The Statesman.
London, England, 1810-04-06 00:00:00

whole of the paper together, they would, how.
tver, hod the word 46 resist" uniformly coupled'
with stems words, importing that nothing but a le.
gal resistance was contemplated. They would see,
61 to resist the ductriae," 66 to resist with their
voice, Ste." It was impossible, he contended,
via:tout giving the words a forced construction,
that any thing improper could be inferred from
thence. If the House was in any doubt on this sub.
ject, he held in his hand certain declarations of the
great Lord Chatham, which must at once convince
them how dangerous and unconstitutional it would
be to give such a construction to a • term so inno-
cent in itself. •In these declarations the Noble
Lord expressed a hope, that, old as he was, he
might see this House, of which he was then a
Member, and the country in general, once more
united to oppose a despotic Minister; he hoped to
sea measures fairly disputed ; if not, might
discord prevail for ever. It was of no come.
quenee, the Noble Lord contended, whether the
question was stated as applying to a decpolic Mi-
nister, or to the House of Coininnes. When
they saw an authority such as this, he pre.
sumed to hope the House would be slow, on a word
of so slight a meaning, of passing so severe a jtolg.
meat. There was another thing imputed to his
Hon. Friend with equal injustice, at if he wished
to represent the Bill of Rights as-having been con,
vertex[ into a Bill of Wrongs. This was by no
means the fact. The reverse indeed, was the case,
as any Gentleman might see who chose to read the
passage througholit, by which he would. be con..
zinced, that thouith Mr. Yorke might be entitled'
to find fault with the passages in question, the
House had no right lo complain. The Hon. Bans:
net, so far front reflecting on the Howe, had gong'
out of his way to liberate them from any charge on,
this head. Another passage had been alluded to,.
in which the Worthy Baronet spoke of the House,
es decked ont•in the trappings of royalty, lord.,
Lag it equally over the King and people. This was.
an expression, every word of which, at least, the
whole substance of which, the Honourable Bae
ronet had used in his speech, or on other occasions,
in that House. lie till not meawto say, that this*
atuounted to & justification ; it not being an excuse:
for printing and publishing a speech, that had ae.
Wally been made. He declared, however, that he
agreed with an Honourable and Lelltuud Gentle.
man (Sir S. Rontilly), iA thinking that' the Ben-
tenet: had no meaning', ur if it had any meaning, it
amounted to this, that the House of Commons were
not entitled to assume the power of punishing, where
the law did not authorize them, and where they did
assume such power they went beyond the audio.
rity of the King and of the Legislature. He had.
been told, that Inc publication was more likely to
do mischief, because it was not Intelligible. Thee.
might be ingenuity in thjs observation ; but be
could not believe that the House, sitting on so
grave an occasion, would be the more inclined
to pass such a seutence on the Worthy Baronet, lie..
cause they did tot nnderetand the meaning of what'
he had written. He believed, that to make this
publication scandalous and libellous, it was neces-
sary to shew that it was false, and thit it proceed-
ed from a bad intention. As to. the falsehood of
the charge, he had heard nothing except as to the
Speaker's warrant ; and as to the bad inters.
lion, lie imagined it would be diffieult to make it
pot. Ile could not conceive es, what ground bad
attention could be inferred, unless from the use of
the word resistance, which had been already ob.
Served on, and of which he presumed to think he
bad given a satisfactory explanation. The Right
lion. and Learned Gentleman, however, had said,
that the paper in question retlected on flee just
rights and privileges of the House. The House,
therefore, was called on to determine nut only on
the scandalous and libellous nature of the publiea.'
lion in question, bnt also on the justice of its
own rights and privileges. The paper in question,
it was to be observed, was one in which the
Worthy Baronet proposed to explain tit his Con-
.stituents, more fully than in the usual method,
his sentiments on a particular question. The No.
ble Lord did not pretend to know how far that
was right. the was aware, that it was consideratt:
a; a violation of their rides, that any account of
their I,roceedings should be made public ; but of
this he was also certain, that for many years the
violation of this rule had been systematically wink.
ed at, till the infringement of the order had become
'nor,: a matter of rjght than the observance of. it..
It was well known, however, even while the
right of keeping their procecdtugs secret from
the public was rigilly acted up to, it was the
constant and uniform practice of Members to
send to their. Coustitueuts, daily, weekly, and
monthly se:coerce of their. psoccedinge, partied'.
larly so far as the individual Member was himself
concerned. Gentlemen were, therefore,, to deter.
mine, if this wasan allowable practice in Members
of that House, whether in a case of this kind,
• they Were entitled tie proceed entirely from recol-
lection, particularly when so marry Members
were present notc,,%who had not been present
when the speech of the Worthy Baronet, so com-
municated by him to his Constituents, was made ?
In considering this question, too, the House must
take into view that they were called on to pro-
flounce this a- libel in the particular circumstances
he had inentioned.—No person, the Noble
Lord presumed, would venture to assert, if one
were satisfied that the right did not exist, 'that
he was not entitled to way so. In the first
place, however, the question to be considered was,'
what was a Privilege ? The definition of the term
seemed to imply, that it was an exemption from
the law as applied to ethers. This clearly ant.
plied that such privilege must be distinttly
fined. The ancient privileges of tare How nets,
• freedom of speech and •freedom from arrest for
themselves, and even for their servants, except in
cases of treason, felony, or breach of the peace.
The Noble Lord believed, the retina of these pri.
.
.Tileges was to prevent the Members from beingim.
pedcd in giving their personal attendance in Perlis.
silent; what was complained of in the present case,
however, did not come under any of them. Thu
Right. llonourable and Learned Gentleman (Sir
J. Anstruther) said, that 'freedom from libel was
necessary fur the Members of the House to
enable Wen to give their minds to the conside-
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