situ ttion of our
forces in Spain and Portugal, and of the stem of the
Peninsula in general; from which he contended it
was plain thecontest we were maintaining there,could
not terminate successfully on our part. The Noble
Lord said it was notorious, that there was no class of
people whatever in the Peninsula which did not abhor
the-British name. He then adverted to the state of
Sicily, where, he said, we were maintaining an army,
not to keep nut the enemy, bet to support the most
detelteble tyranny that ever existed. The Noble
Lord then adverted to our domestic situation, our
manufacturers out of employ, and in a state of star-
vation—the most horrible csiraes perpetrated in the
midst of the Metropolis; and if such was the state if
the country now, what would it be when the ••star