This bill has been frequently proposed, and as frequently miscarried; but it was always lost in the Lower House. Little did I think, when it had passed the Commons, that it possibly could have met with such opposition here. Shall it be said that you, my Lords, the grand council of the nation, the highest judicial and legislative body of the realm, endeavour to evade by privilege those very laws which you enforce on your fellow-subjects? Forbid it, justice. I am sure, were the noble lords as well acquainted as I am with but half the difficulties and delays that are every day occasioned in the courts of justice, under pretence of privilege, they would not, nay, they could not, oppose this bill. I have waited with patience to hear what arguments might be urged against the bill; but I have waited in vain. The truth is, there is no argument that can weigh against it. The justice and expediency of this bill are such as render it self-evident. It is a proposition of that nature that can neither be weakened by argument, nor entangled with sophistry. Much, indeed, has been said by some noble lords, on the wisdom of our ancestors, and how differently they thought from us. They not only decreed that privilege should prevent all civil suits from proceeding during the sitting of Parliament, but likewise granted protection to the very servants of members. I shall say nothing on the wisdom of our ancestors. It might perhaps appear invidious, and is not necessary in the present case. I shall only say that the noble lords that flatter themselves with the weight of that reflection, should remember that, as circumstances alter, things themselves should alter. Formerly it was not so fashionable either for masters or servants to run in debt as it is at present; nor formerly were merchants or manufacturers members of Parliament, as at present. The case now is very different. Both merchants and manufacturers are, with great propriety, elected members of the Lower House. Commerce having thus got into the legislative body of the kingdom, privilege must be done away. We all know that the very soul and essence of trade are regular payments: and sad experience teaches us that there are men who will not make their regular payments without the compulsive power of the laws. The law, then, ought to be equally open to all. Any exemption to particular men, or particular ranks of men, is, in a free commercial country, a solecism of the grossest nature. But I will not trouble your Lordships with arguments for that which is sufficiently evident without any. I shall only say a few words to some noble lords, who foresee much inconvenience from the persons of their servants being liable to be arrested. One noble lord observes, that the coachman of a peer may be arrested while he is driving his master to the House, and consequently he will not be able to attend his duty in Parliament. If this was actually to hap pen, there are so many methods by which the member might still get to the House, I can hardly think the noble lord to be serious in his objection. Another noble lord said that by this bill one might lose his most valuable and honest servants. This I hold to be a contradiction in terms; for he neither can be a valuable servant, nor an honest man, who gets into debt which he neither is able nor willing to pay till compelled by law. If my servant, by unforeseen accidents, has got in debt, and I still wish to retain him, I certainly would pay the debt. But upon no principle of liberal legislation whatever can my servant have a title to set his creditors at defiance, while, for forty shillings only, the honest tradesman may be torn from his family and locked up in gaol. It is monstrous injustice! I flatter myself, however, the determination of this day will entirely put an end to all such partial proceedings for the future, by passing into a law the bill now under your Lordships' consideration. I now come to speak upon what, indeed, I would have gladly avoided, had I not been particularly pointed at for the part I have taken in this bill. It has been said by a noble lord on my left hand that I likewise am running the race of popularity. If the noble lord means by popularity that applause bestowed by after-ages on good and virtuous actions, I have long been struggling in that race, to what purpose alltrying time can alone determine. But if the noble lord means that mushroom popularity which is raised without merit, and lost without a crime, he is much mistaken in his opinion. I defy the noble lord to point out a single action in my life where the popularity of the times ever had the smallest influence on my determinations. I thank God I have a more permanent and steady rule for my conduct-the dictates of my own breast. Those that have foregone that pleasing adviser, and given up their mind to be the slave of every popular impulse, I sincerely pity. I pity them still more if their vanity leads them to mistake the shouts of a mob for the trumpet of their fame. Experience might inform them that many who have been saluted with the huzzas of a crowd one day, have received their execrations the next; and many who, by the popularity of their times, have been held up as spotless patriots, have nevertheless appeared upon the historian's page, when truth has triumphed over delusion, the assassins of liberty. Why, then, the noble lord can think I am ambitious of present popularity, that echo of folly and shadow of renown, I am at a loss to determine. Besides, I do not know that the bill now before your Lordships will be popular. It depends much upon the caprice of the day. It may not be popular to compel people to pay their debts; and in that case the present must be an unpopular bill. It may not be popular, neither, to take away any of the privileges of Parliament; any other man from the punishment due to his crimes? The laws of this country allow no place nor employment to be a sanctuary for crimes; and, where I have the honour to sit as judge, neither royal favour nor popular applause shall ever protect the guilty. I have now only to beg pardon for having em for I very well remember, and many of your Lordships may remember, that not long ago the popular cry was for the extension of privilege. And so far did they carry it at that time, that it was said that privilege protected members from criminal actions; nay, such was the power of popular prejudices over weak minds, that the very decisions of some of the courts were tinc-ployed so much of your Lordships' time; and I tured with that doctrine. It was undoubtedly an abominable doctrine. I thought so then, and think so still. But, nevertheless, it was a popular doctrine, and came immediately from those who were called the friends of liberty, how deservedly time will show. True liberty, in my opinion, can only exist when justice is equally administered to all-to the king and to the beggar. Where is the justice, then, or where is the law, that protects a member of Parliament more than ! am very sorry a bill, fraught with so good consequences, has not met with an abler advocate; but I doubt not your Lordships' determination will convince the world that a bill, calculated to contribute so much to the equal distribution of justice as the present, requires, with your Lordships, but very little support. [The Act was finally passed.] WILLIAM PITT, LORD CHATHAM.* 1708-1778. AGAINST SEARCH-WARRANTS FOR [IN consequence of the declaration of war with "The intellect of Chatham was of the highest order, and was peculiarly fitted for the broad and rapid combinations of oratory. It was at once comprehensive, acute, and vigorous, enabling him to embrace the largest range of thought, to see at a glance what most men labour out by slow degrees, and to grasp his subject with a vigour and hold on to it with a firmness which have rarely, if ever, been equalled. But his intellect never acted alone. It was impossible for him to speak on any subject in a dry or abstract manner; all the operations of his mind were pervaded and governed by intense feeling."-C. A. Goodrich. "In the mind of Chatham, the great substantial truths of common sense, the leading maxims of the constitution, the real interests and general feelings of mankind, were in a manner embodied. He comprehended the whole of his subject at a single glance-everything was firmly riveted to its place; there was no feebleness, no forgetfulness, no pause, no distraction; the ardour of his mind overcame every obstacle, and he crushed the sophisms of his adversaries as we crush an insect under our feet. His imagination was of the same character with his understanding, and was under the same guidance. It never forgot its errand, but went straight forward, like an arrow to its mark, with an unerring aim. It was his servant, not his master."-Hazlitt's Eloquence of the British Senate. + A speech delivered in the House of Commons, March 6, 1741. authority to Justices of the Peace to issue search-warrants, and impress men into the service.] SIR, -The two honourable and learned gentlemen who spoke in favour of this clause, were pleased to show that our seamen are half slaves already, and now they modestly desire you should make them wholly so. Will this increase your number of seamen? or will it make those you have more willing to serve you? Can you expect that any man will make himself a slave if he can avoid it? Can you expect that any man will breed his child up to be a slave? Can you expect that seamen will venture their lives or their limbs for a country that has made them slaves? or can you expect that any seaman will stay in the country, if he can by any means make his escape? Sir, if you pass this law, you must, in my opinion, do with your seamen as they do with their galley-slaves in France-you must chain them to their ships, or chain them in couples when they are ashore. But suppose this should both increase the number of your seamen, and render them more willing to serve you, it will render them incapable. It is a common observation, that when a man becomes a slave, he loses half his virtue. What will it signify to have your ships all manned to their full complement? Your men will have neither the courage nor the temptation to fight; they will strike to the first enemy that attacks them, because their condition cannot be made worse by a surrender. Our seamen have always been famous for a matchless alacrity and intrepidity in time of danger; this has saved many a British ship, when other seamen would have run below deck, and left the ship to the mercy of the waves, or, perhaps, of a more cruel enemy, a pirate. For God's sake, sir, let us not, by our new projects, put our seamen into such a condition as must soon make them worse than the cowardly slaves of France or Spain. The learned gentlemen were next pleased to show us that the Government were already possessed of such a power as is now desired. And how did they show it? Why, sir, by showing that this was the practice in the case of felony, and in the case of those who are as bad as felons, I mean those who rob the public, or dissipate the public money. Shall we, sir, put our brave sailors upon the same footing with felons and public robbers? Shall a brave honest sailor be treated as a felon, for no other reason but because, after a long voyage, he has a mind to solace himself among his friends in the country, and for that purpose absconds for a few weeks, in order to prevent his being pressed upon a Spithead, or some such pacific expedition? For I dare answer for it, there is not a sailor in Britain but would immediately offer his services, if he thought his country in any real danger, or expected to be sent upon an expedition where he might have a chance of gaining riches to himself and glory to his country. I am really ashamed, sir, to hear such arguments made use of in any case where our seamen are concerned. Can we expect that brave men will not resent such treatment? Could we expect they would stay with us, if we should make a law for treating them in such a contemptible manner? But suppose, sir, we had no regard for our seamen, I hope we shall have some regard for the rest of the people, and for ourselves in particular; for I think I do not in the least exaggerate when I say, we are laying a trap for the lives of all the men of spirit in the nation. Whether the law, when made, is to be carried into execution, I do not know; but if it is, we are laying a snare for our own lives. Every gentleman of this House must be supposed, I hope justly, to be a man of spirit. Would any of you, gentlemen, allow this law to be executed in its full extent? If, at midnight, a petty constable, with a press-gang, should come thundering at the gates of your house in the country, and should tell you he had a search-warrant, and must search your house for seamen, would you at that time of night allow your gates to be opened? I protest I would not. What then would be the consequence? He has by this law a power to break them open. Would any of you patiently submit to such an indignity? Would not you fire upon him, if he attempted to break open your gates? I declare I would, let the consequence be never so fatal, and if you happened to be in the bad graces of a minister, the consequence would be your being either killed in the fray, or hanged for killing the constable or some of his gang. This, sir, may be the case of even some of us here; and, upon my honour, I do not think it an exaggeration to suppose it may. The honourable gentlemen say no other remedy has been proposed. Sir, there have been several other remedies proposed. Let us go into a committee to consider of what has been, or may be proposed. Suppose no other remedy should be offered, to tell us we must take this, because no other remedy can be thought of, is the same with a physician's telling his patient, "Sir, there is no known remedy for your distemper, therefore you shall take poison-I'll cram it down your throat." I do not know how the nation may treat its physicians, but I am sure if my physician told me so, I should order my servants to turn him out of doors. Such desperate remedies, sir, are never to be applied but in cases of the utmost extremity, and how we come at present to be in such extremity I cannot comprehend. In the time of Queen Elizabeth we were not thought to be in any such extremity, though we were then threatened with the most formidable invasion that was ever prepared against this nation. In our wars with the Dutch, a more formidable maritime power than France and Spain now would be, if they were united against us, we were not supposed to be in any such extremity, either in the time of the Commonwealth or of King Charles II. In King William's war against France, when her naval power was vastly superior to what it is at present, and when we had more reason to be afraid of an invasion than we can have at present, we were thought to be in no such extremity. In Queen Anne's time, when we were engaged in a war both against France and Spain, and were obliged to make great levies yearly for the land service, no such remedy was ever thought of, except for one year only, and then it was found to be far from being effectual. This, sir, I am convinced would be the case now, as well as it was then. It was at that time computed that, by means of such a law as this, there were not above fourteen hundred seamen brought into the service of the Government, and, considering the methods that have been already taken, and the reward proposed by this bill to be offered to volunteers, I am convinced that the most strict and general search would not bring in half the number. Shall we, then, for the sake of adding six or seven hundred, or even fourteen hundred seamen to his Majesty's navy, expose our Constitution to so much danger, and every housekeeper in the kingdom to the danger of being disturbed at all hours in the night? But suppose this law were to have a great effect, it can be called nothing but a temporary expedient, because it can in no way contribute toward increasing the number of our seamen, or vince of determining; but surely age may become toward rendering them more willing to enter justly contemptible, if the opportunities which into his Majesty's service. It is an observation it brings have passed away without improvement, made by Bacon upon the laws passed in Henry and vice appears to prevail when the passions VII.'s reign, that all of them were calculated have subsided. The wretch who, after having for futurity as well as the present time. This seen the consequences of a thousand errors, conshowed the wisdom of his councils; I wish I tinues still to blunder, and whose age has only could say so of our present. We have for some added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object years thought of nothing but expedients for of either abhorrence or contempt, and deserves getting rid of some present inconvenience by not that his grey hairs should secure him from running ourselves into a greater. The ease or insult. Much more, sir, is he to be abhorred, convenience of posterity was never less thought who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from of, I believe, than it has been of late years. I virtue, and becomes more wicked with less temptawish I could see an end of these temporary tion; who prostitutes himself for money which expedients; for we have been pursuing them so he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his long that we have almost undone our country life in the ruin of his country. But youth, sir, and overturned our Constitution. Therefore, sir, is not my only crime; I have been accused of I shall be for leaving this clause out of the bill, acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may and every other clause relating to it. The bill either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a will be of some service without them, and when dissimulation of my real sentiments, and an we have passed it, we may then go into a com- adoption of the opinions and language of anmittee to consider of some lasting methods for other man. increasing our stock of seamen, and for encouraging them upon all occasions to enter into his Majesty's service. [In consequence of these remarks, all the clauses relating to search-warrants were ultimately struck out of the bill. His speech on this occasion produced an answer from Mr H. Walpole, who in the course of it said: "Formidable sounds and furious declamation, confident assertions and lofty periods, may affect the young and inexperienced; and perhaps the honourable gentleman may have contracted his habits of oratory by conversing more with those of his own age than with such as have had more opportunities of acquiring knowledge, and more successful methods of communicating their sentiments." Mr Walpole added some expressions such as vehemence of gesture, theatrical emotion, etc., which he applied to Mr Pitt's manner of speaking. As soon as he sat down Mr Pitt rose, and made the following reply, which, although it has had the misfortune of being turned into Johnsonese by Dr Johnson, who wrote it out from what was reported to him, yet contains the general sentiments expressed.] In the first sense, sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned to be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age, or modelled by experience. If any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity entrench themselves, nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment-age, which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their cenThe heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon sure. REPLY OF LORD CHATHAM WHEN AT. public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at TACKED BY HORATIO WALPOLE.* SIR,-The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume the pro * Delivered March 6, 1741. whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect them in their villainy, and whoever may partake of their plunder. And if the honourable gentle own. They protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your defence; have exerted a valour, amid their constant and labo no danger of indecency from the most licentious tongues. For what calumny can be more atrocious, what reproach more severe, than that of speaking with regard to anything but truth.rious industry, for the defence of a country Order may sometimes be broken by passion or inadvertency, but will hardly be re-established by a monitor like this, who cannot govern his own passions while he is restraining the impetuosity of others. Happy would it be for mankind if every one knew his own province. We should not then see the same man at once a criminal and a judge; nor would this gentleman assume the right of dictating to others what he has not learned himself. That I may return in some degree the favour he intends me, I will advise him never hereafter to exert himself on the subject of order; but whenever he feels inclined to speak on such occasions, to remember how he has now succeeded, and condemn in silence what his censures will never amend. ON AN ADDRESS TO THE THRONE, IN WHICH THE RIGHT OF TAXING [During the Grenville administration between 1763-65, the plan for levying taxes on the American colonies was brought forward in the shape of the Stamp Act, which was passed on the 22d March 1765. Charles Townsend spoke against the Americans as "children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence, and protected by our arms," etc. Colonel Barré was strongly opposed to it, and said in reply: "They planted by your care? No! Your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and, among others, to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle and, I will take it upon me to say, the most formidable of any people on earth; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their native land from the hands of those who should have been their friends. They nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of them! As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some members of this House-sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon themmen promoted to the highest seats of justice, some of whom, to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their * A Speech delivered in the House of Commons, Jannary 14, 1766. whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior yielded all its little savings to your emolument. And, believe me-remember I this day told you so that same spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first will accompany them still. But prudence forbids me to say more. God knows I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat. What I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me in general knowledge and experience the respectable body of this House may be, I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant with that country. The people are, I believe, as truly loyal as any subjects the king has, but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them if they should ever be violated." The The colonies rose in open resistance. close of 1765, and Parliament was summoned on news of this resistance reached England at the the 17th of December. The plan of the ministry was to repeal the Stamp Act, but, in accordance with the king's wishes, to re-assert (in doing so) the right of Parliament to tax the colonies. Against this course Pitt took his stand; and when the address was made in answer to the king's speech, he spoke as follows on the subject of American taxation.] MR SPEAKER,-I came to town but to-day. 1 was a stranger to the tenor of his Majesty's speech and the proposed address till I heard them read in this House. Unconnected and unconsulted, I have not the means of information. I am fearful of offending through mistake, and therefore beg to be indulged with a second reading of the proposed address. [The address being read, Mr Pitt went on:] I commend the king's speech, and approve of the address in answer, as it decides nothing, every gentleman being left at perfect liberty to take such a part concerning America as he may afterward see fit. One word only I cannot approve of an "early" is a word that does not belong to the notice the ministry have given to Parliament of the troubles in America. In a matter of such importance, the communication ought to have been immediate. I speak not now with respect to parties. I stand up in this place single and independent. As to the late ministry [turning himself to Mr Grenville, who sat within one of him], every capital measure they have taken has been entirely wrong! As to the present gentlemen, to those at least whom I have in my eye [looking at the bench where General Conway sat with the lords of the treasury], I have no objection. I have never been made a sacrifice by any of them. Their characters are fair; and I am always glad |