RELEASE OF THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMAN OLIVER.
All honour was paid to these captives during their confinement in the Tower. They were visited by nobles and members of the house of commons; the sheriffs waited upon them to express their disapprobation of all the proceedings against them; and at a meeting of the common-council the day after their commitment, a vote of thanks was passed to such members of the house of commons as had given them their support. The common-council also agreed to pay any law expenses that might occur, and to defray all the expenses of their tables while in confinement. On the 5th of March, they were brought by habeas corpus from the Tower, to Lord Chief-Justice de Gray’s chambers, attended by a host of friends; but after hearing Sergeant Glynn and Mr. Lee, he said that he could neither bail nor discharge them. They were then taken to Lord Mansfield’s chambers, who expressed the same sentiments; stating that he could neither take bail nor discharge them while parliament was sitting. They were, therefore, carried back to the Tower, where they remained till the day the session closed, when they regained their liberty. In the mean time the printers remained unscathed. They had, indeed, obtained advantages almost equal to a victory, and there was little more to fear from the publication of the speeches of members of parliament. In the course of the debate Mr. Welbore Ellis moved that a secret committee of twenty-one members should be chosen by ballot, “to examine into the several facts and circumstances relative to the late obstructions to the executions of the order of the house, and to consider what further proceedings may be requisite to enforce a due obedience thereto.” This was agreed to, and on the 30th of April the secret committee produced their report. The document consisted of a tedious deduction of facts and cases, which concluded with a recommendation to the house to consider whether it might not yet be expedient that Millar should be taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms. Roars of laughter followed this impotent conclusion, and Burke increased the merriment of the house, by observing that the secret committee might be compared to an assembly of mice, who came to a resolution that their old enemy the cat should be tied up, to prevent her doing any further mischief, but forgot to say how this was to be effected. Nothing, therefore, was done, and from that period the parliamentary debates have been published without any disguise or obstruction: a practice which is considered to be essential to the effective working of the representative system, and one of the best safeguards of the constitution, inasmuch as it brings the opinions and acts of representatives under the notice of the lynx-eyed public, who regard their rights and liberties with too severe a jealousy to admit of their being invaded with impunity.