opposers of ministers. By showing that the minister can get no support unpurchased, the enemy are led to think that there is no public spirit in the country-that nothing can be done but by jobs, and titles, and pensions. What can they think of those who come forward under the pretence of public spirit, when they see that every man obtains his own private job as the reward of his ministerial devotion? They saw that disgrace after disgrace never diminished his power; that every successive attack on liberty was defended and supported by compliant majorities; that every new failure served only to rivet the attachment of his servile adherents. When they see the nation endure these things, can they conceive that it will be found to contain much public spirit to resist a foreign enemy? Beyond question great sacrifices must be made, whoever is minister; and, if the enemy persevere in their designs, resistance to invasion must be encouraged at every hazard. We must give up the idea, however, of doing this, and continuing in a state of luxury. Should it be necessary, we must show that we are ready to strip to the skin to maintain our independence and our liberties, in the same manner as they were compelled to struggle for their freedom. It is mere cant and delusion, to talk any longer of giving up a part to preserve the whole-that we must leave both our liberty and property unmortgaged to posterity. If I am called upon to pay a shilling to preserve a pound, this is intelligible; but if I am called upon twenty times successively for my shilling, it is ridiculous to tell me of giving up a part for the preservation of the whole. This will not do and as a worthy baronet (Sir W. Pulteney) said on another occasion, "if it is so often repeated, it comes to be no joke." This kind of paradoxical insult cannot long be endured. It will not do to tell us, that sending millions of money to Germany, for the defence of this country, is true economy; that to lop off the most valuable of our liberties, is to preserve the constitution; that not to pay its lawful creditors, is to support the credit of the bank; and to introduce a universal disclosure of income, is to protect property. This is the last stage of such delusion. The tricks have been too often repeated to elude the most inattentive observation. While the affairs of this country continue in the same hands, they cannot be administered wisely or well. The country cannot have confidence in a system, always unsuccessful, now hopeless; and the dismissal of

ministers must be the preliminary step to any vigour of system, any prospect of peace.

The house divided on the question for the third reading; ayes 196; noes 71.

The attorney-general moved for leave to bring in this bill.

MR. SHERIDAN declared he would object to any kind of measure introduced by the learned gentleman, concerning what he terms restricting the license, and limiting within bounds, the press. Every allowance to which the hon. gentleman was entitled, upon the principle of candour, should be allowed him; but, in the instance before him, he had reason to suspect that very great latitude in that particular virtue could not be attributed to him. He was free to say, that in the bill, and in its tendency, lay concealed a design of destroying the liberty of the press altogether. This he considered but merely the preface to that which, probably, at no very distant period, was intended, namely, a general crush of every publication not exactly according with the party in power. He perceived that its purport had in view, not only all newspapers, but every other kind of periodical production that was published in the kingdom. He trusted it would have no consideration for party productions, but would comprehend every species, including even that recent publication called The Anti-Jacobin; a print that abounded with as much libellous matter as any he had heard of, and that too without a stamp. But he feared that, whatever species of publication this bill might include in its spirit, or even in its letter, an attorneygeneral would scarcely ever be found ready and desirous of prosecuting, for any slander which might issue from any print published, for the purpose of abusing those in opposition. His own experience furnished him with numberless documents to that effect. Did the hon. and learned gentleman, among all the libels. that he saw and knew were ushered into the world against him and his friends, charging them with every political crime that ingenuity could devise, and every private error that depravity could

invent, to render men odious, or make them contemptible-did that learned gentleman, he would ask, ever make any effort even to threaten the delinquents for such misconduct with a legal prosecution? Certainly not. It was certain, however, that he was not a friend to prosecution. He was of opinion that the press should be unfettered; that its freedom should be, as indeed it was, commensurate with the freedom of the people and the wellbeing of a virtuous state; on that account, he thought that even an hundred libels had better be ushered into the world than one prosecution be instituted which might endanger the liberty of the press of this country. He remarked, that the hon. and learned gentleman who submitted this bill, stated a case in the course of his observations, insinuating that the produce to proprietors of newspapers, for scandal not published, was as profitable in the degree, and as great, as that which they obtained from scandal they disseminated. If that be the case,he would be glad to be informed what the proprietors of treasury newspapers received, for the abuse so abundantly lavished on opposition, and for that which they withheld from appearing against their own patrons? and whether, as all proprietors were to be punished alike, they were to be considered as proprietors, since the papers existed at their expense? He might readily answer both questions himself, were not the redundancy of the reply sufficiently obvious, from the consciousness that obtained on the other side. of the house. Upon the whole, it was his determination, in whatever light he considered the intentions of the hon. gentleman who was about to introduce the bill, to oppose present he considered it a dangerous innovation, as well upon the liberty of the individual, as on the liberty of the English press.

it;

at

Mr. Pitt said, "He had read the paper alluded to, and observed how much satisfaction it afforded him. It certainly was stamped.”

Mr. Sheridan replied, that the qualification that entitled it to the approbation of the right hon. gentleman, did not exactly correspond with what he should consider as recommending it. For his part, he made it a rule to read a paper and approve of it for its wit, not for its stamp.

Mr. Pitt defended the several clauses of the bill, &c.

Mr. Sheridan rose again.-He began by noticing the two speeches, or rather the explanation, and the subsequent speech

of the right hon. gentleman; and by expressing a hope that he might be indulged a little beyond the strict rule of explanation. In the first place, the right hon. gentleman had not stated quite fairly what he had advanced upon the subject of his indisposition to prosecutions. He never could be supposed to apply what he said to prosecutions, in which the safety of the state was concerned: but he did not see that this measure was calculated to give evidence against offending persons. Newspapers were not set up by men of large capital; and unless where they were set up under the countenance of government, they were commenced by twenty or thirty persons, who subscribed each £100. Now, he would ask, whether any gentleman would believe it possible that any person would purchase a share, when the publisher, editor, and printer, were held not to be alone responsible; and when every one proprietor was to be liable to fine and imprisonment ? The learned gentleman, if that were the case, must see that there would be an end of that species of publication, and that none could be set up except under the connivance of government, and with the capital of the country. The right hon. gentleman had alluded, in the absence of a learned gentleman (Mr. Erskine), to whom the rights and liberties of the people owed more than to any lawyer whatever, to what that learned gentleman had said, and he had been pleased to call him the advocate and patron of all libels. This he did in his absence. Now he would venture to assert, that if the right hon. gentleman had said so much in any other place, he would himself have said what was a libel But the questioning of the sincerity of the right hon. gentleman was stated to be a libel against the majesty of William Pitt. If that were the case, surely he might complain of some partiality in one person being prosecuted for making use of such an assertion, and another person being suffered to pass unnoticed; for, in the pamphlet published by his learned friend, there were great doubts expressed of the right hon. gentleman's sincerity; but the house had determined him to be sincere; did that alter the question? Would he permit him here to apply the doctrine of the gentleman who had introduced this measure? If a person had really doubts of his sincerity, according to that doctrine, it was no libel, for that gentleman had always submitted it to the jury whether the intention was mischievous or innocent. But this prosecution was commenced for entertaining doubts of the sin

cerity of the last negotiation. Of the insincerity, however, of the former negotiation nobody had any doubts, and no prosecutions were instituted upon it.

The motion for leave to bring in the bill was put and agreed to.

APRIL 26.

TRAITOROUS CORRESPONDENCE, AND PREPARATION FOR

INVASION.

A message was brought to the house from his Majesty, stating the advices he had received of great preparations for invading his dominions; and that, in this design, the enemy was encouraged by the correspondence and communications of traitorous and disaffected persons and societies in this country. An address of thanks was moved by Mr. Dundas, seconded by Mr. Pitt, and carried nem. con. On this occasion,

MR. SHERIDAN said, it is impossible for any man who views the present situation of the country, and who views it in the same light as I do, to imagine that I now rise to oppose, in any shape or manner, the address which has just been presented to the house. Had I been present on a former occasion, when a bill for the better defence of the country was brought in by the right hon. secretary (Mr. Dundas), I most certainly would have given it my most cordial and zealous support; and, in thus giving it all the countenance that I could lend to any measure, I would not consider the house as conferring any new or extraordinary power upon the crown, or anything more than is already vested by law in the royal prerogative. We all know that, in cases of great and alarming emergency, his Majesty is armed with the power of calling forth all the strength and energy of his subjects; and if, in any ordinary riot and confusion, a constable may call for assistance from ever yone around him, can it properly be supposed that, on an occasion of extreme and general peril, his Majesty would be contented to be a mere looker-on? And when his Majesty feels it necessary thus to arouse and exert all the strength and resources of his kingdom, however we may cooperate what ever service we may afford on such an occasion-we only fulfil that duty which, by the oath of allegiance, we are bound to perform. But, however penetrated the country may be with the sense of the danger that awaits us, however ardent the spirit that now begins to arise, yet I cannot but breathe a wish that something were superadded by this house to kindle the