1 CHAP. VIII.] THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 403 between Ireland and France. Absurd as were such schemes, they interfered fatally with the tranquillity of Ireland, and with the execution of the laws. Such was the statement 1 by which Mr. Peel justified his request to parliament to revive the Act relating to Irish Disturbances, which was repealed in 1810. Most of the members were satisfied to grant the Act on the mere statement of the Irish Secretary. Sir Henry Parnell and Mr. Horner met but little support in their demand for a committee, or some other method of ascertaining the facts on which parliament was about to legislate. The Act was passed before the end of July, together with a milder one for the preservation of the peace. In November Mr. Peel moved to amend the Bill of July,2 in regard merely to a difficulty in its application, and he took the opportunity of explaining that the Peace Preservation Act had been needed only in one instance; and then, by desire of residents; while the Insurrection Act had not been used at all. Amidst the ordinary amount of argument as to whether any occasion for so stringent a law had ever existed at all, it was clear that now, at the close of fifteen years from that Union which was to make all safe, harmonious, and prosperous, between England and Ireland, even distinguishing the century through all future time, there was grievous disappointment on every hand. The Catholics still lay under political disabilities, and the people were coerced by Insurrection Acts. The time was to be just doubled before the most bitter of Irish complaints was to be redressed, after an interval of mischief, misery, and apprehension, sufficient for the conversion of even the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel. These were days in which the liberty of the Press was assailed by government to an extent which might almost make The Press. 8 us doubt whether it could be in our own England that the trials took place which became so numerous under Sir Vicary Gibbs the Attorney-General under the Perceval Ministry. The yearly average of informations for libel under the present reign, up to 1808, had been two; in the course of the next three years there had been forty; that is, nearly fourteen per year. It did not mend the matter that prosecution did not always follow on the filing of informations. In many cases, the AttorneyGeneral kept the matter suspended, when his victims would have been glad to have it settled, at almost any cost. These facts were brought forward by Lord Folkestone in parliament, in March, 1811; but his motion for papers was rejected by a very large majority. In February, 1810, Mr. Perry, the able and accomplished editor of the "Morning Chroni 1 Hansard, xxviii. pp. 163, 172. Mr. Perry. 2 Ibid. xxix. p. 335. 404 Mr. Cobbett. ARRESTS FOR LIBEL. [BOOK II. cle," was brought to trial for having copied from the "Examiner " a passage about the King, declared to be libellous. Mr. Perry defended himself, and the jury acquitted him. In the next June,1 Mr. Cobbett, then a man of powerful influence through the combination of vigorous talent in himself and the prevalence of political grievances, was prosecuted for an article in his "Political Register" (coarse and violent enough) on Military flogging. In those days, it was a heinous offence to call in question any principle or practice of naval or military discipline; and a man paid dear for expressing his feelings on the subject of those floggings against which the world has since made such an outcry that they are wellnigh abolished, and with the best results on the character of the soldier. In the days under notice, two great men Lord Hutchinson and Sir S. Romilly 2 could sit together at the Duke of Gloucester's table, and tell and hear horrible stories of military floggings; and Romilly might groan over the facts in his Diary; but a Cobbett, a Scott, a Hunt, might not say the same things in a newspaper without danger of fine and imprisonment, under a charge of using the press as a means of exciting insubordination in the army. Cobbett defended himself; but not with Perry's ability and success. He was convicted, fined 1000l. and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. A few weeks afterwards, some remarks on the same sore subject were contributed to a Lincolnshire paper, “the Stamford News," by Mr. John Scott, a gentleman of Mr. Scott. high accomplishments and excellent temper, who was nevertheless drawn into the perils of libel in those duelling days, and was shot in a duel by dim moonlight, by an antagonist whose intention was not to harm him. The article in "the Stamford News," was pounced upon by the Attorney-General; and the Editor, Mr. Drakard, steadily refusing to give up the author, was prosecuted. The article had been copied into the London " Examiner," edited by the brothers John and Leigh Hunt. The Hunts were prosecuted also; and both they and Mr. The Hunts. Drakard were defended by Mr. Brougham. The Hunts were acquitted, in the face of a very strong charge of Lord Ellenborough, in which he declared there could be no doubt of the seditious intentions of the defendants. A provincial jury decided differently in the other case. Mr. Drakard was convicted, brought up for judgment to the Court of King's Bench, and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment. Within two years the Hunts were again on their trial, for a libel against the Prince Regent. They were again defended by Mr. Brougham, and judged by Lord Ellenborough, who showed even 1 Annual Register, 1810. Chron. 257. 2 Lord Brougham's Speeches, i. p. 6. CHAP. VIII.] OFFICE OF VICE-CHANCELLOR. 1 405 more violence than before; violence so great as to cause not only indignation among the whole bar, who felt their professional honor wounded by it, but regret among his brother judges. He condescended to say that Mr. Brougham was inoculated with all the poison of the libel; and that the issue to be tried by the jury was, whether Englishmen were to live for the future under the dominion of libellers. The Hunts were sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine of 500l. each. In a subsequent page it will be seen what an intolerable pass the government prosecutions for libel had reached in five years from this time. Printers' During the panic of twenty years before, about the spread of the principles of the French Revolution, an Act had been passed by which printers were compelled to put Name Bill. their names at the beginning of every publication, and at the end of all that extended beyond a single sheet. Under this Act, great abuses had grown up; the fines being so loosely imposed, that informers could take advantage of an act of mere carelessness in servants to get master-printers fined to the extent of 20,000l. or 30,0007. for a single oversight.2 Informers were even found to have laid traps, for the purpose of obtaining their share of fines. In March, 1811, the facts were represented in a Petition from the printers and publishers of the United Kingdom; and their cause was pleaded in parliament. It was shown that the fine in a single case might be made to amount to 100,0007. ; and that every publication yet prosecuted on this ground had been of an innocent and useful nature. The Attorney-General, who had actually been obliged to bring in a Bill to indemnify the convicted publishers, in certain cases, now agreed to a suggestion of Sir S. Romilly, that a limitation should be fixed to the fining power of magistrates. Henceforth, while the magistrate might, at his discretion, mitigate the fine to 5l., he could not impose more than twenty-five penalties of 201.: that is, 5007. An appeal to the Quarter sessions was also allowed, if entered within twenty days after conviction. 3 cellor. Just at the close of the Session of 1812, a Bill was brought down from the Cabinet which it is scarcely conceiva- Creation of ble that the Ministers could have desired to pass im- the office of mediately; yet Lord Castlereagh insisted that they Vice-Chandid desire and expect it. The lawyers were all absent on circuit, and other members were dropping homewards, when the Masters in Chancery brought down to the Commons a Bill which Lord Redesdale, under Lord Eldon's sanction, had introduced in the Lords, for creating the Office of Vice-Chancellor. The object was to enable the King to appoint a barrister of not 4 1 Memoirs of Horner, ii. p. 139. 8 Hansard, xix. p. 729. 2 Memoirs of Romilly, ii. 406 ATTAINDER. CORRUPTION OF BLOOD. [Book II. less than fifteen years' standing to be an Assistant to the Chancellor, under the title of Vice-Chancellor of England. He was to be under the direction and control of the Chancellor, to be removable at pleasure, to sit whenever and wherever his superior should appoint, and to manage such business only as the Chancellor should set him to do. It was immediately clear to Romilly and others that this was a lightening of the duties of the Chancellor, without any diminution of its emoluments; that it tended to render the office more than ever political, and by so much less judicial; and that it would most injuriously affect the law and practice of the Court of Chancery. The measure stood over till the next session; and meantime, there was a new parliament. Romilly, having been thrown out at the Bristol election, did not reënter the House till after the Christmas recess. In the interval, he published a pamphlet, setting forth, not his political, but his legal objections to the Bill. It was brought forward on the 1st of December, with the intention of its being passed immediately; but some objections of Lord Holland's delayed it till after the holidays. Romilly, being by that time in the House, opposed it to the utmost of his power; but it was passed on the 11th of March, 1813. The salary was 60001. a year since reduced to 5000., with a retiring pension of 25007. Within a few years, two more Vice-Chancellors have been appointed, who receive similar emoluments. Since their appointment,1 a main part of the business of the Chancellor's Court has been the rehearing of causes brought up by appeal from the Vice-Chancellors' courts. Original causes are now usually confined to those courts, and that of the Master of the Rolls; while the higher Court is chiefly occupied with appeals from below. What further changes will be necessary in this department of the State must inevitably be settled in the course of the century. Meantime, it is worthy of remembrance that the first grand innovation took place, under the sanction of Lord Eldon, in 1813. The new Attorney-General, Plumer, was appointed the first Vice-Chancellor ; and his place was filled by Garrow, the Solicitor-General. It was this Solicitor-General Garrow who had just signalized his name by opposition to two measures of Romilly's, which it was a sufficient disgrace to the age that Romilly should have to bring forward. The one was to remove the corruption of blood in cases of attainder, except for certain extreme offences; and the other was to abolish the barbarous parts of the process of execution for high treason. The infliction of corruption of blood in cases of attainder dreadful evil of visiting the children forever for the offences of the parent was clearly never designed as punishment for Attainder. Corruption of blood. 1 Political Dictionary, i. p. 485. the CHAP. VIII.] PENALTY FOR HIGH TREASON. 407 offence, but was a necessary consequence of feudal tenures. To those who wonder at the obstinacy of men in former ages and the number was very considerable who endured "pressing to death" (a torture of many days' duration) rather than plead to an indictment, it is an affecting explanation that husbands and parents endured this for the sake of their wives and their posterity. Many a man has died this horrible death in the Pressyard of Newgate, and in other prisons, rather than so plead as that his trial might go on, and sentence be reached, and attainder pronounced, and thence his widow's dower be forfeited and corruption of blood visit his descendants, so that they could not only derive no inheritance from him, but could never derive any title to land, or other privileges, since the course of transmission would be stopped in him. Romilly was ready to show that the law had become perverted by change of circumstances, being made a penalty when such was not the original intention; but Garrow did not want to hear any explanation, and thought it a very good penalty, and that society would go to pieces if such penalties were taken away; and he opposed the Bill. It was thrown out in the session of 1813, but passed the next year,1 so far as it extended to removing corruption of blood for attainder, except in cases of treason, petit-treason, and other murders. By a subsequent relaxation of the law (3 & 4 Wm. IV. c. 106,310), the descendants of an attainted person may derive a title through him to a remoter ancestor. This is very well; but it remains to be hoped that the nation may become of Blackstone's opinion,2 that "the whole doctrine should be antiquated by one undistinguishing law." The other Bill, for abolishing the barbarous parts of the sentence for high treason, had actually passed through Committee on the 9th of April, 1813, when a motion was made and carried that the Bill should be read that day six months ; so that," as Romilly wrote at the time," the Bill is lost, and the Ministers have the glory of having preserved the British law, by which it is ordained that the heart and the High treason bowels of a man convicted of treason shall be torn sentence. out of his body while he is yet alive." It is scarcely credible that legislators should have stood up, in our day, night after night, discussing and advocating the provisions for cutting off heads, dividing the trunk, and leaving or not leaving susceptibility of pain when the heart was to be searched for. And it was not to be the last debate. The whole disgusting matter must be gone over again the next year. The next year, Lord Ellenborough stealthily got the Bill altered in the Lords quietly amended without debate in order to preserve some1 Political Dictionary, i. p. 218. 2 Commentaries, ii. pp. 254, 256; iv. p. 389. 8 Memoirs, iii. p. 100. 4 Ibid. pp. 147, 148. 66 4 |