render their confinement as mi. ferable as poffible, and refufe them to stand their trial before their country, was treatment which would difgrace our English annals. If the houfe approved fuch tranfactions, he could only confole himself by having borne his teftimony againftit. Lord Belgrave exonerated government from the charge of inhumanity, because there had been an accidental inattention in the fuperintendant of a prifon. In the two years' difcontinuance of this bill, the difaffected had availed themfelves of the interval to renew their plots, re-organize their schemes of fedition, and extend their treafons. Undoubtedly it was confiding great authority to minifters, and great refponfibility was annexed to it; but it was a power which had established the fafety, and was ftill neceflary for the prefervation of our liberty, religion, and laws.

Mr. Sheridan profeffed a respect for the votes of the commons, but not for a committee felected from the minister's friends, who with prejudices on their minds, and a bias from their connexions, were not likely to make a juft decifion-and their partiality always ftruck him on the perufal of their reports. To the report of the lords he had the fame objection. The attorney-general feemed to pay little attention to the verdict of a jury. This jury had negatived the report of the felect committee, and he preferred that verdict to the reports. The opinion of the late chief juftice Eyre on that occafion was, that "This mighty confpiracy turned out to be men without money, leaders, or even order in their schemes; their rendezvous a back garret, their arms two rufty mufquets,and their exchequer 10.10s."

Such was their formidable appearance, and fo inactive, that the learned judge pronounced they wanted zeal as much as wit in their undertakings.

The inftance adduced in the reign of William was inapplicable and he was aftonished at the com. parifon; the majority of the nation then were Jacobites, and the Jacobites were compofed of the nobility and the landed intereft; confequently, were to be dreaded from their principles and oppofition to William. The act was made at the time of confpiracy against his life, their moral geilt was afcertained, and many of them fuffered on the fcaffold; but this aft fhuts up any man on vague fufpicion.

Mr. Sheridan then reviewed the state of Ireland under lord Fitzwilliam, and attributed the outrages, cruelties, and atrocities, not to French principles, but British councils; demonftrating that the difcontents arofe from refentments ftrongly engraven on the hearts of the Irish against this country, The abufe of power lodged in the hands of minifters was his next fubject of animadverfion; it was evidenced he faid in the cafe of colonel Defpard, and in the alien bill, profeffedly enacted for political purpofes, and perverted to the ufes of prejudice and paffion. Many perfons had been fent out of the kingdom for paying their addreffes to the daughters of gentlemen to whom the connexion was unpleafant, and thefe unfortunate aliens were called, for no other reason, feditious! At the fame time he acquitted the duke of Portland of being capable of fuch a proceeding; but fuch, under his name, had been one of the abufes which needed reform. He ended with obferving,

that

that no new reafons had been adduced for the prefent measure, and many ftrong ones exifted against it. Mr. Canning thought there was great fallacy throughout this honourable gentleman's fpeech: the manner in which he had quoted the language of the learned judge Eyre, before whom the ftate trials took place, must be regarded as a pleafant fally; in truth, he had put into his mouth words which that great lawyer never uttered; and yet thefe were the facts, fo called, on which matured fentiments were to be fet afide, and, by fuch obfervations, the good fenfe of the people was to be led aftray. Mr. Sheridan had alfo confounded the whole mafs of the English with the objects of this bill; and, under the idea, argued that it was a coercion on the public: but happily no fuch coercion was needed, and could not be intended; it was directed folely against feditious perfons, and the houfe would be remifs if fuch were not under restraint.

Ayes, 98.--Noes 12.--Majority 86. On the 25th of February the bill for fufpenfion of the habeas corpus till the ft of February, 1801, was read a first time in the houfe of lords; and, on the motion that it fhould be read a fecond time, lord Holland faid, It was not his intention to oppofe the principle of the bill, though he highly difapproved it, but to exclaim against the indecency of hurrying a point of fuch importance fo rapidly through the houfe. To propofe reading twice in the fame night a bill for fufpending our most valua ble privileges, without any reafon affigned, was difrefpectful and unparliamentary. This violation of a ftanding order had been practifed more frequently during the prefent

parliament than the preceding. In former times, on unforeseen emergencies, fuch things had been done; but minifters, of late years, had made it a practice without the smallest pretext! It was dangerous and unconftitutional, and as fuch he muft oppofe it.

The lord chancellor replied, he did not recollect till he was feated that the morrow was a day on which the houfe would not do bur finefs, and fuppofed the bill might have been read a second time, and then gone regularly through its ftages; but fince he had been guilty of an overfight, it was neceffary it fhould be read twice that night or on Thursday, as the term of the laft act for its fufpenfion expired on Friday.

Lord Holland repeated, that though he reprobated the measure, and this impropriety was now become common, after the candid confeffion of his lordship he would not infift on the general rule being enforced.

On February 27 it was read the third time. Lord King rofe; he confidered the habeas corpus as one of the strongest and most facred, barriers of the British conftitution, nor would he confent that it should be thus from time to time fufpended, without one fingle reafon being offered why it fhould be fo. In the reign of George the Ift, and George the IId, in the periods of actual rebellion, even with fuch danger impending, when there were fo many fupporters of a difputed fucceffion, men of the first rank and confequence in the country firmly attached to the Stewarts, even then, fo jealous were the parliament of this great bulwark, that they would not confent to fufpend it but for three months. The prefent mode

of

of proceeding led him to imagine thefe frequent fufpenfions were preludes to abolition.

He was more ftrenuous in oppofing it, becaufe the power of the crown had been immenfely increated, and the privileges of the people proportionally diminifhed. The whole property of the nation was alfo at the difpofal of the crown. We were now a military people; and vefted as administration was with fuch extraordinary powers, they ought not to be augmented at the expence of the liberties of the people. He therefore gave his decided negative to the motion.

The earl of Carlile fupported it; he allowed that the horrible principles which occafioned this measure were weakened, but not deftroyed. He could fee no danger in confiding fuch power to minifters who had ufed it fo leniently; and that this was the cafe, was evident by the people, who felt no apprehenfions, and expreffed no difcontent at fuch a power being fo entrufted.

Lord Holland obferved, that, even granting their conduct had been lenient (which fome ftrong facts would controvert, as confining perfons without trial, and permitting them to be ill treated and ill fed in their prifons), yet the fecurity and happiness of the fubject fhould not be at the difcretion of an individual, but arife from the protection of the law: the mercy of any adminiftration, or any fimgle man, was no flable foundation, and the notion would be attended with dangerous confequences. Men who owed no obligations to their conftitution would not be at

tached to it, and would fee, without regret, another erected in its ftead. Judge Blackstone recommended that we fhould furrender our liberties for a while to fecure them for ever; but he added, that the occafion fhould be very urgent before we confented to fufpend the habeas-corpus act.

Lord Eldon affirmed, that, to the fufpenfion of it, was owing the prefervation of the crown in the houfe of Hanover; and by this very act former confpiracies had been broken to pieces. But the lenity of former reigns and governments were not to be compared to this; and that which had given value to the British conftitution was, that it had not been founded on theories which God never intended man fhould adopt as a rule for a perfect creature. The law of England confidered him encompailed with vices and faults; it went on th's principle, that in general the exifting provifions fhould be fuch as to fecure to the utmost the liberties of the country; but in purfuing this object, it confidered alfo that it had to do with men as they are, and that it was the duty of the community to fubmit to a temporary deprivation of privilege, in order the more effectually to enjoy the liberties of the British conftitution.

Lord Mulgrave defended the bill. For the queftion 30.-Against it 3.-Majority 27.

The feffion concluded on the 27th of February in the usual manner by a fpeech from the throne; for the fubftance of which we beg leave to refer the reader to our Public Papers, p. (121).

CHAP.

credible witneffes. They afferted that the fultaun had dispatched embaffadors to the Ifle of France; that thefe embaladors had been publicly received by the French governor there; and that, on the publication of the proclamation in queftion, the embaffadors, fo far from protetting against the proceeding, held, without referve, and in public, the fame language with refpect to the war which was to be commenced against the British potleffions in India.

Whatever might be the hoftile intentions of the fultaun, the refult has proved, that he was but indifferently prepared to carry them into execution and it cannot fail to excite our aftonishment, that a prince of his confummate policy hould fuffer his defigns to be fo publicly announced, before he was in a condition to fupport them by force, or even to repel the attack which fuch a conduct warranted. The profeffions of the fultaun were alfo of the most friendly kind, though but little faith is to be given to political profeffions. In a letter to fir John Shore about the time that thefe embassadors were said to be on their return from the Ifle of France, he fays, "His friendly heart is difpofed to pay every regard to truth and justice, and to ftrengthen the foundations of harmony and concord between the two nations."

It is another extraordinary circumftance that Tippoo did not receive any confiderable affistance from the French government in India. About one hundred French

men are faid to have accompanied the foi-difant embaffadors from the Ifle of France, fome of whom, it is faid, were officers. And it is an equally extraordinary coincidence, that at the fame time that the marquis of Wellesley meditated an attack upon him, his majesty's minifters and the court of directors were employed at home in framing inftructions relative to the defigns of Tippoo.

It is further alleged, that Tippoo Sultaun had dispatched at the fame time an embafly to Zemaun Shah, to encourage that prince in his long threatened invafion of Hindooftan. The governor-general was therefore convinced that it was necessary to affemble the armies on the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar; and if circumftances had been favourable for fuch an attempt, it was his fixed determination to have attacked the fultaun inftantly, for the purpose of defeating his hoftile preparations. In this defign, however, he was. difappointed; for the army on the coaft of Coromandel was in fo difperfed a ftate, that, from this circumftance, and certain radical defects in its establishments, he found it a much more difficult and tedious operation than he had apprehended to affemble a force equal to the enterprife.

In the mean time, his lordfhip applied himself ftrenuously to ftrengthen and improve the alliances with the Nizam and the Paifhwah. With this view, he concluded a fubfidiary treaty with the former, a part of the conditions of which was, that the French troops