loyalty, every thing that could prepare the minds of those who, attended, for rebellion, was industriously circulated. Both these required some strong law to prevent them; for, if the arm of the executive government was not strengthened by such a law, they would be continued, if not to the utter ruin, certainly to the indelible disgrace, of the country.

As to the first of those descriptions, no one would venture to deny the right of the people to express their opinions on political men and measures, and to discuss and assert their right of petitioning all the branches of the legislature; nor was there any man who would be farther from encroaching on that right than himself. It was undoubtedly a most valuable privilege, of which nothing should deprive them. But on the other hand, if meetings of this kind were made the mere cover or the pretext for acts which were as inconsistent with the liberty of the subject, as it was possible to imagine any thing to be; if, instead of stating grievances, the people were excited to rebellion; if, instead of favouring the principles of freedom, the very foundation of it was to be destroyed, and with it the happiness of the people, it was high time for the legislature to interpose with its authority.

This consideration, he confessed, occasioned considerable difficulty, but it did not create an insuperable dilemma. In applying the desired remedy, two things were to be looked to the first, to correct the abuse of a sacred and invaluable privilege; the second, to preserve that privilege inviolate: caution, was therefore necessary, lest, on the one hand, they should encroach on the rights of the people, or, on the other, should suffer the abuse of those rights to become the instrument of their total extinction. This was a matter of great delicacy, and should be attended to in the detail; but the house would see, that at present the real question was, Did not the pressure of the moment call for some remedy?

According to opinions which he had collected, as well as he had been able, from others, and such as he had formed for himself, the great point wanted a this moment, was a more

clear and defined power in the magistrate, to disperse and put an end to all meetings likely to be productive of consequences such as were already mentioned. He by no means meant this power of dispersion to extend to meetings professedly and obviously lawful, and held for legal and constitutional purposes; but that, in every case of a numerous meeting, of whatever nature, or under whatever colour, notice should be given, so as to enable the magistrate to keep a watchful eye over their proceedings. He should therefore propose, that whatever be the pretext of a public meeting (if the house was at all of opinion there was any necessity for a regulation of such meetings), such notice should be given to the magistrate, in order that he might attend, for the preservation of the public peace; that he might watch the proceedings, to prevent any measure that might tend to attack, or to bring into contempt either the sovereign himself, or any branch of the established government of the country. That the magistrate should be empowered to apprehend any persons whose conduct should seem calculated for those purposes, and that any resistance to the authority of a magistrate so acting, should be deemed felony in every person concerned in it. That, on perceiving the proceedings of such meeting to be tumultuous and leading to the bad consequences be had already mentioned, the magistrate should have power similar to that which he had already by the riot act, to disperse that assembly; and that, after reading the riot act, and ordering them to disperse, any number of persons remaining should, as by the riot act, incur the penalty of the law, that of felony. The house would see, that this summary power in the magistrate, while it would still leave to the people the fair right to petition, on the one hand, would, on the other, prevent the abuse of it. This, he said, was the outline. All detail he would reserve for future discussion.

Under the other description of meetings, through which the minds of the people were poisoned, fell those of public lecturers, who made the dissemination of sedition the source of livelihood. To them he thought it would be proper to apply regu

lations something like those that passed about fourteen years ago, in an act, which, from the learned gentleman who brought it in, was called Mansfield's act, and by which all houses wherein meetings of an improper kind were held on a Sunday, were to be treated as disorderly houses. And, to avoid evasion, the clause should apply to every house wherein any people met, exceeding by a certain number to be stated in the act, the real family of the house. These, said he, are the outlines of the measure I have to propose; and so convinced am I that there can be but one feeling, and one opinion, that some measure of this kind is necessary; [here a cry of "hear!" from the opposite side] and so little am I shaken in that conviction by the adverse vociferations of "hear! hear!" that I am sure I should but shew a distrust of

the cause, if I said any more. I will therefore only move, "That leave be given to bring in a bill for the more effectually preventing of seditious meetings and assemblies."

After a debate of much warmth, in which the measure was loudly reprobated by Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Grey, the House divided on the motion for leave to bring in the bill,

On the question for the second reading of the bill for more effectually preventing seditious meetings and assemblies,

MR. PITT said, that as he had repeatedly delivered his sentiments upon the bill, he felt but little inclined unnecessarily to take up the attention of the house, particularly as most part of what had been already said that day had little connection with the question. Under this description he did not include the comparison which the right honourable gentleman* had thought

* Mr. Fox.

proper to draw between a revolution in this country in favour of the house of Stuart, and a revolution in favour of that kind of government which French principles would recommend and inculcate. No man could be more sensible than he was of the dreadful calamities that the nation would sustain by the re-establishment of a Popish pretender, who would, no doubt, endeavour to subvert our liberties, our religion, and our laws, and possibly he might succeed in his object. He had no hesitation, however, in declaring, that were he to choose between two such horrible alternatives, he would chearfully prefer the restoration of the pretender to that cruel and desolating system of anarchy, which would radically destroy all those principles by which social order was maintained. He scrupled not to agree with the right honourable gentleman in declaring, that were we under the same circumstances that pressed on our ancestors, we should be equally ready to make the same sacrifices that they had done in so necessary a resistance; and he further admitted, that when we expressed ourselves equally willing to risk our lives in an opposition to either jacobitical or jacobinical principles, we had no more to offer, nor were we any longer to seek for any practical difference. It happened conveniently for his purpose, that the arguments and illustrations employed by the right honourable gentleman, furnished him with materials which would serve for an answer to most of his arguments, as far as he had urged any thing closely connected with the subject. Of this comparison between the two kinds of revolutions alluded to in particular, without attempting to reason on which side the choice ought to preponderate, it was sufficient to say, that we were ready with our lives to resist the introduction of either.

Here then, Mr. Pitt said, he wished to pause, and beseech the right honourable gentleman to adopt the sage counsels of his ancestors, with the same ardour which he expressed when he declared his desire to imitate the valour of their arms. Our ancestors expelled the family of the Stuarts, and established the glorious and immortal revolution, in the first instance by the sword; but their bravery might have been ineffectual, if they had not secured

their object by legislative provisions. It was in this manner, more than by personal valour, that they preserved the constitu tion. What was the bill of rights itself, but a measure adopted by our ancestors in consequence of their finding themselves under new circumstances? They declared it to be high treason to dispute the queen's authority, to deny that the parliament was competent to confine and limit the succession, and, finally, to render attempts to introduce a system, different from that which they had established by the laws, feloniously penal. Upon examining the present bill it would be found, that their example was rigidly adhered to, and preventive measures resorted to on motives of policy and prudence, in order to guard against that extreme which would make it necessary for many to risk their lives in a contest, and be involved in all the miseries that attend a civil war. One great recommendation of this temporary mea, sure was, that it strictly adhered to the examples of former times; and while it added to the general security, made no innovation on the constitution, nor, in the smallest degree, weakened the spirit of the laws. Our ancestors, in times of danger, and even during that interval which took place between the deposition and restoration of the monarchy, adhered, as much as so peculiar a situation would admit, to ancient forms, and conducted the public business by means of both houses of parliament, if that assembly could properly be called a parliament, when it was actually deprived of one of its component parts.

Were there no precedents, no land-marks, to guide their proceedings on the present emergency? In days of difficulty and danger, which had threatened one branch of the legislature, and when doubts had arisen respecting the competency of parliament to legislate in one particular case,-limiting the succession of the crown, our ancestors made a law suitable to the occasion. But at this time what was the enemy that we had to contend with, and what the danger to be repelled? Not an attack upon one branch of the legislature, not a doubt about the right to legislate in a particular case; the right to legislate at all was questioned, and the legality of monarchy itself in any shape was