HABEAS-CORPUS ACT AMENDED.
The occasion that produced the next bill which miscarried we shall explain, as an incident equally extraordinary and interesting. By an act passed in the preceding session, for recruiting his majesty’s land-forces and marines, we have already observed, that the commissioners thereby appointed were vested with a power of judging ultimately, whether the persons brought before them were such as ought, by the rules prescribed in the act, to be impressed into the service; for it was expressly provided, that no person, so impressed by those commissioners, should be taken out of his majesty’s service by any process, other than for some criminal accusation. During the recess of parliament, a gentleman having been impressed before the commissioners, and confined in the Savoy, his friends made application for a habeas-corpus, which produced some hesitation, and indeed an insurmountable difficulty; for, according to the writ of habeas-corpus, passed in the reign of Charles the Second, this privilege relates only to persons committed for criminal or supposed criminal matters, and the gentleman did not stand in that predicament. Before the question could be determined he was discharged, in consequence of an application to the secretary at war; but the nature of the case plainly pointed out a defect in the act, seemingly of the most dangerous consequence to the liberty of the subject. In order to remedy this defect, a bill for giving a more speedy relief to the subject, upon the writ of habeas-corpus, was prepared, and presented to the house of commons, which formed itself into a committee, and made several amendments. It imported, that the several provisions made in the aforesaid act, passed in the reign of Charles II. for the awarding of writs of habeas-corpus, in cases of commitment or detainer for any criminal or supposed criminal matter, should, in like manner, extend to all cases where any person, not being committed or detained for any criminal or supposed criminal matter, should-be confined, or restrained of his or her liberty, under any colour or pretence whatsoever; that, upon oath made by such person so confined or arrested, or by any other on his or her behalf, of any actual confinement or restraint, and that such confinement or restraint, to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person so applying, was not by virtue of any commitment or detainer for any criminal or supposed criminal matter, an habeas-corpus, directed to the person or persons so confining or restraining the party, as aforesaid, should be awarded and granted, in the same manner as is directed, and under the same penalties as are provided by the said act, in the case of persons committed and detained for any criminal or supposed criminal matter; that the person or persons before whom the party so confined or restrained should be brought, by virtue of any habeas-corpus granted in the vacation time, under the authority of this act, might and should, within three days after the return made, proceed to examine into the facts contained in such return, and into the cause of such confinement and restraint; and thereupon either discharge, or bail, or remand the parties so brought, as the case should require, and as to justice should appertain. The rest of the bill related to the return of the writ in three days, and the penalties incurred by those who should neglect or refuse to make the due return, or to comply with any other clause of this regulation. The commons seemed hearty in rearing up this additional buttress to the liberty of their fellow-subjects, and passed the bill with the most laudable alacrity; but in the house of lords such a great number of objections were started, that it sunk at the second reading, and the judges were ordered to prepare a bill for the same purpose, to be laid before that house in the next session.
SCHEME IN FAVOUR OF THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.
His majesty having recommended the care of the Foundling hospital to the house of commons, which cheerfully granted forty thousand pounds for the support of that charity, the growing annual expense of it appeared worthy of further consideration, and leave was granted to bring in a bill for obliging all the parishes of England and Wales to keep registers of all their deaths, births, and marriages, that from these a fund might be raised towards the support of the said hospital. The bill was accordingly prepared by a committee appointed for the purpose; but before the house could take the report into consideration, the parliament was prorogued.—The proprietors of the privateer called the Antigallican, which had taken a rich French ship homeward bound from China, and carried her into Cadiz, where the Spanish government had wrested her by violence from the captors, and delivered her to the French owners, now presented a petition to the house of commons, complaining of this interposition as an act of partiality and injustice; representing the great expense at which the privateer had been equipped, the legality of the capture, the loss and hardships which they the petitioners had sustained, and imploring such relief as the house should think requisite. Though these allegations were supported by a species of evidence that seemed strong and convincing, and it might be thought incumbent on the parliament to vindicate the honour of the nation, when thus insulted by a foreign power, the house, upon this occasion, treated the petition with the most mortifying neglect, either giving little credit to the assertions it contained, or unwilling to take any step which might at this juncture embroil the nation with the court of Spain on such a frivolous subject. True it is, the Spanish government alleged, in their own justification, that the prize was taken under the guns of Corunna, insomuch that the shot fired by the privateer entered that place, and damaged some houses; but this allegation was never properly sustained, and the prize was certainly condemned as legal by the court of admiralty at Gibraltar.
PROCEEDINGS RELATIVE TO THE AFRICAN COMPANY.
As we have already given a detail of the trial of sir John Mordaunt, it will be unnecessary to recapitulate any circumstances of that affair, except such as relate to its connexion with the proceedings of parliament. In the beginning of this session, lord Barrington, as secretary at war, informed the house, by his majesty’s command, that lieutenant-general sir John Mordaunt, a member of that house, was in arrest for disobedience of his majesty’s orders, while employed on the late expedition to the coast of France. The commons immediately resolved, that an address should be presented to his majesty, returning him the thanks of this house for his gracious message of that day, in the communication he had been pleased to make of the reason for putting lieutenant-general sir, John Mordaunt in arrest.—Among the various objects of commerce that employed the attention of the house, one of the most considerable was the trade to the coast of Africa, for the protection of which an annual sum had been granted for some years, to be expended in the maintenance and repairs of castles and factories. While a committee was employed in perusing the accounts relating to the sum granted in the preceding session for this purpose, a petition from the committee of the African company, recommended in a message from his majesty, was presented to the house, soliciting further assistance for the ensuing year. In the meantime, a remonstrance was offered by certain planters and merchants, interested in trading to the British sugar colonies in America, alleging, that the price of negroes was greatly advanced since the forts and settlements on the coast of Africa had been under the direction of the committee of the company of merchants trading to that coast; a circumstance that greatly distressed and alarmed the petitioners, prevented the cultivation of the British colonies, and was a great detriment to the trade and navigation of the kingdom; that this misfortune, they believed, was in some measure owing to the ruinous state and condition of the forts and settlements; that, in their opinion, the most effectual method for maintaining the interest of that trade on a respectable footing, next to that of an incorporated joint-stock company, would be putting those forts and settlements under the sole direction of the commissioners for trade and plantations; that the preservation or ruin of the American sugar colonies went hand in hand with that of the slave trade to Africa; that, by an act passed in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty, for extending and improving this trade, the British subjects were debarred from lodging their slaves and merchandise in the forts and settlements on the coast; they, therefore, prayed that this part of the act might be repealed; that all commanders of British and American vessels, free merchants, and all other his majesty’s subjects, who were settled, or might at any time thereafter settle in Africa, should have free liberty, from sunrise to sunset, to enter the forts and settlements, and to deposit their goods and merchandise in the warehouses thereunto belonging; to secure their slaves or other purchases without paying any consideration for the same; but the slaves to be victualled at the proper cost and charge of their respective owners. The house having taken this petition into consideration, inquired into the proceedings of the company, and revised the act for extending and improving the trade to Africa, resolved, that the committee of the African company had faithfully discharged the trust reposed in them, and granted ten thousand pounds for maintaining the British forts and settlements in that part of the world. The enemy were perfectly well acquainted with the weakness of the British castles on the coast of Africa; and had they known as well how to execute with spirit, as to plan with sagacity, the attempt which, in the course of the preceding year, they made upon the principal British fort in Guinea, would have succeeded, and all the other settlements would have fallen into their hands without opposition.*
* Robert Hunter Morris represented, in a petition to the house, that as no salt was made in the British colonies in America, they were obliged to depend upon a precarious supply of that commodity from foreigners; he, therefore, offered to undertake the making of marine salt at a moderate price in one of those colonies, at his own risk and charge, provided he could be secured in the enjoyment of the profits which the work might produce, for such a term of years as might seem to the house a proper and adequate compensation for so great an undertaking. The petition was ordered to lie upon the table; afterwards read and referred to a committee, which, however, made no report. A circumstance not easily accounted for, unless we suppose the house of commons were of opinion, that such an enterprise might contribute towards rendering our colonies too independent of their mother- country.—Equally unaccountable was the miscarriage of another bill, brought in for regulating the manner of licensing alehouses, which was read for the first time; but when a motion was made for a second reading, the question was put, and it passed in the negative.