Star.
London, England, 1818-01-29 00:00:00

4 :.•

PARthliktP=EE .

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lIOURR OF 1.014D2, JANUARY 2s.
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The Duke of Nonni' .1.1111,11. LA D and the Bishop yf KLLotag,
tooKibe oaths and their seats.
AIL Davies, from the Rolls Chapel, presented the Inrollment
or Letters Patent, granting the office of Clerk of the Parii.uuenta
Obilitie Hamar Rose, IReq. in reversion.—Ordered to tie on
alts Tables
The Ran of LIVERPOOL laid on the table the Treaty with
*gin, ogepeetkig the abolition of the Slave Trade.
HABrAS CORPUS RESTORATION. I
4,,ped Viscount SIDMOUTH presented a Bill for
repealing the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill, which
WAS read a first time.
His Lordship then moved to suspend the Standing'
• Orders (forbidding the passing a Bill through more
than one stage in the same day) with reference to
this Bill.—Ordered.
. The Noble Viscount moved the second reading of
•the Bill.
Lord HOLLAND wished to have the Preamble
of the Bill read.
The LORD CHANCELLOR read the Preamble,
which, after reciting the titles of the two Acts, one
auspendiug the Habeas Corpus till the Ist July last,
andthe other continuing the suspension till the Ist
March next, stated that the continuance of the powers
thus granted was no longer necessary.
Lord HOLLAND said, he could have wished a
different expression to have been used, but he should
not now move any amendment. He could not, how-
ever, he content to assent to the Bill upon the ground
merely of its being no longer necessary. A great
and serious evil had been inflicted upon the people
-by the suspension of their right to the writ of Habeas
' Corpus, which was not only most injurious in its im-
mediate consequences, but which formed a precedent
of the most pernicious nature. Let it not be forgot-
tee, that the right of the subject to personal liberty
was equal in every respect to the right of every
Member of the Parliament to the privileges he en-
, roved—that it was equal to the right by which the
King possessed his Throne. This right was recog-
nized in Magna Charm, and continued inherently in
the people, until the period of the declaratory Act of
Parliament in 1672, by which it was expressly ac-
knowledged and given effect to by precise enact-
ments. If the statement given upon this subject
(though it was but a bad authority, that ofJamesll.)
were correct, an ancestor of a Noble Lord then before
him was the chief mearisef passing the Habeas Cor-
pus Act through Parliament ; and if so, it evinced a
sagacity and a penetration which atoned for all the
acts imputed to him by motley historians. But at
what period was this Act originally passed? At a
time when the country teemed with conspiracies in a
greater deem than at any other period of our his-
tory ; conspiracies, which some historians said were
fomented by the Mover of the Act himself, but which
undoubtedly presented a most formidable aspect of
. danger. Yet not only was the Act passed in the
• midst of these conspiracies, but it was continued in
full force during the counterplots some time after-'
wards, connected, with the Rye-house Plot, and ao
attempt was made to suspend the personal liberty of
the subject. He did not mean to rate, that the
power did not exist 'of' suspending the right of per-
sonal liberty, or of any other right, if necessity re-
quired it ; hut where, in the case Of the Suspension
of the Habeas Corpus, the Act which they were now
about to repeal, was the hecessiti I loved? Certainly
not in any of the trials that had taken Vlilh‘r in
therhetropelis, at Derby, or in Scotland. - In Scat-
land, they were told, on a former occasion, that a
most tremendous oath had been made use of by the
disaffected—aa oath so tremendous, that if was hor-
rible to think of ; and yet what was the -result ? The
Law Officers of that part of the United Kingdom
were at a loss how to indict this oath. They made
two attempts, and failed ; and at length they made
&third attempt, when, after some very curious facts
had come oat in evidence, the whole ended in the
acquittal of the parties charged. Was there any
proof, in any of the cases that had occurred, of any
insurrection; that did not appear to have been fo-
mented by the agents or the spies of Government ?
It was true that Ministers had now come forward to
repeal the Suspension Act a short time before its ex-
piration, and this was all the praise he could give
them, for in no one instance had they proved the
necessity of suspending this bulwark of the liberty of
the subject. Every thing was mere assertion, and
nark the peecedent that was thus created. At any
future period the Ministers few the time being might
allege that there were dangerous conspiracies, might
surprise a Committee into a Report to sanction the
allegation, and might thus obtain the suspension of
the habeas Corpus ; should the country continue in
a.state of tranquil!ity, they might say, see the effect
of the measure of the Suspension ; observe the good
that has arisen from it. Should, however, the severity
of the measure thus adopted goad the people to in-
surrectionary movements, then they might say, see
the necessity of the measure which we have adopted.
There were several individuals on the Committee in

the last Session, for inquiring into the allegations of
conspiracy, For whom he had a high respect, but he
must say, that they were surprised into a Report fa-
vourable to the object of Ministers, by imperfect or
erroneous information, and by garbled statements of
information in the possession of Government, the
Thole of which was not laid before them, and thus
had those powers been given to Ministers, which, he
most say, had been harshly, and in some instances,
cruelly executed. As one of the reasons' for suspend-
ing the Habeas Corpus, they had been told of blas-
phemous publications, which tended to corrupt the
morals of the people—and what had been the result,
as exemplified in the prosecution of a booksellen
Mr. Hone? One did not like to say •much upon
such a subject in a public discussion, because one
was liable to be set down a* an approver of parodies
of this description, but he could not help saying
that these prosecutions were founded entirely in hy-
pocrisy, religion being the pretext, and political rea-
sons the real object. Was there any man in the
country so senseless or so stupid as to believe, that
Kr. Hone would have been prosecuted for his paro-
dies, had they been directed against the Opposition
or the Reformers? What became then of the pre-
text of religion? When the present Ministers suc-
ceeded some of his (Lord Holland's) friends in office,
a pstody was published reflecting on the latter,
which was infinitely more censurable than those for
which Ho= was prosecuted, because it WAS 4 parody

on the words of our SAviqui hitinsdf, yet no prose-
cution was imitituted _against the author of it, nor,
Wes apt attempt made 4o discountenance it. He
haa .6h respect for the Liturgy of the Church
niiird, but he considered a parody upon that
which wilinbe work of men, to be much less censu-
rable than h parody upon the Holy Scriptures. What
then was he to conclude from this supineness in one
instance, and the activity displayed in the prosecu-
tion of Hone ; but that whilst the ostensible object
in the latter was the care of the interests of religion,
the teal motive was altogether political. He dis-
liked parodies of this description, because he thought
them inconsistent with good taste and right feeling,
but he must express his disapprobation of instituting
prosecations of such a description, where the motive
was evidently political. These parodies, besides,
had not acquired any simulation of consequence,
until they had been circulated by means of the pro-
secutions which had-bten instituted by the Attorney
General. To return to the question of the Suspen-
sion of ;he Habeas Corpus, it was an Act of the
most pernicious tendency to suspend the personal
liberty of the subject in a time of profound peace,
and formed a precedent of the most lamentable ten-
dency ; such Acts left rents in the Constitution which
could not afterwards be closed. He trusted, how-
ever, that a strict enquiry would be made, as to the
manner in which this Act had been executed. He
had heard that it was intended to appoint a Commit-
tee to investigate what had taken place since the last
Session, and if that was the case be trusted it would
not be a Committee to take upon trust the_ state-
ments of Ministers, garbled and imperfect, without
exarnining.witnesses, but that, on the contr iry,,they
,
.would examine viva voce testimony, and not merely
the agents of, or the witnesses sent by Government,
but whatever witnesses they themselves should think
proper to call. To enter into such an examination
closely and attentively, and with a determination to
get at the truth, was the only atonement they could
now make for having suspended the liberty of the
subject, and having placed powers in the hands of
the Ministers upon the pretences that had been urged,
that had been harshly and oppressively used. He
had detained the House longer than he intended, but'
he felt it his. ditty, upon this important question, to
deliver his opinion in condemnation of the measures
which had been resorted to without any adequate
reason, and upon asserted information, which he was
satisfied, could not stand the test of real enquiry.
Lord Viscount SIDMOUTH observed, that the
niggardly praise given by the Noble Lord to Minis-
ters, for bringing forward this Bill, and moving to
suspend the standing orders to pass it, was the only
part of his speech that in strictness applied to the
Bill before the House. He was rea,!y to admit,
however, that the presenting such a kill let in the
discussion of the whole subject to which it related,
and that he was ready to meet. The Noble Lord
had said, that the Government had laid before the
Committee appointed last Session, partial and garbled
statements, and had not communicated to them the
whole truth. He had too much t for that
Noble Lord to suppose for a moment he would
state what be did not himself conscientiously believe
to be true, but he must most positively affirm, that the
information which had been cotnmunicated to the
Noble Lord was false. T.,e whole of the statements

in the possession of the Government, that related to
the insurrectionary movements in the country, were
communicated to that Committee, no part of the infor-
mation upon that subject which the Government had
n_ceived naving been kept back. The Committee upon
these statements, and that information, had come to a
11 determination which he could not but consider as most
wise, and as fully justified by the facts disclosed.—
As to the effect produced by the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus, as it was called, he was fully satis-
fied, from the information of those most competent
upon the subject, that it had been most beneficiaL
In Leicestershire, for instance, where a great part of
the population were in a state of disaffection, the
passing of the Act had the happiest effect in produ-
cing quiet and subordination, without even the ne-
cessity of arresting a single individual. In other
parts of the country also, where an insurrectionary
spirit had been manifested, and where it had been
found necessary to make some arrests, the best effect
had been produced. When it was said that there
was no evidence in the recent trials of acts which
rendered such a measure necessary, it was only ne-
cessary for him to state, that against thirty-five indi-
viduals the Grand Jury at Derby had found true
bills for high treason, diat four of them were convic-
ted, three of whom suffered death, that ten abscon-
ded, and had not since returned, and that twenty-one
confessed themselves guilty of high treason, and
threw themselves upon the clemency of the Crown.
In all cases of the nature to which the Suspension of
the Habeas Corpus referred, the question always
must be, whether they were to check in the outset an
insurrectionary spirit, or whether they were to allow
it to gain head till an actual attempt should be made
to overturn the Throne and subvert the Constitution?
That such an attempt should be successful, was out
of the question ; but it was surely the mildest and
Most politic course to prevent such an extremity.
That the improved state of the country had done
away the danger, was to him a subject of heartfelt
congratulation ; and certain he was, that whatever
qualifications the Noble Lords on the other side
might possess, they were not endowed with the gift of
prophecy, fur very different, indeed, was the state of
the country to what they had predicted it would be.
It was this improvement in the state of the country
that had taken away the materials from the hands of
designing men; for it should not be forgotten, that
,the leaders in these scenes were men of eminent ta-
lents, who had acquired a dominion and ascendancy
over the minds of the lower classes, by working upon
their minds when in a state of distress, and inducing
them to look for relief to revolutionary measures.
By the improvement in the condition of the lower
classes, they were now taken out of the hands of
these seditious demagogues, and the danger had
ceased. The Noble Lord had alluded to the prose-
cutions of Mr. Hone. With regard to these, he re-
jected with indignation all imputation of base mo-
tives, for hypocrisy he considered to be a base motive,
and placed the prosecutions upon the gener-al feeling
against parodies of that description, which, both in
and out of• Parliament, had urged the Government
to prosecute them, multiplied as they were in diffe-
rent directions, and grounded as that feeling was
upon the knowledge that in another country one great