share of talent, he had applied it to the worst purposes. He had thrust himself forward every where: he had even gone out of his way to attract popularity: he had put himself at the head of mobs, rebels whom he had instigated to rapine and violence; he had put himself at the head of a new school of rebels, infidels, and blasphemers. He had kept the country in a constant state of alarm, until his course was happily at length arrested by the strong arm of the law. Since he, with those incendiaries Wooler and Carlile, had been safely imprisoned, order and tranquillity had been re-established. He trusted that the result of that night's discussion would not afford a hope to the friends of confusion and anarchy that the public mind would again be poisoned by the seditious artifices of a Wooler, or by the odious blasphemies of a Carlile. Mr. Hobhouse, from the temperate opening of the hon. under secretary, had not at all anticipated the heat and violence of his conclusion. If such men as Wooler and Carlile endeavoured to inflame the country, such men as the hon. gentlemen and his friends did their utmost to inflame the House, to excite its passions against an unfortunate individual, by mixing up his name with those with whom he was not in any way connected. In this attempt the hon. gentleman had shown far more skill than fairness, though the portion of skill, judging at least by its effect, was indeed scanty enough. He begged the hon. gentleman to show him, if he could, what Wooler or his "sedi tious artifices" had to do with this debate, or how Carlile and his "odious blasphemies" affected the question before the House? He had heard of no blasphemy of Mr. Hunt's, no impiety, no infidelity. He was not so well acquainted with the writings of Mr. Hunt as the gentlemen opposite seemed to be; but there certainly was nothing of these imputations against him there; there was no such crime on the record, and he protested against the associating Mr. Hunt's name with invidious topics, merely for the purpose of diverting them from the consideration of his claims on their justice. The hon. gentleman had failed to show that the statement of his hon. colleague was in any respect exaggerated. In endeavouring to discredit the testimony of Mr. Hunt, the hon. gentleman had discredited the commissioners. Every thing which the hon. gentleman alleged in defence of the magistrates and gaoler, had been set aside by the commissioners. Every charge against the gaoler and magistrates, made by Mr. Hunt, had been substantially ad. mitted to have been proved. The hon. gentleman had gone out of his way to give them a lecture on adultery. He trusted he had as much love for morality as the hon. gentleman. Certain it was, that the friends of liberty in that House had much more need to be pure in their morals than gentlemen on the other side, as their conduct was more closely watched, and was commented upon with malignity, with (as an hon. gentleman had suggested to him) paid malignity. But he recommended to the hon. gentleman to be cautious on that topic, as, when he uttered censures on immorality in general, he knew not how high his shafts might reach. His condemnation might affect persons very dif ferent from the defenceless individual whom he had dragged forward on the floor of the House. The intercourse of Mr. Hunt with Mrs. Vince was no doubt to be considered scandalous; but who were the persons who complained of it? The magistrates who had permitted an improper intercourse to exist between the male and female prisoners, and Mr. Bridle, who, there was good reason to suspect, had carried on an improper intercourse with a female prisoner. How, then, did the hon. gentleman pour all the thunders of his morality on Mr. Hunt alone? The magistrates, however, were not so confident in their morality as the hon. gentleman, for they had withdrawn their prohibition, and Mrs. Vince was now allowed to visit Mr. Hunt. The hon. gentleman had relied on the fact, that Mr. Hunt had thought differently of the gaol at the beginning of his imprisonment. But, the hon. gentleman had not told them the date of the letter on which he relied. The letter was written in July. Mr. Hunt had only been committed at the end of May, and it was to be observed that in the summer months the inconveniences of which Mr. Hunt complained were not perceptible. If Mr. Hunt, after that short residence in the gaol, thought it a place in which a man could be happy, he was as much deceived as to it, as the hon. gentleman who had not been there, or the members who had formerly come forward to vouch for its good management, after what they had thought an examination, and the county members, who had seen it hundreds of times, and who were astonished at the enormities which this investigation had brought to light. Let the House forget the lectures of the under secretary, and look only at the report of the commissioners. The commissioners said, that Mr. Hunt's cell must suffer for want of sun and air; and when it was considered how trifling these ingredients of human existence were, they would know what to think of his situation. But the magistrates, though they would not allow him sun or air, gave him some. thing to lie on when he was sick-a feather bed. Now this munificent gift, purchased at the expense of the county, and dwelt on by the hon. gentleman, was not thought worthy of notice by the commissioners who perhaps thought it better to provide for continued health than for inevitable sickness. But not only had a feather-bed been given to Mr. Hunt, but a bell to ring up a gentleman in livery-one of the prisoners, with his coat turned inside out to attend him. But this indulgence was thought too much for a person of so determined a character of wickedness as Mr. Hunt, and the bell was taken away. But even this great, though transitory happiness, was not mentioned by the commissioners, who did not seem to imagine that the evil of a want of sun and air could be effectually mitigated, either by the feather-bed or the bell. It was not to be contended, that because Mr. Hunt had been sentenced to imprisonment he was to be treated as a common felon. There were certain cases of imprisonment in which allowances were to be made to the prisoners. The under secretary of state might be safely appealed to on such a point. The three successive sheriffs of Somerset had taken the same view as he had. The court of King's-bench also declared, that no addition should be made to the suffering of confinement. The hon. gentleman had allowed that Mr. Hunt had been made the subject of irritating contradictory orders, but he had said, that Mr. Hunt had derived an advantage from them. How this could be he could not conceive. If Mr. Hunt had at once known what he had to suffer, he might have braced himself up to the endurance of it; but he had at at one time been treated with some mildness-at others plunged in the extremest severities. The hon. gentleman had conceded much of the case. He had allowed the enormities-he had allowed the cruelties perpetrated in the gaol. But, after stigmatizing in their proper terms the enormities of the gaol management, had he no gratitude to him who had brought these enormities to light? He (Mr. H.) could consider Mr. Hunt in no other light, in this instance, than as a public benefactor. He had no reason to regard Mr. Hunt with personal favour: he considered him merely in his public conduct in the investigation of abuses. The hon. gentleman had misrepresented his hon. colleague, in his remarks on Mr. Hunt's sentence. All he had said was, the two years and a half imprisonment was punishment enough for an anomalous crime-not known to be a crime even by the prosecutorsscarcely contemplated as a crime by the jury-an offence which had made it necessary to send the jury back. The hon. gentleman had said, that so much respect should be paid to the tribunals, that their sentences once delivered should be exempted from reflection or censure. He (Mr. H.) had not read the constitutional law of the country. It was one of the most useful duties of representatives of the people, to shew judges that they were not to be exempt from censure even on their high seats, when the language of revenge spoke in their sentences; and if there was to be liberty in England, not liberty which was merely to round a sentence, but to form the happiness of a nation, this scrutiny must still be exercised over the whole conduct of judges, but especially over the sentences of judges on criminals of state. To those who thought the character and talents of Mr. Hunt full of danger, he would say, that the danger would be augmented by continuing what the mass of people now considered an unjust punishment. On those who did not consider Mr. Hunt as dangerous, as well as those who did-on all who knew what he had done, and what he had suffered, he called as men and gentlemen, and (by a name which involved still higher duties), as Christians, to agree to the motion. Mr. Dickinson thought, that he could not better begin the observations he intended to make, than by referring to an observation that had been made on this subject, by his worthy friend, the member for Norwich, who had said, that at the commencement of the Coldbath-fields examination, the magistrates had persisted with pertinacity in defending their gaoler. He wished the conduct of the magistrates of Somerset to be contrasted with this. On the first symptom of accusation, they, | could not last long. As he had never together with the sheriff, appointed a heard of this, he with difficulty believed committee of their own, to investigate it to be a fact; and he would now repeat the abuses, the conclusion of which was what he had said on a former occasion, the dismissal of the gaoler and the sur- that from a long acquaintance with Dr. geon. Of the surgeon's general character, Colston, he believed, although he might, from long acquaintance, he could bear tes- like others, sometimes mistake the nature timony, though he could say nothing with of his duties, yet he believed him incapaeffect to mitigate the sending the blister ble of a deliberate act of cruelty. The as a punishment. The hon. baronet had nature of the solitary confinement of Mr. spoken with considerable severity of a Hunt was this; he had, above the other misdemeanant, who he said had been prisoners, the power of walking three appointed as the companion of Mr. Hunt hours and a half in the day in the timeon his going into prison. Any gentleman yard-a space longer than the length of who would read the evidence would see the House of Commons from its outward that there was some reason for this walls; he had two times-men to attend asperity. He would refer to the examin- him as servants; and in other respects he ation of Wyatt, who was a witness in the was like the other prisoners. This could true sense of the word, for he was only not be termed solitary, nor any thing like convicted of an assault, whereas most of it; and yet he was ready to say, that he the other witnesses, especially the one believed it a more rigid imprisonment against Dr. Colston, was a convicted than was intended for him by the court felon; and unless he was pardoned his of King's-bench! We had heard, that a testimony could not be received in a feather-bed had been afforded him only court of justice. But it appeared in p. 335, on his first entrance. In fact, the magisthat Wyatt had been his servant, and not trates had studiously endeavoured to make his companion, for nine months; and in his apartments comfortable; and, if it the way in which his services were re- was a question at this moment in a court jected, and the way in which the relation of justice, he would not hesitate to call of master and servant was concluded was, the hon. baronet to prove, that his upper by Mr. Hunt contriving with Hobbs, a apartment was as airy an apartment as turnkey, to have him placed in solitary a man need have; that his lower apartconfinement for twenty-four hours; and ment must of necessity partake of this for what?-because he came one day good air; and that, upon the whole, barrsuddenly into his room, and found his ing the gloom of a prison, his apartments ward, Miss Gray, sitting upon his knee. were such as a man sending his son for This produced great anger on the part of the first time to the University would be Mr. Hunt at the moment, and ended in delighted to find in a college. But, in the punishment he had stated: the history order that the lower apartment might be of this transaction was in the evidence of made more airy, he had lately, with the Wyatt, p. 335. Much had been said of other visiting magistrates, visited the the cruelty practised on Mary Cuer, and gaol, and had ordered that the cross walls which he did not intend to palliate; but might be lowered as far as was consistent this he knew, that the attention of the with safety; and, as Mr. Hunt had unvisiting magistrates was not drawn to it, fortunately contracted a complaint in his and that the attention of nobody was eyes, that green blinds might be furnished, drawn to it, till two years after the trans- to give a more commodious shade to the action; and there seemed to be a good room. Nobody could lament more than deal of variation in the testimony of this he did the vacillations that had taken witness. The hon. baronet had mentioned place in the councils of the magistrates two facts, that had that night for the first of Somerset; but the magistrates, nevertime met his ears: one was a compromise theless, had been consistent in their between the gaoler and the magistrate orders, and the sheriff being of a different for his retirement, and on which he opinion gave more the appearance of thought there must be some mistake; for inconsistency than was, in fact, the case. he had been a party to his dismissal, and There were no signed rules; and therehad never heard of any compromise. The fore the magistrates thought that they other was, that Dr. Colston had denied could not follow a better direction than admittance to Mr. Hunt's sister when the rules as they were, and these they she was in a state of health in which she applied to Mr. Hunt; and whether they "pœna ad paucos, ut metus ad omnes perveniat." He believed it had had its good effect in checking such meetings; and as he hoped the dread of a similar punishment would remain on the minds of the disaffected, he should oppose the motion [Hear!]. Mr. Peel said, that the strong impression' he felt, that this particular subject was not fit for the consideration of that House, was a sufficient guarantee, that he would not trouble them with many observations. He felt that he might almost put it to the House, whether, in the course of the hon. baronet's speech, he had laid down any thing like sufficient grounds to induce parliament to interfere with the exclusive prerogative of the Crown, and to depart from that which had been the unvaried practice of the House ever since the Re ought to have been applied to him or not, there still existed two opinions. But the magistrates knew that they, as a body, were the "custos morum" of the county, and they felt the impropriety of permitting the bad example to be introduced into the gaol, of a cohabitation with a person not his wife, who, notoriously for many years, had been in the habit of living with him. He was the first political offender that had been placed in Ilchester gaol, and it was well thought that no leniency ought to have been shown him on this account; for it was known that political offences were often more mischievous in their results than others, and that they were so contemplated in the law; for the highest offence of that kind, that of high treason, was visited by peculiar punishments. For himself, and a minority of the magistrates, he was of a different opi-volution? That practice was, not to exnion, and perhaps he was guided by a law press any opinion as to the continuation maxim that he had read in the former of a punishment awarded to an individual part of his life, which was, that prisons by a court of justice. On the propriety were "ad conservandos homines, non ad of adhering to that wise and rational puniendos;" and besides this, he was practice, unless compelled to depart from more inclined to look generally on the it by some overwhelming necessity, there subject, and to be governed by the prac- could be but one opinion. But, if there tices of other gaols with regard to this were one man who, more than another, description of offenders. But the autho- ought to entertain the opinion that this rity of Mr. Justice Best silenced his opi- practice should not be departed from, the nion; and after that he owned that he hon. baronet was that individual. With thought it in vain, and he had made no his avowed opinions of that House-with further effort for the unrestricted impri- his recorded complaints of its encroachsonment of Mr. Hunt. If the magistrates ments on the peculiar province of the had acted with impropriety, there was an Crown-he conceived that the hon. baroappeal to the highest tribunal in this net ought to be the last man to propose a country. If it was a new offence, the precedent, which, if once established court of King's-bench had the power, if would arrogate to that House a power, it chose to exercise it, of speedy and than which none could be conceived more summary proceeding to bring it before fatal to the constitution; since it would them. Nobody questioned its impartial have the effect of enlarging the functions distribution of justice: it was peculiarly of the democratic part of that constitution watchful over all inferior tribunals. The far beyond its useful and natural boundary. magistracy of the counties were one of its The question was simply this-was there, principal cares: they there knew what in this case, circumstances of that overcountenance to receive for the perform-whelming nature, which should tempt the ance of their duties, and what punishment for their neglect. With regard to his vote that night, it would be against the motion of the hon. baronet. He felt actuated by no feeling of hostility to Mr. Hunt. He lamented the necessity of inflicting on any man two years and a half's imprisonment. But Mr. Hunt had been guilty of a most dangerous offence -that of assembling, with a bad design, an immense number of people. The principle of his punishment was, to deter others from committing a similar offence VOL. VII. House to interfere with this most important prerogative-that should induce them to meddle with that peculiar attribute of the Crown, which was wholly alienated from the powers of that House, and was unconnected with the ends for which it was instituted? Before he applied himself to the particular case now before the House, he would offer a remark or two on the observation with which the hon. baronet had prefaced his speech. The hon. baronet alluded to a communication which he had had some time ago,, D 1 with him relative to the punishment which | had been awarded to certain individuals who were apprehended on suspicion of a highway robbery. The hon. baronet had said, that he (Mr. P.) must not consider it as arising from want of courtesy, if he did not pay him a compliment for the course he had pursued on that occasion. Good God! could any one suppose that he expected a compliment on such an occasion? He should consider it as the most severe satire, if it could be imagined that he looked forward to a compliment because he had discharged a duty. The hon. baronet had stated to him the case of two individuals who were suffering punishment on account of a highway robbery. But on examining the facts of the case, their conduct assumed the character rather of a culpable frolic than of a felonious design. When acquainted with all the circumstances, he had taken the necessary steps for remitting the remainder of the sentence, and the individuals were liberated. He claimed no merit for this act, which, as he before said, was an act of duty. The exercise of mercy ought to be as prompt and as pure as the visitation of justice. Where good reasons were advanced for the extension of mercy, he would immediately attend to them; but he never would consent to recommend any one on the ground of personal favour. But the inference which the hon. baronet attempted to draw from this transaction was, that the system which he (Mr. P.) was anxious to adopt would lead him to call for the remission of Mr. Hunt's sentence. In the transaction to which the hon. baronet alluded, he had been influenced by a sense of public duty alone; and if he opposed the present motion, his opposition sprang from the same source. After having fully considered the subject, the strongest conviction was impressed on his mind, that nothing could be more inexpedient, nothing could be more fatal, than that the House should agree to this address. They would, if they allowed this motion to be carried, establish a most dangerous precedent. Who was Mr. Hunt, and for what crime had he been committed to this gaol? The hon. baronet had quoted several writers to show that his offence was inter minora crimina; but he must look to the intentions of Mr. Hunt, if he wished to discover the particular crime for which that individual was punished. The duty of inquiring into the motives of Mr. Hunt was not assumed voluntarily by him. That duty was imposed on him, by the hon. baronet's motion. The hon. baronet had put him on his trial-he had called on him to state to the House on what grounds he refused to recommend a mitigation of Mr. Hunt's sentence. His reason was recorded in the criminal jurisprudence of the country, where it was entered, that Henry Hunt and others were found guilty of "assembling with unlawful banners, and in an unlawful manner." [Cheering from the Opposition benches.] Was it possible that such a statement could be treated with contempt? Was it possible that a meeting which assembled with unlawful banners, for the purpose of inciting the liege subjects of the king to hatred and contempt of his government, could be treated with levity? If it were so, let that circumstance operate as a warning to the House not to agree to this motion. Let the House well consider the consequences before they acquiesced in an address which told the country that the charge brought against Mr. Hunt was so slight, and his conduct so admirable, that the Commons of England were induced to interfere, and to call on the Crown for a mitigation of punishment. Was there any man who had read what had occurred in Lancaster within the last fortnight, without being convinced of the magnitude of the offence? Did any man see, in the full consideration which the subject then received-in the perfect establishment of all that had been stated on the ministerial side of the House-in the complete refutation of what had been called the Manchester massacre-did any man see, in these circumstances, the least reason for supposing, that the meeting was an innocent one? Had gentlemen read those proceedings? Had they, professing as they did a respect for the decision of a jury, considered the verdict which was returned by the jury at Lancaster? Were not the most decisive proofs given of the previous drilling-of the manner in which the parties marched-of their inflammatory banners-and of expressions which left no doubt as to the almost avowed object of the meeting? Were they, after such evidence, to be cajoled into a belief, that the object of the meeting was peaceable-that it was only assembled to petition parliament for a redress of grievances? Would they suffer themselves to believe this, and allow the constitution to be |