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of the most distinguished members of the house of peers.

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Lord Eldon began with the least obnoxious bill which took away the common-law right to traverse an information or indictment from one session to the next. A clause was very opportunely proposed by lord Holland, to limit the power of the attorney-general to suspend his informations indefinitely over the heads of those who came under his displeasure, and the concession was made by ministers with a good grace. Lord Sidmouth next stated the outline of the chief measures in contemplation. Beginning with the freedom of the press, he disclaimed a previous censorship †, but proposed that all pamphlets under a given number of sheets should be subject to the newspaper duty: that the publishers should previously enter into recognisances, or give security for the payment of all penalties; and that persons convicted a second time of a blasphemous or seditious libel should be

* See Parliamentary Debates and Annual Register.

The ministers were strongly suspected of intending to subject the press to a previous censorship, on the advice of the duke of Wellington, who wished to give Englishmen the benefit of what he found to be "a salutary control" in France. The suspicion was well founded. "It had been," said lord Sidmouth, " in consideration, but for a moment only, whether some step should not be taken preliminary to publication; but that idea was immediately discarded." The military habits and civil ignorance of the duke of Wellington may be excused; but that such a feeble human being as lord Sidmouth should dare to contemplate a censorship of the press in England, and in the nineteenth century, is almost inconceivable.

punishable by banishment or transportation. With respect to the right of meeting, he disclaimed interfering with the privilege of discussing public grievances, or petitioning the crown or either house of parliament; but proposed to enact that meetings for such purposes should be convened only upon requisition to thesheriff, borough-reeve, or other magistrate; that no stranger to the parish or place of meeting, under whatever designation, should be present; or if any stranger were detected, the magistrate might order the meeting to disperse, at the peril of the commission of felony by disobedience. He next referred to what he called the military order of movement observed by the radical reformers; and proposed that military training should be made penal, except by authority of lieutenants of counties or other magistrates. Finally, there being, he said, no doubt that the disaffected were in possession of arms, he proposed that, in what he called the disaffected districts, magistrates should have the right to enter by night or by day, forcibly or otherwise, all places suspected of containing arms, for illegal purposes, seizing such arms, and in the case of suspected persons carrying arms, to seize and detain both the arms and the individuals, with the condition of appeal to the next quarter-sessions. Lord Grey denounced these measures as a new system of government by terror and coercion.

Lord Castlereagh made an exposition in the house of commons, similar to that of lord Sidmouth in the house of lords. He was replied to by Mr. Tierney in a solemnly energetic tone.

"It may,"

said he, "be said, that I use violent language. I admit it; but I do not utter a syllable which I do not, on my honour, believe. I own myself an alarmist. I am alarmed because I must trust to men who will rely on nothing against the people but brute force. I am alarmed because an attempt is made, under false pretences, to destroy all that is valuable in the constitution, unless it be defended by the free spirit of a yet free people." These measures were passed into laws substantially as introduced by ministers, the more outrageous limiting themselves to a five years' occupation of the liberties of the people; and both houses adjourned to the 15th of February.

CHAPTER XXVII.

1820.

THE reign of George IV. bears date in name and form, rather than in fact, from 1820. It was a year of much activity and extraordinary incident in England, and of portentous movement in other countries of Europe. In England, the popular agitation of the preceding summer and autumn had materially subsided. The working manufacturers found that their restive violence only recoiled upon themselves. Privation was more patiently endured as it became more familiar; and there was some decrease of the public distress. The short and easy transition from turbulence to quiet stands a convicting and decisive fact against the alarming denunciations and despotic measures of the ministry of that day. Are Englishmen the puny timid race which, being organised by thousands, as the ministers pretended, in a conspiracy to overturn the state, would yet crouch into unresisting submission on the first show of repression or danger? Would not such a conspiracy, if it had existence, expend itself in a shock of which the explosion would be terrible? Several persons, tried in the spring of this year (1820) for their share in the Manchester and other popular meetings of the preceding sum

mer and autumn, were convicted of minor offences. No evidence appeared of the ministerial case of treasonable conspiracy.

On the 23d of January died the duke of Kent, fourth son of George III., a prince of humane and manly character, leaving behind him an infant princess, a few months old, since become heir presumptive to the crown. His complaint was pulmonary inflammation, produced by a neglected cold. On the following 28th of the same month died George III., of exhausted stamina and natural decay, without a moment of lucid faculty or physical pain to disturb his last hour. Any sketch of his character would be superfluous here. It would be but a reproduction of the passing traits scattered through the preceding pages. The public mind, too, has become better informed of his personal character and the policy of his reign. Yet is it but recently that the delusion respecting him has been even partially dispelled. The most independent English commoner, who may be designated the father of living English commoners and patriots, gave the first impulse to this reaction. It is one of the services rendered by Mr. Coke to truth and to his country. Few men have the intrepidity to launch a bold truth on the ocean of opinion.

George IV. went through the usual formalities on his accession to the throne; and the ministers of the regent, having resigned their seals of office to the king, received them back as a matter of course. The ceremonial of his accession was scarcely concluded when he was attacked with an inflammation,

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