of life. Whatever that might have been, when he certainly could have no expectations of his present rank, yet since he had been in office, he had always been respectable; and Mr. Sheridan thought it highly improper in the other magistrates, when he came into the commission, to refuse to associate with him, as "The cut-purse of the empire, and the rule.” If such magistrates as these, then, would not be the first to disperse a public meeting, who would? Why the man, of all others, would be Mr. Reeves. Mr. Reeves would make himself the chief justice of seditious assemblies, the dictator of the day; and if any person presumed to say that extravagant courts, selfish ministers, rotten boroughs, and corrupt majorities, ought to be abolished and reformed, he it is that would instantly call out to Townsend and Carpmeal, and say, "Seize that fellow by the throat, away with him to prison, he is a traitor, and proclaims sedition;" because this man has previously declared that every one of these abuses is essential to our government. Therefore it is the duty of the house, after the passing of those bills, to hold out to the country an indemnity, by declaring that these abuses are not among the sacred parts of the constitution; or else in every meeting they will leave no rule for the magistrate, and no means for the people, to preserve themselves from a violation of their rights. With regard to the method of proceeding against Mr. Reeves, there had been different modes; but on that which he proposed to adopt, he hoped there would be little difference of opinion. Mr. Reeves's doctrines and associations had been more dangerous than people might at first imagine. When such a man was found to sow divisions, was he entitled to credit? Yet this man, from the credulity or inattention of his Majesty's ministers had been able, by a system of fraud and imposture, to excite a degree of alarm throughout the country, which had caused that wretched disposition to tolerate the bills; and he had been able also to provoke the prosecution of various individuals. He said he had long before exposed the falsehood of charges of plots and conspiracies. He lamented the credulity of ministers, if it was credulity, that led them to believe them, and to adopt the Machiavelian principles of using base means to accomplish whatever they might conceive to be good ends, which he believed, when their imagination had been disturbed by the artifices of Mr. Reeves, was really and truly the case, from what had fallen from a right hon. gentleman, who had asserted that Mr. Reeves deserved the gratitude of the country, and that he had been its saviour; but after what had been proved to the committee, as brought forward in the report, united with the support given by Mr. Reeves to similar doctrines, he should be sorry, though not surprised, to hear again. He then mentioned, he said, the fifth time in the house, another plot which had sprung from the association-he meant the Popgun plot, as it was called, which, often as he had noticed it, had never once been noticed or replied to from the other side of the house. He stated that two persons, J. Smith and G. Higgins, were seized and committed upon the following order of the privy council, signed by Lord Loughborough and William Pitt: "These are in his Majesty's name to authorize and require you to receive into your custody the body of John Smith, herewith sent you for high treason; and you are to keep him safe and close until he shall be delivered by due course of law; and for so doing this shall be your sufficient warrant. From the council chamber at Whitehall, this 10th day of October, 1794." "To the Keeper of Newgate." From that time to the 10th of May, through the whole of an unusually severe winter, they were confined in cold and miserable cells, and the families of both reduced to the greatest distress. At the period when he (Mr. Sheridan) was about to propose the repeal of the act for suspending the habeas corpus, one of the persons, Smith, wrote him the following letter, which would speak for itself: " "Sir; "FELONS' SIDE. "Newgate, Jan. 5, 1795. Seeing in the public papers that you intend this day to move for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the suspension of the habeas corpus act, I take the liberty of sending you an account of my situation. On the 28th of September I was taken into custody by a warrant from the secretary of state, and thrown into a dismal cell in New Prison, Clerkenwell, from thence I was taken to the privy council, and there examined several times. From the questions put to me, it appears that I was charged as being concerned in the plot for assassinating his Majesty. I can assure you, sir, on the word of a man, that I never heard, saw, or knew anything of the said plot till I was in the privy council. On the 10th of October I was committed to this place on a charge of high treason, without any hope of being brought to trial, having been dragged from home, leaving a wife and four small children without any support, and having lost a place of above sixty pounds a-year、 I am at this time in a dismal cell in Newgate, where nothing is to be heard but the rattling of irons from the felons: my friends cannot come to see me without being robbed, having to pass through a yard in which are some of the most abandoned of wretches. The above I can assure you are facts. "By taking public notice of the above, you will much oblige "To R. B. SHERIDAN, Esq." "JOHN SMITH." In this condition did this man and the other solicit trial, dismission, or enlargement on bail; for it is to be observed of them, that confiding in their own innocence, even with the aggravating circumstances of family distress, they asked no other favour but trial or discharge; but neither was granted them. Mr. Smith wrote again in February, but no answer was sent. A respectable man (Mr. Parkinson) went to see him; found him in a state truly desperate, and with a dignity of heart that reflects the highest credit on him, represented the poor man's case to the privy council, which only procured a change of apartments; and in April he wrote again; and he was informed that a milder letter would procure his release on any bad bail whatever. Thus a man, after the destruction of his property, the danger of his life by imprisonment, and the misery of a numerous family, is told by his oppressors you must not be a man, you must cease to feel like an Englishman: you must not dare, after the torment and distress we have heaped on you, to speak but as a slave, and lick the feet of those who have trod upon you, and proved that the tyrannical days of the French government, or of the worst tyranny that ever existed, were not worse than what an Englishman is liable to under the abuse of the law. He believed that such proceedings as had taken place never could have been tolerated, if the minds of the people had not been previously poisoned, and that principally under the mask of loyalty, by this man; and when this proceeded from a corrupt motive, though he carried little personal animosity out of that house, he felt no mercy for him. He did not wish to touch a hair of the heads of either printer or publisher; but when he considered all the consequences that had followed from the system of prosecutions, particularly the unhappy fate of Messrs. Muir and Palmer, and Mr. Winterbotham, with a number of other persons, down to the poor man who was imprisoned for playing çai-ra upon his organ, he thought no measures were too strong, no punishment too severe. He did not mean, however, to move for a prosecution, though he had no mistrust of the hon. and learned gentleman opposite (the attorney-general). He put it to the house, whether they ought not to measure equal justice for a conspiracy to lop off the lords and commons, as for a conspiracy to depose the king? and observed, that all the precedents went to this point, where there was a high breach of the privilege of parliament. The pamphlet was not a theoretical treatise on government, but a practical exhortation addressed to the plain sense of the people. What he proposed, therefore, was to move for the censure of the house, and to proclaim that censure, by having the pamphlet burnt by the hands of the common hangman. He objected to a prosecution most peremptorily, as he wished to set an example of lenity and mercy, contrary to what Mr. Reeves himself practised; but thought it was with great reluctance he submitted to the ministers themselves whether this should not be followed up by an address to his Majesty, to remove him from any place of trust; and instead of committing him to Newgate, he designed to move, that he should be summoned to attend at the bar of that house, to receive a reprimand from the speaker, and be recommended to make a disavowal of his sentiments. He concluded with moving "That one of the said printed books be burnt by the hands of the common hangman in the New Palaceyard, Westminster, on Monday, the 21st day of this instant, December, at one of the clock in the afternoon; and that another of the said printed books be burnt by the hands of the common hangman before the Royal Exchange in London, on Tuesday the 22nd day of this instant, December, at the same hour; and that the sheriffs of London and Middlesex do attend at the said time and places respectively, and cause the same to be burnt there accordingly." Mr. Dundas followed, and moved an amendment to leave out all but the first word of the motion, and in its place to substitute, "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, humbly to desire his Majesty that he will be graciously pleased to give directions to his attorney-general to prosecute John Reeves, Esq., as the author or publisher of a printed pamphlet, entitled, "Thoughts on the English Government—addressed to the quiet good sense of the people of England, in a series of letters—Letter the first, on the National Character of Englishmen -The Nature of the English Government-The Corruptions caused in both by the Introduction of French Principles-The Effects produced by the Reformation and the Revolution upon Political Principles-The Conduct of the Whig Party -The Character of the modern Democrats.-London, printed for J. Owen, No. 168, Piccadilly, 1795." Mr. Sheridan replied to the several arguments that had been advanced against him. As to the charge, that he and his friends had never recommended prosecutions for libels, he would say it was not necessary. Ministers had taken that matter into their own hands; the jails throughout the kingdom had been full. Here Mr. Sheridan read over a list of fifty or sixty persons, who had, in the course of these three last years, been tried and punished for libels; and many of these had been prosecuted in consequence of informations from Mr. Reeves's association, which he could prove: so it could be no reproach to opposition that they had not urged ministers to increase the list. If he did not wish to send Mr. Reeves to a jury, he did not wish to commit the privileges of the house to the king's attorney-general. If Mr. Reeves should be found guilty, perhaps the right hon. gentleman would call him a convicted innocent, as he had called others acquitted felons. The question was then put on the proposed omission of the words of Mr. Sheridan's motion, which was carried without a division. It being then supposed that the subject was disposed of, the greater part of the members had left the house before the question could be put on the words proposed to be inserted by Mr. Dundas; and, on Sir William Dolben's requiring a division, it appeared that only twenty-nine members were present, and, in consequence, an adjournment took place. DECEMBER 15. LIBEL ON THE CONSTITUTION. MR. SHERIDAN said, that in consequence of some arguments used the night before, which had, in some measure, altered his mind, he no longer objected to the prosecution of Mr. Reeves, since it was to be limited to himself, without affecting the printer or publisher of the pamphlet. In order, therefore, that there might be unanimity in the house, respecting the manner of punishing the author of that pamphlet, on which the house had already passed an unanimous resolution of reprobation, he would move, "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, that he would be graciously pleased to order his Majesty's attorneygeneral to prosecute John Reeves, Esq. as the author of a printed pamphlet, entitled, Thoughts on the English Government."" Agreed to, nem. con |