dryness. The choice was-dryness and darkness, or light and wet. He had heard hon. gentlemen say a good deal upon the comforts of this place. Some gentlemen weighed the bread; others had tasted the meat; everything, according to them, was very comfortable in this prison. He wished some of the members of the house had tasted a night's lodging there.

He then proceeded to take notice of the condition of all other prisoners in comparison with that of those who are charged with high treason, or rather with the suspicion of it. If a person was charged with any crime, even murder, he had his accuser brought before him, and, if not convicted, he had his day of relief; but here there was no day of relief, and it was enough to be committed on suspicion only. He declined entering into the question of the suspension of the habeas corpus act, but now that it was suspended he thought it behoved the house to be more than usually jealous of the power of ministers, to see that they did not abuse the great power that was put into their hands, to check which, nothing was so seasonable or proper as inquiry.

Here Mr. Sheridan took notice of the case of the persons of Manchester, who had been charged, and against whom there was not, he said, the least foundation of any crime; they had, however, it appeared, been kept three days in the week to be fed on bread and water. He asked, whether this was not most intolerable in a country calling itself free? and all these accusations made, God only knew by whom, not upon oath, nor under any sanction, except the will of ministers.

He could not agree to the resolutions, because, even upon the face of the report, there was evidence that neither the jailor, the magistrates, nor the committee had done their duty. He hoped, however, the house would. It was admitted that the printed regulations had been hung up, and the journal was not regularly kept. Here then, by the omission of the first, the only regulation which could ensure justice or redress to the prisoners, was taken away. Such was the vigilance of the magistrates, that this regulation, so long neglected, they never once thought it necessary to enforce; and if this was not imposition in the governor and negligence in the magistrates, he knew not to what conduct these descriptions would apply. The keeping of the journal was wholly neglected. The clerk examined on this point

said, "that material occurrences only were inserted in it ;" and it nevertheless appeared, that during the three months in which had taken place the visits of Sir Francis Burdett, the conspiracy to murder the governor, the telegraphic communications, and all the enormities complained of, none of these were deemed material occurrences to be inserted in this journal, or log-book. Was it possible then to assent to a resolution which declared the attention of the magistrates to be exemplary? As to the declaration of the grand jury, it was ridiculous to consider it as decisive. Their visits took place always at stated times, and then no doubt care would be taken to have the bread weight, the meat of the best, and the cells in good order, while all those we could complain would be kept out of the way, and thus the grand jury might pass through these charnel-houses of misery without perceiving the corruption and the wretchedness they contained. Such evidence as this would not satisfy his mind that all was well. It was in evidence that Aris had borrowed money from prisoners. The gross impropriety of this was reprobated in the strongest terms by an hon. baronet (Sir William Young), and the oppressions to which it might lead strongly represented: yet why did not the committee itself bear witness to this crying abuse? Why was it left for individual members tardily to express even their particular sentiments only on the renewal of this discussion? A practice of so dangerous a nature ought to have been stigmatised by the committee, and the omission he could not but consider as a culpable negligence. What horror must be entertained of that power of injustice and oppression, when men were compelled to offer their money to appease its fury? Forced loans had commonly been understood to mean what was taken from the lender against his consent; but here, to shield them from oppression, the lender was compelled to force the borrower to receive the loan. After this instance of tyranny, even upon the mode of inquiry prosecuted by the committee; after this suspicion, nay, this damning proof of mismanagement and corruption, was he not warranted in saying that the committee, in everlooking, or failing to follow it out, had not done their duty? As to the first resolution-"That the situation of the prison was airy and dry," he had no objection to agree to it, and would likewise agree to testify that it stood in the parish of Clerkenwell, but he was not prepared to say that it fully an

swered the purpose of its establishment. Mr. Howard's authority had been quoted to justify its damp narrow cells, and its solitary confinement. But Mr. Howard meant this confinement to be limited only to persons whose lives were forfeited to the laws, whose punishment was commuted. Neither did Mr. Howard recommend that solitary confinement to be extended farther than what tended to reformation, and it was in his plan to have the cells warmed with tubes passing through them. What would he have thought, however, to see persons on suspicion of high treason, probably without information on oath, exposed to a treatment like this, so nearly approaching to torture? It had been remarked that formerly, when numbers of persons had been arrested at Sheffield and elsewhere, the good treatment they experienced had convinced them that the constitution which practised such lenity could not be incurably defective. But what would be the sentiment diffused through the country, when the prisoner wrote to his starving wife and family that he himself was exposed to sufferings still more rigorous than theirs? He had one observation more to make, and it was to submit to the attorney-general a question of great importance. He contended that the warrants under which many persons were arrested were illegal, and that ministers would be obliged to apply for a bill of indemnity. What he wished to ask was, whether the suspension of the habeas-corpus gave a power to ministers to arrest persons whom they would not previously have been entitled to arrest? Without information on oath, were they entitled to send men to prison, or were they merely authorised to postpone the trials of men whom it would be dangerous, or inconvenient, to bring to trial within the ordinary time prescribed by law? If a bill of indemnity should be required, it would be a strong argument against it, should ministers have abused the power so obtained, by exercising upon persons detained a rigour beyond the necessity of the case, and foreign from the genius and spirit of the laws of England. Upon the whole, he thought that his hon. friend had brought forward charges which deserved inquiry, and the defects on the face of the report justified its recommitment.

Towards the close of the debate Mr. Sheridan rose again.

Mr. Sheridan hoped the house would permit him to offer a few words in explanation of the question which he had put to

the learned gentleman (the attorney-general), as the learned gentleman had most undoubtedly misunderstood him; for he ascribed to him a very improper question, in supposing that he meant to ask whether persons who should have been thus imprisoned on suspicion of treason, and thus cruelly treated during their imprisonment, might not afterwards be entitled to bring an action against his Majesty's secretary of state? Such a question, indeed, would have been improper and idle in the extreme; for how could it be supposed that a miserable wretch, who was, both himself and his family, totally ruined, and who had not a shilling remaining in the world, could be able to institute such an action? He never, surely, could have dreamt of putting such a question. What he asked was, " whether, during the suspension of the habeas corpus act, and when that suspension had armed ministers with farther powers for committing persons to prison than they possessed before, they ought not to be responsible and amenable for any superfluous and unnecessary hardships which such powers might enable them to inflict upon persons, who might be detained in prison, in consequence of the suspension of the habeas-corpus ?" This question he had followed up with arguments and illustrations to support its propriety, and remarked how seriously it behoved ministers to look to that; if they had been armed with any extraordinary powers, for the security of the constitution and the country, no one exertion of it should lead them to any act of unnecessary rigour in carrying into execution the measures for which such powers had been intrusted to their hands.

The house divided-for the motion 6; against it 47.

FEBRUARY 10, 1800.

HELDER EXPEDITION.

MR. SHERIDAN rose for the purpose of moving for an inquiry into the causes of the failure of the expedition against Holland; and delivered himself as follows:

Sir, upon the extraordinary meeting of parliament on the 24th of September last, an opportunity occurred of discussing the propriety of reducing the militia force of the country, by the introduction of a bill to carry that measure farther than had been done by the act of the preceding session. The avowed

purpose of that bill was, to enable ministers to prosecute the expedition against Holland. Unfortunately, I then differed from some of those gentlemen with whom I always feel it painful to disagree upon political questions. I did not think that, in the peculiar circumstances in which we then were placed, it was proper to oppose the measure. I will repeat the reason which then dictated my conduct. I then disapproved, as much as I had ever done, that bill, as a dangerous violation of our great constitutional defence, the militia system. When it was proposed, however, to renew and extend the act, there were inducements to a reluctant acquiescence in its renewal, which did not exist upon its first adoption. The law had passed, and ministers had availed themselves of its provisions, to assemble that army which was engaged in the Dutch expedition. We had received accounts of the battle of the 19th of September at Bergen Our troops were in a critical situation; and, seeing no other means by which reinforcements could be procured, I was unwilling that anything should be done that could lead our gallant army to think, for a moment, that they were abandoned by a British parliament.

On that occasion likewise I assumed, that ministers, in prosecuting the attempt which they had begun, acted on the most authentic information of the favourable dispositions of the Dutch people. I stated, that the executive government, in relying upon their knowledge, and proceeding upon their intelligence, incurred a great responsibility. Having done so then, I should conceive that I shrunk from a sort of pledge that I had given, did I not now endeavour to make ministers answer for the confidence which they had obtained, and for the course which they had pursued. I was, indeed, inclined to entertain no very sanguine hopes of ultimate success in the enterprise, after the experience we had of its commencement. My apprehensions were removed in some measure, when I heard it stated by a right hon. gentleman opposite to me, that we had the most unquestionable information of the attachment of the Dutch to the cause we supported. I was again damped in these agreeable expectations, when I found that the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Pitt) shrunk from any declaration that ministers proceeded on such sure ground, when he said, that we were justified in the prosecution of the plan, by a knowledge, not of the actual