THE MILITIA AUGMENTED, ETC.
On the 6th of March Pitt moved for an augmentation of the militia, and for the levy of a volunteer force of horse and foot; intimating that the chances of war might expose Britain to an invasion. During the debate which followed this motion, Fox and his party taunted ministers with having produced such a prospect by their war measures; and strong objections were taken to a requisition circulated by ministers, and to a subscription entered into by country gentlemen and others, for the purpose of providing arms and other necessaries for the volunteer corps. Sheridan moved “That it was dangerous and unconstitutional for the people of this country to make any loan of money to the crown without consent of parliament;” but the previous question was carried by a large majority. Subsequently, Pitt brought in a bill to enable French royalists and emigrants to enlist in the service of the king of Great Britain on the continent of Europe, and to employ French officers as engineers, under certain restrictions. Two amendments were offered: one by the attorney-general, to exact the oath of allegiance from those who enlisted; the other by Sheridan, to limit the number of such French troops at any time stationed in the kingdom, to 5,000. Both these amendments were adopted; and, notwithstanding the opposition of Fox and his party, the bill was carried in the commons by the usual majority, and it subsequently passed the Lords. About this time, parliament was informed, by royal message, that a large subsidy had been granted to the King of Prussia. This was criticised and condemned by opposition in the severest manner, as were all the subsidiary treaties concluded with some of the powers of the coalition, who were too poor to maintain the expenses of the war without English money. But every motion on these subjects was carried by a large majority. On the other hand, every motion tending to put an end to the war was negatived by overwhelming numbers. Thus, when, on the 30th of May, the Duke of Bedford moved a series of resolutions to this end, in the lords, and Fox in the commons, the former was defeated by one hundred and thirteen against twelve, and the latter, by two hundred and eight against fifty-five. By this time opposition had still further reverses on the theatre of war to urge against its continuance, but these arguments were rendered futile by the intelligence which came, at the same time, of the augmented and still augmenting atrocities in France, which encouraged members of parliament to believe that such a system could not sustain itself for any length of time. And this feeling was prevalent among the people. On hearing of the reverses, opposition, and men of the same principles in private life, made great efforts to get up popular petitions for a peace; but the majority of the people had conceived a horror of the French republicans, and, except among some political clubs, no progress was made in this business; and the petitions got up among such clubs were, of course, unheeded.
SUSPENSION OF THE HABEAS CORPUS ACT.
On the 12th of May a royal message was delivered, referring to the seditious practices of democratic societies, and intimating the necessity of taking measures for baffling their dangerous designs. The message stated that seditious practices had been carried on by societies in London in correspondence with other societies, for the purpose of assembling a convention to represent the people, in defiance of and in opposition to parliament, and on principles subversive of our constitution, and calculated to introduce anarchy similar to that in France; that the papers of these societies had been seized, and would be laid before parliament; and that his majesty recommended them carefully to examine these papers, and to adopt such measures as might appear necessary. These papers were produced on the next day, and Pitt moved an address of thanks to the king, and proposed that the papers should be referred to a committee of secrecy, consisting of twenty-one persons, who should be chosen by ballot. This was agreed to, and on the 16th of May Pitt produced the report of this committee of secrecy. This report did not reveal anything very mysterious, for it merely contained the report of the two London societies from the year 1731, most of which had been already published, by the societies themselves, in the public papers. Yet Pitt, on the strength of this report, demanded the immediate suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, as necessary to the salvation of the country. In this demand he was supported by Burke, who said that it was the best means of preventing the vast and imminent dangers with which we were menaced; and by Windham, who observed that if these evils could not be averted by the laws in being, other laws, more stringent, must be framed. The bill was carried, through all its stages, by overwhelming majorities, and it also passed the lords, though not without a strong-protest from the Duke of Bedford, and the Earls Stanhope, Lauderdale, and Albemarle. An address was moved in the upper house, on the 13th of June, by Lord Grenville, to assure the king of their lordships’ loyalty and determination to punish the participators in the conspiracy which had been laid before them, and to invest his majesty, if needful, with additional power for the suppression of attempts against government. This was warmly opposed by Lord Lauderdale; but the address was carried, and sent to the commons for their approval. Fox—after endeavouring to show that there was no ground for apprehension; that though seditious language might have been uttered, it would be imprudent to notice it;—moved to omit that part of the address which expressed the conviction that a conspiracy had been carried on against the constitution, but his amendment was rejected, and the house concurred in the address as sent down by the lords.
AGITATION IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.
Although government had scarcely so much cause of alarm at the movements of political bodies as it exhibited, yet that there was some cause for fear there can be no reasonable doubt. This is manifest from the state trials which occurred at this period. One of the first of these trials took place at the Lancaster spring assizes. Mr. Thomas Walker, of Manchester, a strenuous advocate for parliamentary reform, at whose house meetings for political purposes were occasionally held, was indicted, with nine other persons, for conspiracy to overturn the constitution by arms, and to assist the French in case of an invasion. The principal evidence adduced was a person of the name of Dunn; but his testimony was so contradictory that the prosecution was abandoned, and Dunn was committed to prison to take his trial for perjury. Soon after this a rumour was raised of a design to assassinate the king, and some persons were arrested and committed for trial; but they were soon after liberated, and the story fell into contempt under the popular designation of the “Pop-gun Plot;” it being averred that the king’s death was to be encompassed by shooting him with an instrument resembling a walking-stick. More important proceedings subsequently took place in the Sessions-House at Clerkenwell. At this time the London Corresponding Society counted more than 30,000 members in its association, and it fully justified its title by entering into correspondence with every seditious club in the kingdom. According to a Jacobinical expression, it soon affiliated itself with the Constitutional Society; their respective secretaries—Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker, and Daniel Adams, an under-clerk—making known to the world the results of their deliberations, signed and sanctioned by their names and authorities. Hardy’s club, that of the London Corresponding Society, however, exercised a species of metropolitan jurisdiction over all. By means of the handbills and pamphlets which this club circulated, and by means of its lecturers and the meetings it concocted, a union of all the clubs was formed; and this union finally arrived at a complete organization, with a central board in London, a division into provinces and districts, and a list of members, approaching to half a million, in correspondence or direct connexion. Government thought it high time now to interfere; and, suspecting the machinations of the ring-leaders, they adopted the usual policy under such circumstances, of employing spies to become members, in order to betray the secrets with which they may be entrusted. The morality of such a practice may be questioned; but policy, and not morality, is too frequently the doctrine of even the best-regulated states. The scheme, however, succeeded. In consequence of the discoveries of these spies, Hardy, Adams, Martin, an attorney, Loveit, a hair-dresser, the Rev. Jeremiah Joyce, preceptor to Lord Mahon, John Thelwall, the political lecturer, John Home Tooke, the philologist, Thomas Holcroft, the dramatist, Steward Kydd, a barrister, with several others, were all arraigned at the Old Bailey. The papers of Hardy and Adams had been seized, and an indictment was made out, which contained no less than nine overt acts of high-treason, all resolving themselves into the general charge, that the prisoners conspired to summon delegates to a national convention, with a view to subvert the government, to levy war against the existing authorities of the country, and to depose the king. The evidence adduced, however, did not bear out this strong indictment. Hardy, Home Tooke, and Thelwall were tried and acquitted; and then the crown lawyers abandoned all the other prosecutions, and those who had been indicted were liberated.
In the mean time some trials had taken place in Scotland which resulted in a different manner to those which had occurred in the Old Bailey. Thomas Muir, a Scotch barrister, and the Rev. Fysche Palmer, a Unitarian preacher at Dundee, had been tried for sedition, convicted, and sentenced to transportation. This excited considerable alarm among their friends and associates in England, and attracted the attention of some members of parliament. Early in the session Mr. Adams moved, in the house of commons, for leave to bring in a bill for making some important alterations in the criminal law of Scotland; and this being refused, he gave notice that he would bring forward a motion for the relief of Muir and Palmer, in another form. In the meantime Sheridan presented a petition from Palmer, representing that he conceived the sentence passed upon him by the high-court of justiciary, from which there was no appeal, to be unjust. Dundas startled those who were about to plead for the prisoners, by intimating that the sentence was already executed, and that the warrant for the transportation of Palmer was both signed and issued. Nevertheless Pitt found himself compelled to allow the reception of the petition. But petitions on the table of the house of commons are not always successful in their prayer. On the 10th of March Mr. Adams moved for a copy of the record to be laid before the house, upon the ground of which he meant to question the legality of the sentence. He undertook to prove that, by the law of Scotland, the crime imputed to them, of “lease-making,” was only subject to fine, imprisonment, or banishment, and not to transportation; and that the acts attributed to Muir and Palmer did not even amount to that crime. Adams supported his legal positions with extensive knowledge, both judicial and historical; endeavouring to establish them by statute, analogy, and precedent, as well as by civil and political reasons. He showed that the acts, cases, and decisions which he brought forward were not detached and isolated, but all resulting from the same spirit and principles, established in the best times and by the highest authorities. He also contended that transportation was not a part of the Scottish law before the union, and that since the union no act had been passed allowing Scotch courts to transport in cases of sedition. Finally, he forcibly stated the evils, moral and political, which must result from a perversion of the law. The Scottish court and its sentence were defended by the lord-advocate, who had officially acted against Muir and Palmer, and by Pitt and Windham, while Fox supported Mr. Adams. The lord-advocate contended that the Scotch laws were better than the English for the punishment of libels and the suppression of seditious practices; and the majority of the house seemed to agree with him, for the motion was negatived by one hundred and seventy-one against thirty-two. Motions made in favour of the two convicts in the upper house, by Earls Lauderdale and Stanhope, were not more successful; and the lord-chancellor afterwards carried a resolution that “there were no grounds for interfering with any of the criminal courts as administered under the constitution, and by which the rights, liberties, and properties of all ranks of subjects were protected.”