rectors of the bank; for during the last year, so far from an increase, a diminution in the circulation had actually taken place. That the encouragement offered to forgery had been stated to be one of the great evils of a paper circulation; yet, in the course of a year, the amount of forged notes had not exceeded 10,0001. on a circulation of 2,000,0001.-a proportion not greater than that of the frauds which would probably have been committed on a circulation of gold coin to the same amount.-That if the present money system of the country had a tendency to bring on the ruin which had been anticipated, it ought, to a certain extent, to have already occasioned distress and confusion; yet it would not be disputed, that during the last year, in which the measure now to be prolonged had been nearly in full operation, the foreign exchanges had improved-the amount of the public revenue had increased and, in short, the commercial and financial affairs of the country had assumed a very favourable aspect: And, finally, it was urged that some measure of this kind was imperiously demanded, in justice to persons who might otherwise be called upon to make payments in a medium which they could not command, and which, even if they could procure it on any terms, must be purchased at a very great and unreasonable expense.

It was contended, on the other side, that the bill would prove fatal to the credit of the country. That the act of last year had been proposed as a mere temporary measure; that parliament had been induced hastily to accede to it from an exaggerated representation of the difficulties of the country; but that it was now called upon, without enquiry or deliberation, to adopt a measure of the most serious importance; to do nothing less, in fact,

than to declare the notes of a mercantile company to be a legal tender. That one of the chief reasons urged in of the bill passed last session, support was, the rapidly increasing price of gold; it was now confessed, however, even by the supporters of the measure, that gold had since declined in price. That the bill, besides producing the most serious mischiefs, had failed entirely in attaining the only object proposed by it, viz. that of preventing gold coin from being sold at a premium; as a proof of this, it was mentioned that but one conviction had taken place since the passing of the act, and that too in a case in which the offender had been seduced into the transaction by a police officer employed for the purpose. That the extension of the measure to Ireland was a bold invasion of the rights of the landed gentlemen of that country, who had in most cases specially stipulated for payment of their rents in gold, and were now to be violently deprived, without any fault on their part, of a fifth of their incomes. That a measure by which the people were to be compelled to take in payment bank notes, the value of which could not be ascertained, amounted to a direct fraud upon them; and that the circulation of this country was now to be forced to a more alarming degree than that of the French assignats, which had always been supported by some sort of pledge on the national domains and the property of the state. That there once was a time when the corporate interest of the bank coincided with the commercial and financial interests of the country; but they had now become perfectly distinct, and no security of course remained for the public, but in the forbearance of the bank. That the bank had become too strong for the government and the country; and the legislature, before sanction. ing the measure now proposed, ought

to compel the directors to disclose what they had hitherto most anxiously concealed, the amount of the profits which had been divided among the proprietors since the date of the restrictions. That the system of a paper circulation was not new, but had, at one period or other, been introduced into most of the nations of Europe. Its invariable conséquence had been to entail bankruptcy upon the government, and ruin and misery on thousands of innocent individuals.-That the temptations to forgery, created by such a system, formed, of themselves, an evil of an enormous magnitude, against which the bill made no adequate provision.-That although the bank directors might be incapable of abusing the trust reposed in them, yet the powers with which they were vested, were too great for them to wield, since they had no sufficient means of restraining the issue of their paper within due bounds. That the only remedy for the present evils seemed to be an artificial rise on the nominal price of the gold coin, in the same proportion as bank notes had been depreciated; that this measure was not so novel as might be supposed, for, in fact, the price of coin had already been raised by the issue of tokens, at a rate above their intrinsic value, at which, however, they were received in exchange of those notes which were to be made legal tenders, and accepted in payment by creditors.-That by extending the measure to Ireland, go

vernment could have no other view than to destroy altogether the standard by which people are enabled to judge of the depreciation of paper; which standard, was, in some degree, maintained by the general circulation of gold coin in the sister kingdom.That it was not fair to say, that the predictions of those who had expected much evil from the restriction of 1797, had not been fulfilled; for, although

that utter ruin, which had been announced in the heat of debate, had not overtaken the country, yet, in so far as the system was calculated to produce immediate mischiefs, these mischiefs had already occurred. It was one of the predictions of those who opposed the measure of 1797, that the bank, so long as the retrictions existed, would never of itself return to cash payments; a prediction which had been fulfilled.That the measure now proposed would convert the notes of the bank into a forced government paper, the very worst species of currency with which a country could be inundated.-A particular objection was strongly urged by some Irish members against extending the bill to that country. It was said, that leases were not granted in Ireland in the same manner as in England; that, in the latter country, they were usually granted for a short period, and the landlord of course had it in his power, after short intervals, to compensate himself, by raising the rents, for a depreciation of the currency; but that in Ireland, leases were seldom granted for a shorter period than two lives, and were very often of much greater endurance. The Irish proprietors, therefore, had not the same remedy with the English landlord, and it was unjust to extend to his case a measure, which, in other circumstances, might not be exceptionable.-These arguments, although urged with great zeal, proved ineffectual; a strong conviction prevailed, of the absolute necessity of the measure; and, although it was admitted on all hands, that inconveniences would arise, it seemed to be the general opinion, that the mischief was imputable, not to the measure now under consideration, but to a state of things over which parliament had no controul. It became necessary, however, to protect the people from the oppressions to which they might have been exposed, without

some interference of this kind; and the bill, as proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was according ly passed into a law.

A subject of much importance, was, towards the close of the session, brought before the House of Peers by Lord Holland. It may be necessary to state here, that there are various ways of instituting proceedings against delinquents by the criminal law of England; the forms of presentment by a grand jury; of information at the instance of a common informer; and of information filed officially by the attorney-general, are all in use. The first of these forms is adopted in all cases in which the life or limb of the subject is brought into jeopardy; and since, according to this ancient and favoured mode of proceeding, no man can be held to bail or brought to trial, unless a majority of a grand jury, composed of 25 of his countrymen, shall think his case such as to warrant an indictment, the greatest lawyers have, in general, given it a preference over both the others. In the second case, where the common informer is to prosecute, the accused is not held to bail till the informer shall appear in court, make oath to the truth of his charges, enter into recognisances to insist on the prosecution till it is brought to an issue, and find security to indemnify the accused for the costs to which he may be put, should the charges prove groundless. The third and last mode is, that by information filed, ex of ficio, by the attorney-general; a form by which the defendant is exposed to more than usual hardships, as he has neither the advantage of a grand jury, as in the case of proceedings by indictment, nor the chance of recovering costs, as in the case of information by a common informer. Informations filed by the attorney-general, however, are of very great antiquity, and are unquestionably constitutional; nor does

it seem possible to dispense with them in certain cases, without endangering the public tranquillity. The greatest lawyers have admitted, that in prosecutions which have the preservation of the public peace for their object, and in all cases where delay might be attended with great public inconvenience, the proceedings by ex officio information, possess advantages over every other form, and are in many cases indispensable. Prosecutions in this form have accordingly been in use as far back as the history of the law of England can be traced. Lord Holland, however, seems to have thought, that if such proceedings were attended with advantages, they were productive of still greater evils; and although he was aware, that he had no reason to expect success in any attempt to abolish this form of proceeding altogether, yet he thought it right to endeavour to bring it under certain regulations. He therefore brought in a bill for providing that no information should be filed by the attorney-general, except within a certain short space after the offence had been committed; and that, if, after the information had been filed, the defendant should not be brought to trial within a limited time, all further proceedings should cease and determine. Various arguments were maintained in support of these propositions.

The projected improvement on the law of ex officio informations, said the advocates of the measure, although chiefly intended to secure the liberty. of the press, has a more extensive object; for there are many other of fences, besides that of libel, in which the attorney-general is authorised to prosecute ex officio.-The mode of prosecuting, however, for the offence of libel, y ex officio information, is neither necessary nor safe; it never has beeu considered by the highest authorities as the course which ought to be

resorted to on ordinary occasions, since the ancient and constitutional method of proceeding against libel as well as against other offences, is by indictment. If ex officio informations in cases of libel were altogether abolished, government and individuals would still have the same security against this crime, as the subject has for life, limb, and property. But the bill did not pretend to abolish informations ex officio, but to bring them under proper regulations, as to the necessity of which, no doubt could be entertained. -That this mode of proceeding had always been exposed to great jealousy and suspicion; that in the different periods of English history, when the people were greatly harassed by vexatious and arbitrary punishments, the grand instrument of oppression was this very power, or something of the same nature. In the reigns of the first princes of the house of Stuart, this course was much resorted to, and became a favourite with the Star Chamber, to the temper and spirit of which it was admirably suited. The informations, filed at that unhappy period, were not indeed, strictly speaking, ex officio, but informations at the instance of common informers; but the principle was still the same, and the method of proceed ing by the agency of common informers was found so convenient an instrument of oppression, that in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. ex officio informations became almost obsolete, This is the reason why no measures were taken at the Revolution with the a

vowed purpose of abolishing ex officio informations, parliament having been satisfied with correcting the grievance which then pressed with the greatest severity. Now that the proceeding by ex officio information, however, had become so general, as to be almost the only mode adopted in cases of libel, the necessity for regulation was imperious.

The power entrusted to the at

torney-general was peculiarly liable to abuse, and never was intended for active operation, except in cases of necessity, when the public peace might be endangered by delay. That, in fact, this power had been extended far beyond its original limits; that it had been abused, and was likely to be still farther abused; that the attorney-general, as matters stood at present, had, in certain cases, all the powers of a grand jury; that he was thus enabled at his own discretion to put a fellow subject to great trouble and expense; that he might keep the prosecution suspended over the defendant's head for ever, and might, without trial, subject any one at his pleasure to a very heavy fine. The practical abuse of this power might fairly be inferred from a fact which was notorious; that although the attorney-general might in all cases, except those of treason and felony, bring it into operation, he had in practice thought proper to confine the exercise of it almost entirely to cases of libel, a species of offence which most readily excites the resentment of administration. That by the power which the attorney-general exercises in such cases of suspending or quashing prosecutions, according to the future conduct of the supposed libeller, the spirit and independence of political writers were destroyed, and the liberty of the press very seriously infringed. The great increase of criminal informations of late years was calculated to excite suspicion. From the year 1800 to the year 1807, the number of criminal informations filed was fifteen; from the year 1808 to the year 1810, forty-two (of which, however, more than half had never been brought to trial;) so that the average number for the three years last-mentioned, was to that of the previous seven years, as fourteen to two; and to that of the three years immediately preceding, as fourteen to one. Coulld it be be

lieved that all these cases were of such a nature, that a little delay might have been fatal, when it was considered that almost one half of them had never been brought to trial? If it was obvious, therefore, from reason, that this power was liable to great abuse, it seemed also clear from experience, that it had actually been abused. It became necessary, therefore, that it should now be brought under some sort of regulation.

To these arguments it was answer. ed, that it was a great mistake to suppose that ex officio informations were not known to the ancient law of England, and had not been recognised in the freest times, and supported by the most respectable authorities. That the practice was as old as the time of Edward the First; that in a very remarkable case, that of the five members for detaining the Speaker in the chair, no doubt was entertained of the legality of the process by information; and in the famous case of Plowden, for absenting himself from parliament, as little doubt was felt on this subject; the only question having been, whether the offences of these persons were such that they could be tried by information.-That it was a mistake, also, to suppose that the attorney-general could at his pleasure file criminal informations against any person whom he might select for vengeance, since he is obliged to appear openly in court, and make his motion under the checks provided by a special statute.-So far is the proceeding by information from being a novelty in the law of England, that it was usual in former times for the attorney-general and the master of the Crown-office, not only to file such informations, but to have writs issued for the apprehension of the parties. A case was referred to, in which the secretary of state had issued his warrant for the apprehension of a libeller, and the warrant was found good, after

a grave discussion before some of the most eminent lawyers of whom England can boast. The same principle is still virtually acknowledged in the practice of the courts, as persons informed against, in such circumstances, are allowed to go at large only upon granting their recognisances.That the legality and expediency of ex officio informations would never have been questioned, but for those unfortunate controversies as to the legality of general warrants, which occurred about the beginning of the present reign; the crown lawyers, in that instance, sustained a defeat, which has since inspired them with an unbecoming timidity. That the proceeding by information appeared to be, in many instances, more convenient and humane than that by indictment. The defendant prosecuted on an information proceeding on the affidavit of an informer, may, if the affidavit should prove false, get the person who made it punished with greater ease, than if the same falsehoods had been sworn before a grand jury. That nothing can be more absurd, than to suppose the honourable men who are invested with the power of prosecuting for the public interest, capable of condescending to the base practices to which it was insinuated they might be tempted to resort; and that as none but imaginary dangers could be discovered in the mode of proceeding by information, which has unquestionably been attended with great practical advantages, there could be no good reason for innovation.-But at all events, the provisions of the bill were exceptionable in every point of view; for while informations were still to be filed as formerly, the bill went to render the power thus vested in the crown perfectly ineffectual in many cases of the utmost importance. If the prosecution, as the bill proposed, must be raised in the space of three months after the