clearly proved, that those swords were sent to be sharpened several days before any intimation was given that a meeting was to be held. Another hon. and learned gentleman, who bore a high, and, he believed, a well-earned reputation in his profession, whom they were to hear to morrow, had promised to prove the lawfulness of the meeting. With regard to his speech in expectancy, he (lord Castle reagh) had a right to take it on his side of the question; for if that hon. and learn ed gentleman had felt any difficulty on the subject, the recent decision of the House must, he should conceive, have removed it. This, however, he would maintain, that ifany man could still doubt, whether or not meetings such as he had described were legal or illegal, it was high time for parliament to take care that this embarrassment should be felt no more, regarding what was and what was not the law upon the subject.

He would now call the attention of the House to the measures necessary to meet the evil. In framing the proposed remedies, the first object was, to suit the characteristics of the meetings against which they were to be directed. His first enactment would therefore be, the limitation of numbers. The second was intended to prevent persons residing in distant districts from attending meetings in districts where they did not reside. The third was, to prevent the existence of simultaneous meetings, for the House would recollect, that they had it in evidence, in the letter of general Byng, that this plan, though defeated by a schism among the leaders, had been seriously entertained, in order to divide the military power, and thus give the reformers a better opportunity of making a trial of their physical force. These were the three grand points on which he would stand, and for which be would now use a few short, but, as he thought, decisive arguments. Nobody would say, that any bill could effectually meet the evil which did not limit the numbers; and nobody would assert, that by limiting the numbers, they were trenching upon any substantial right of the people: for if deliberation were the object of their meetings, the great numbers in which they had recently assembled were not calculated to aid it. He had no wish to prevent them from assembling, when deliberation was really the object which they had in view; he had no wish to put an end to those meetings which were the peculiar boast of England, and which, till

modern times, had been productive of so much benefit and advantage. In latter times, however, these meetings had been of a different kind, and seemed, from the manner in which they were called, and in which they were conducted, to have been borrowed from another country. They had been held under the sanction of the laws to consider of the means best calculated to overturn, by physical force, the very laws under which they met. Far was it from him to call on the House to do any thing that would operate against the ancient and sacred right of the people to petition, under the protection and with the sanc tion of the magistrates, or the other constituted authorities of the land. He would, on the contrary, give increased facilities to this mode of petitioning. But meetings not called under such authorities, convened by men without character, rank, or fortune, were, in all probability called for improper objects, and therefore were a fit subject for the animadversion of the law, and it was but reasonable that they should assemble under circumstances that gave a sort of prima facie security against outrage; for the House might rely on it, that unless we could reconcile the exercise of our liberties with the preservation of the public peace, our liberties would inevitably perish, and society come to a speedy dissolution. With respect to the local and numerical modes of regulating the constitution of meetings, it was obvious, that when they came to the extent, in point of numbers, to which meetings ought to be allowed to go, it was impossible to fix any precise limit. An hon. gentleman on the other side had said, that meetings ought to be of such a description, as that the civil power would be sufficient to preserve peace, in order to prevent the indignity of calling in the military power. He could assure the hon. gentleman, however, that meetings could not be reduced to such an extent without chilling all deliberation. Besides, nothing could be more calculated to embarrass magistrates than such a limitation of meetings. Therefore he would propose what would effect the object, without encountering those difficulties or objections. From his proposition he would except county meetings, regularly convened, meetings called by corporate bodies, by grand juries, or by five magistrates. With these exceptions every meeting must be preceded by a notice, for a certain number of days to the magistrates of the intention to call such a meet

ing, and must be within the parish of the persons assembling; the natural place for deliberation where they could meet with safety, and without loss of time. In reference to the impropriety and danger of allowing immense multitudes to assemble in the manner which had been recently witnessed, he would read the sentiments of a noble lord, who always looked with the greatest jealousy on every thing that might affect the liberty of the subject, and who could not be suspected of a disposition to curtail any popular right. Lord Erskine, in a publication lately given by him to the world (the Defence of the Whigs), applied the following observations to the public grievance of tumultuary meetings: but holding sacred, as I do, the never-to-be-surrendered right of British subjects to assemble peaceably, to express to each other and to the government of the country their grievances and complaints, yet I feel no difficulty in saying, that nothing can be more obviously useless and mischievous than the assembling of immense multitudes, not in their own communities or neighbourhoods, but by moving upon other thronged and agitated districts. Such meetings, however legal they may be, cannot but be dangerous to the industrious poor, collected at a distance from their own homes, only to disturb the industry of others, aggravating the sufferings of poverty by the interruption of employment, by the hazard of fatal accidents, and the probable temptation to crime." He did not think it necessary to labour this part of the subject farther. In confining meetings to their respective parishes, it was proposed to make it a misdemeanor for any person, not resident in the parish, to attend a meeting in it. Two objects would be effected by this regulation. But before mentioning them he would remark, that some parishes consisted of more than one large township, under distinct overseers, and were so populous, as to require farther limitations as to public meetings. There were in the country about 30 parishes that were extraordinary populous, that was, they contained a population beyond 20,000 souls. No parish whose numbers were under that population was restricted from a meeting of the whole parish. But with respect to the parishes whose population exceeded that number, a power would be given to quarter ses sions, who would not be apt to abuse such a power, to divide them into districts, of which each should contain a population

not exceeding 10,000. By this arrange. ment, it was manifest that there was no intention on the part of ministers to reduce meetings in such a manner as to destroy their popular character. They would, on the contrary, become better fitted for the purposes of discussion, at the same time that they would cease to be attended with danger. One hundred thousand persons would no longer assemble, and those individuals who reduced grievance-making into a trade, would no longer have it in their power to travel about the land and poison the minds of men who had not been aware but that they lived under the mildest government, and had not known that their greatest enemy was the House of Commons. The second object was, to prevent the distraction of the attention of magistrates by vast numbers of simultaneous meetings, not perhaps known to them till the very time of meeting, and then often corresponding with other public meetings, fairs, or markets. For that purpose, it would be required of the persons calling meetings to give notice of their intention six days beforehand to the magistrate, in order that he should have time to consider. The magistrate should also be invested with the power, within four days of that fixed for assembling, to change both the time and place, if he should find it proper, so as to defeat any plan which might have been formed to create confusion. The tumultuary character of meetings would thus be removed, and the system of itinerant orators destroyed. Another measure was one with respect to which, he apprehended, there could be but one sentiment in that House; it was, to put a stop to a practice which never had been British, but was borrowed from the worst times of the French revolution. None would be allowed to attend those meetings either armed or in martial array, nor with those symbols which threatened confusion and danger to the peaceable part of the community; and which presented the appearance of an assemblage demanding rather than petitioning for a redress of grievances. It was the law of this country, that a man might possess arms for the protection of his house; but he felt a persuasion that none would contend, that every person was intitled by law to go forth armed. The principle of laying on certain restrictions in this respect was not unknown to our law. That which he proposed was in fact nothing more than a declaratory law, but he

exempt from the law of newspapers, did for a great length of time continue to publish on stamped paper. The price of Cobbett's paper, for instance, had been ten-pence; but suddenly it was published without a stamp and sold for two-pence. What he now proposed was, to follow up the intentions of the Stamp act-to follow to its legitimate conclusion the law as it now stood with respect to newspapers, and while adopting a means to guard against offences of the press, to guard also against frauds committed not merely against the revenue but against the respectable newspaper pressto place the publications in question on the same footing with newspapers. Without now entering into any general definition he might state that it was proposed that any thing of the nature of pamphlets or newspapers, and not exceeding two sheets, containing either news, intelligence, or political discussion, or the description of political and religious subjects, in short, all subjects which might be considered as political, should be held as coming within the description of newspapers, and subjected to the same duty. Such a mea. sure was necessary to prevent the respectable circulation of newspapers from being defeated, and to render the circulation of dangerous publications more expensive. Such was the first regulation which he had to propose. The second regulation was also a principle already established and recognised by law, particularly with regard to this class of publications. The law now declared that the names of publishers in general, not merely of publications of the description of newspapers, but of publications of all sizes, should be given, and that every publication should be con. sidered unlawful which had not the name of the publisher on the face of it, for the purpose of making him amenable to justice. But that regulation was at present rendered completely nugatory by a practice which had been adopted, by which the individual who did the mischief was enabled to escape from the consequences of it. When it was wished to do any act which would draw down the animadversion of the law, the mode adopted for that purpose was to put forward some wretched hack, who for a small hire would run all risk of punishment. Now, if any man would run the risk of being lodged in gaol for a trifling sum, while the individual who was the real author of the offence ran no risk whatever, the object of the law was

publish his sentiments without any previous investigation into their nature, and without any thing in the shape of a censorship or restraint upon individual discre tion. In the second place, nothing should be done to affect the trial by jury as applied to the question of libel in which the jury had the decision of both law and fact. There was no intention to affect the tribunals appointed by law for the trial of libels, or to prevent any man from publishing his sentiments in the first instance; but measures ought to be adopted to cut off the pestilent abuses of the press, because nothing could lower a free press more than such abuses. The first part of the measure he would propose, was one to which no serious opposition could be made, because, in his opinion, it involved no new principle, but left the law in the same situation as before. It went to protect that law, and to punish and destroy an abuse which had already been long in operation--he knew not precisely how long -but one from which he thought every mischief arose. This abuse had operated greatly to defraud the revenue, and greatly to the prejudice of the respectable persons who were engaged in the conducting of newspapers. If this evasion were to be tolerated, it would have the effect of throwing all the periodical press into the hands of men who had neither property nor the means of procuring security, and enable them to inundate the country with poison, at a price so humble, that no individual, however necessitous, would be unable to purchase it. The law, therefore, which he meant to propose, was, that the political publications, now published without a stamp duty, should be hereafter subjected to a duty like other newspapers. By the stamp laws all advertisements inserted in newspapers were liable to pay a certain tax, consequently the general stamp duty to which newspapers were subjected, had reference more to the other matter contained in them than to advertisementsnamely, to the accounts of events and comments on these events, matter of a similar nature to that contained in the publications which, in point of duty, he now wished to assimilate to them. It was also to be taken into account, that as the political pamphlets now circulated were of a small size, they could be furnished at a much cheaper rate than newspapers. Indeed, the authors of some of those publications which had done the most mis chief, so far from considering themselves