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"In Ireland a Bill was paffed, called the Convention Bill, to ftop all Meetings, and to prevent thofe confequences which ignorant and idle politicians thought would enfue. They enacted this Bill in 1794, what was the effect? That thofe who enacted it boalted of the good confequences it had produced, as others had The boafted of the good confequences of thefe two Bills. Convention Act did prevent all meetings, and what was the cafe? Both Houses of Parliament in Ireland give me authority to fay that thole focieties which exifted, hoftile to the union with England, as we are told, harboured such hoftility from You put an end to their mettings in 1794. 1791 to 1794. Then comes the Report of the Irish Houfe of Lords, and you are told that the year 1795 was the first time when a correfpondence was entered into with the Government of France. When you thought, therefore, you had filenced the remonftrances of the Irish, what had you done? You had only diverted the dif contents to another channel, which defired a feparation from the mother-country. Why did you do fo? Because you were ignorant of the true principles of legiflation. Because you were ignorant that they who can meet and exprefs their grievances openly, do not join in fecret confpiracies! Because you forgot that though you could prevent a meeting in Down, or in Antrim, you could not annihilate the fpirit which called thofe meetings, and not being able to annihilate it, you forced it into other courfes. Sir, I believe that hitherto the effects. produced here by the Bills, have not been the fame as thofe produced in Ireland; but do you think that any man who is prevented from expreffing his opinion, is lefs difcontented at the paffing of these Bills? Do you think that they have not added another ground of difcontent? Do you think they have gained one profelyte? I fee one Gentleman affent to that. If, therefore, you have not gained one, do you think you have prevented correspondence or communication? No. Why then all you have prevented is a You fay you have disabled legal vent for legal remonftrances. men from speaking at Chalk Farm; but do you not see that an opinion which is expreffed openly, and may be immediately anfwered, is lefs mifchievous than hand-bills and libels, and the other ways of conveying fentiments. I fuppofe it will be faid; Oh! but our other Bill restrains them! There have been, it is true, many profecutions fince the paffing of it; but I believe I fhall not be told, that the evil has been in any great degree diminifhed, much less destroyed.

"But we will fuppofe thefe libels to be fewer than before. Well, do you think that because you have checked libels and prevented meetings, that you have, in a country where knowledge is fo generally diffufed, cut off the means of communicating difcontent? Do you not know, from the experience of Ire

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land, that in proportion as opinions are divulged openly, they are lefs dangerous than those which have the ftamp and feal of fecrefy upon them? Is there a man who, could measures be recalled, does not think that Ireland would have been more tranquil if every county had met, and declared thofe grievances, now faid to be pretended. In fuch meetings it would have been impoffible to have had one apparent object, and another pretence. The majority would have been led by the object that was avowed, and however, therefore, there might have been individuals with other intentions, yet they never could have carried the generality with them. But deaf to the voice of reafon, which tells you that fuch must be the effect; deaf to the dictates of found policy, which tell you fuch must be the re fult, you are adopting measures which cannot convince one man, and which tend only to foment and cherish the spirit of difcontent and difaffection. If the Bills were to be repealed, I fhould be glad to know what bad confequences would entue? That there would be more public meetings for the difmiffal of Minifters is very poffible. But when there are parts of the country which can exprefs their fenfe upon this fubject, is it not to be particularly wifhed, that the permiffion fhould be extended generally? Would there be meetings, if the Bills were repealed, in which difaffection to the Conftitution would be expreffed? I fay, if there even fhould be, I should wish that such difaffection, if it exifted, fhould be openly declared; but if the Bills are not to be repealed now, I aik when are they to expire? They will expire in a few years, if they are permitted. I defire to know what is the fituation of the country in which you would wish that they should expire? I fuppofe in a fituation of tranquillity and peace. What doctrine would then be inculcated? Why, this, that when the time fhall arrive when meetings may be held to recognize the general happiness, you will permit them to be held as wildly as people will; then meet if you please without fheriffs, and without magiftrates, but as long as you continue to be fo burdened, as long as you have an Administration whofe friends have called it unfortunate, but which I deem inefficient, fo long as we do not wish to have your advice, and only defire it when we do not want it. What then does this hold out? that when the people are in a fituation in which they ought to give their advice, then obstacles innumerable are to be thrown in their way. Really, Sir, I wish Minifters would be more honeft upon thefe fubjects. I with they would fay openly that a mixed Conftitution is a bad thing, and not confiftent with the ftrength of the Executive Government. I would then enter the lifts, and contend that among all the other advantages of liberty that it confers on a country,

country, are the advantages of order and ftrength in a fupereminent degree, and that too in the moment when they are most wanted. Liberty is order, liberty is ftrength. Good God! Sir, am I on this day to be called upon to illuftrate the glorious and foothing doctrine. Look round the world and admire, as you muft, the instructive fpectacle! You will fee that liberty not only is power and order, but that it is power and order predominant and invincible; that it derides all other fources of ftrength; that the heart of man has no impulfe, and can have none, that dares to ftand in competition with it; and if as Englishmen we know how to refpect its value, furely the prefent is the moment of all others when we ought to fecure its invigorating alliance. Whether we look at our relative fituation with regard to foreign powers, with regard to the fituation of the fifter kingdom, and with regard to our own internal affairs, there never was a moment when national ftrength was fo much demanded, and when it was fo incumbent upon us to call forth and embody all the vigour of the nation, by roufing, animating, and embodying all the love of liberty that ufed to characterize the country, and that I truft is not yet totally extinct. Is this a moment to diminish our ftrength, by indifpofing all that part of the nation whose hearts glow with ardour for their orignal rights, but who feel with indignation that they are trampled upon, and overthrown? Is not this a moment, when in addition to every other emotion, freedom fhould be aroufed as an ally, a fupplementary force, and a fubftitute for all the other weak and inefficient levies that have been fuggefted in its ftead? Have we not been nearly reduced to a fituation, when it was too perilous perhaps to take the right courfe; may we not be again called upon for exertions that will demand the union of every hand and every heart in the kingdom? What might not this Houfe do if this House had the opinion of the country with it? Do not let us fay then, that we are to increase the force of the country by ftifling opinion; it is only by promoting it, by giving facility to its expreffion, by meeting it with open hearts, by incorpo rating ourselves with the fenfe of the nation, that we can again revive that firm and compact power of British ftrength, that fprung out of British liberty. I will not trouble you with much more on the fubject. In proportion as you throw difficulties in the way of petition, you deprive yourselves of ftrength, you alienate every heart whofe voice you ftifle, you drive men to correfpondence with foreign nations, when you debar them from correfponding with you, and this, if we may believe the report of the Irish Parliament, was the cafe with Ireland.---When the 'petitioned, addreffed, and remonftrated, fhe had no power, but from fmall beginnings, that is fmall, until a Con

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vention Bill had paffed, until a Powder Bill had passed, and all the other Acts of infanity and rigour, fhe rofe from fmall meetings of mere petition, to a concerted, armed, embodied union of one hundred thousand perfons.

"The fact of Ireland is a ftrong one. While Ireland was legally expreling her opinion, what was the fituation then? Why, that there exifted Societies with the worst intentions, as it is alledged; but bad as they were, what was their power? But thefe Societies from fmall beginnings while they had the right of petitioning, and before the Gunpowder and Convention Bills were pati d, had fince gone on, in later times, till they, had increased to the number of 100,000 men. We learn that they were small as long as Ireland had her free Constitution; but from the period when her Liberties were diminifhed, as fome fay---extinguished, as others think,---from that period thefe Societies rapidly augmented in numbers and in power. Shall we, therefore, living fo near, and speaking the fame language, shall we be fo blind as to adopt the very fame lauguage, fhall we be fo blind as to adopt the very fame measures here which have produced all the mifchief there? Shall we, having the option of avoiding them, reject it, and haften to deftruction, as if, as the old fables fay, there was a destiny about us which run us blind, into the very ruin we wished to avoid? No, Sir, I trust that this day will prove our determination to make a general alteration. in the fyftem. I truft we shall return to the principles of our ancestors, and to thofe times which teach us, in legible characters, what we ought to adopt. It is whimical enough to call the right of petitioning, as fome Gentleman faid the other day, the ornamental part of the edifice, the Corinthian capital of polifhed fociety. In the abstract it may be true that it is well to give up a part, in order to preserve the reft; it may be true in Finance; but is not true in this inftance, when you have given up a part not to preferve but to deftroy the remainder. This is the age of phenomena, not of unnatural phenomena, for they all may be accounted for; but there is no truth more clear than this, that you cannot hinder the common people from meeting, without adding one hundred to all those societies which you deprecate. You cannot injure the common people, without increafing their difcontents; you force them upon principles which they did not profefs before. I fay you cannot take from the lower orders one privilege, without making the higher orders pay for it; you cannot do what you call increasing the strength of the Executive Government, without weakening every other part, and making the Government itfelf pay a fine for its injuftice, and a mulet for its weakness. You fhould look to every inconvenience. But the great evil to be avoided in these times,

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is the evil of diminishing the Liberties of the People. Why Because the course of things is going another way; because, in proportion as men become more enlightened, they ought to be entrusted with a greater degree of freedom. The Slavery of the Negroes, with which this Houfe is fo familiar, furniches me with an illuftration of my argument. Many have faid that it would be dangerous to give Liberty to the Negroes, on account of their ignorance; they think perhaps that it would be less dangerous to grant it to the Mulattoes; lefs dangerous ftill to extend it to the people of the defpotic countries in Europe; in other words, there fhould be a fcale, and men fhould be entrusted with greater freedom in proportion as they became more enlightened. With this increafed knowledge therefore are we fitted, for what? to have our liberties abridged? No. To have them augmented. Wife Legiflatures fhould fee that this is the courfe that events will run. You should not then fo dam up and ftop the current, as to make it at fome future period but upon us like a torrent---you fhould open new channels---you fhould be in a conftant habit of increating the privileges of the people; you fhould at leaft yield to neceffity, and endeavour by an able direction of the stream, to prevent it from being clogged and checked in its career, and from breaking like a torrent and overwhelming us."

Mr. Fox concluded, by defiring the Treafon Act paffed laft Seffion to be read. He then moved for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal the faid Act.

Mr. Serjeant Adair faid, that although the grounds on which the Bills were founded had already been fo amply discussed in the feveral stages of their progrefs though the Houle, as fcarcely to leave any thing to fay upon the fubject which had not already been faid, and although his fentiments on the -matter were already known to the Hou e, yet confidering the able manner in which his Right Honourable Friend had, as was ufual with him, brought the fuoject fo. ward, and the force with which he had imprefled it upon the Houfe; and confidering alfo the infinite danger which might attend the adoption of the Motion, he felt himself called upon to flate his reafons for refifting it, and to demonftrate to the Houfe the great impolicy of doing away at once a Bill which had received the concurrence of a very great majority of the Parliament, and was founded on the moft urgent neceffity; a neceffity which, fo far from having abated fince, was, in his apprehenfion, confiderably increased.

His Right Honourable Friend, he faid, had himself admitted, that restraints of the kind these Bills contained were not new; but he owned he felt surprised to hear the manner in which he had made use of the measures of Queen Elizabeth's time as an No. 38. 8 T

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