Secretaries of State in England hold. The cffice of keepers of the Signet was accordingly attached to that of Secretary of State for Scotland, an office which subsisted till about the year 1745, when the name was dropped, but the keeper of the Signet is in fact the Secretary. Is it not monstrous to say a person may be appointed Secretary of the King for life, that the King renounces the power of changing his Secretary; and still more, that the King may name the Secretary of his successors? These are some of the points, to which it is to be presumed Lord Henry Petty intends to call the attention of the House; and that they are well worthy of its attention, will not, I think, be denied by any one, who entertains a disinterested regard for the monarchy, and who considers how important it is, that the King should be afforded, upon occasions like the present, every fair opportunity of showing, that the Crown not less than the House of Commons is the guardian of the rights and interests of the people.

MR. PITT'S CASE. It will be remembered (see p. 670), that the principal object of the Select Committee of the House of Cemmóns, now sitting, is to inquire into the conduct of Mr. Pitt, relative to three points; to wit; 1. the obtaining a writ of privy seal, whereby to excuse Lord Melville from paying the balance of 24,000l. due from him to the public on account of Mr. Jellicoe's defalcation; 2. the knowledge which he had of certain sums of naval money having been drawn from the Bank of England contrary to law, and lent by Lord Melville to other branches of the public service; 3. whether, or not, Mr. Pitt was informed, or knew, that Messrs. Dundas and Trotter drew the naval money from the Bank of England and applied it to purposes of private advantage.

Theader must be aware of the gross impropriety of attempting to state, in point, what has come out before the Committee. As in the case of Lord Melville, however, the ministerial papers having begun their endeavours to anticipate the report of the Committee, and to prompt the public to a premature decision, I think it right just to point out these endeavours, and to caution my readers against the snare which this venal tribe is laying for their judgment.—— Touching the transaction relating to the writ of privy seal, they have, as yet, said nothing. But, with regard to the second point, the knowledge which Mr. Pitt had of the withdrawing of certain sums of naval money from the Bank of England, contrary to law,

and lent by Lord Melville to other branches of the public service; with regard to this point, the ministerial paper, the COURIER, of the 8th instant, has the following curious remark: "From the examination of Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Long, before the Select "Committee, it has, we understand, satisfactorily appeared, that the money ad"vanced by the Treasurer of the Navy to the Board of Treasury, in 1796, was "applied to the prevention of great public

calamity; and, after averting the most "perilous commercial distresses, was cor"rectly repaid to the department from "which it had been borrowed on this na"tional exigency."-This paragraph, let it be observed, was inserted, word for word, in the other ministerial papers, the ORACLE, the SUN, and the MORNING HERALD; and, in the remaining paper of that description, the MORNING POST of the 9th, the persons, who are taking such uncommon pains to prepossess the public mind, and who may easily be guessed at, thought proper to venture to speak out a little plainer; as thus: "Pitt and Mr. Long have been twice exa"mined before the Select Committee of the "House of Commons, upon the subject of

Mr.

some temporary assistance afforded to the "house of Boyd and Benfield, to enable them "to make good an instalment of the Imperial "Loan; a measure deemed necessary for "the maintenance of the honour and credit of "the country." What! is this, then, the great public service? Was this the way, in which Mr. Pitt and Lord Melville saved the nation? Surely, this never can be true. What! Boyd and Benfield! The famous Messrs. Boyd and Benfield of the no less famous Messrs. Pitt and Dundas! Paul Benfield? Mr. Dundas's Paul Benfield? The Nabob of Arcot's Paul Benfield? Really, if this should prove to be the case; if it should prove that, in order to support Boyd and Benfield (for whose sake, be it remembered the Bank of England was thrown into the shade), sums, already raised upon the public, were lent to these loan-jobbers, in order to enable them to lend the public its own mo ney, for which interest and a bonus were paid by that public to them; if this should be proved, it would be a libel indeed upon the House of Commons, it would be to impute corruption to the whole of the govern ment, to insinuate that any of the persons concerned in such a crime, such a profligate defiance of the law, such a flagrant act of public robbery, would escape condign punishment. [The subject shall be revived in mynext.]

VOL. VII. No. 20.]

TO MR. CANNING,

· THE PRESENT TREASURER OF THE NAVY, LETTER II.

SIR,In resuming the discussion, begun in the foregoing Letter (p. 689), we must bear in mind, that the cause, whence I was induced to address you, was, a threat against all persons concerned in conducting the Press of this country, bidding the Editors thereof to take notice and receive warning, that a great change has now taken place in the system of forbearance hitherto adhered to, "and declaring that a new ærd has now be"gun" which threat was conveyed to the public in a printed paper, in the Oracle, purporting to be a speech delivered by you, in the House of Commons, on the 2d instant. The author, or publisher, of the several articles, of which the last-mentioned was the most remarkable, having stated, as the ground of the threat, that Mr. Grey and other gentlemen of the Opposition had complained of the publication of a libel on the House of Commons, it behoves us, as was proposed in p. 634, to inquire into the nature and tendency of the libel, published in the Oracle and complained of by Mr. Grey, compared with publications in general touching upon the proceedings in parliament; wheace we shall be able to judge of the propriety and decency of proclaiming the commencement of " a new cera," merely because the publisher of that libel had been brought before the House, imprisoned a few days in the chambers of Westminster Hall, and then released with a reprimand from the Speaker.

It is hardly intended, in this "new æra,” entirely to prevent the press from commenting upon the proceedings in parliament; because such prevention would, of course, extend to all the bills introduced and all the acts passed; and, if the press must not make representations of the evil tendency of bills and acts, to boast of the liberty of the press, to call that liberty" the palladium of free "men," is only to expose ourselves to ridicule and contempt. Is it the speeches, which We are not to comment upon, after the com

[706

mencement of the new æra," announced in the Oracle? But, to prevent this, a very important step is previously necessary; to wit; to prevent the printing and publishing of those speeches; for, unless that were done, to prevent the printing and publishing of comments on the speeches would be to make every member of parliament a licenced libeller. A man would, in such case, have nothing to do but to obtain a seat for a few days, just long enough to give him time to make three or four motions and speeches, and he might, with perfect impunity, send forth, all over the world, and put upon record for ever, charges of the most infamous nature against every one, whose reputation he might wish to destroy. Am I told, that a person so defamed would have the law to avenge him? Avenge him on whom, and how? On the printer and publisher, not on the maker of the speech, who is protected from all inquiries as to what he may say in parliament. And, how is such injured person to be avenged? Will the punishment of the printer and publisher avengo him? Will that afford him redress? Will that destroy the effect of the defamation? Where, then, is he, in such case, to seek for protection to lifs character, except through the same channel, which has conveyed to the world the libel against him? Yet, if the doctrine, that it is unlawful to comment upon speeches of members of parliament, be maintained, if this be the doc. trine to be adhered to in the "new æra," person so defamed must not make use of the press even to defend his character, because, in the case supposed (and such cases have frequently arisen), he could not do it without commenting on the speech of a member of parliament. But, why seek any case other than that now before us? Mr. Stuart is i stigated to publish an infamous libel on the House of Commons; complaint is made against him by the members of the Oppos. tion; he is imprisoned and reprimanded; and, because of it, he, under the form of a speech of yours, most grossly insults the conductors of all the public pints in England,

bidding them, and that, too, in the most assuming and offensive manner, to" take no"tice and receive warning" of the cessation of forbearance, and of the commencement of a new æra." And, merely because this threat is published as the speech of a member of parliament, must none of us, the parties threatened, comment upon it? Must we hang our heads, slink about as if we were guilty, seeming to acknowledge that we exercise our profession, and even that we wear our ears, by mere indulgence? Do I, then, contend for the right of calling members of parliament to an account for what they say in their plaees, of criticising every word that drops from their lips, and thus preventing them from freely speaking their minds? No such thing. It is not what they say in their places, but what is printed and published under their names, that I claim the right to comment on, to criticise, to praise, to ridicule, or to censure. Am I told, that such publications are neither made nor authorized by the persons, under whose names they appear? Sometimes they are not. But that circumstance can have no weight. The publication is made, and, being made, I may, without at all offending against the privilege of parliament, make on it any remarks that I choose. Will it be said, that, then, two conductors of public papers, one by publishing a report of the speeches, and the other by commenting on them, when reported, may, with impunity, represent as fools or knaves, any of the members of parliament, against whom they may, for whatever reasons, choose to combine their mischievous talents? Not with impunity, Sir. No; the parliament as a body, and its members individually, have, at all times, in their hands ample powers for the prevention of such attacks upon them. They, or either of them, can, in the first place, prevent their speeches from being heard by any persons but themselves; if they indulge us with the hearing, they can prevent us from taking down their speeches; and, they can punish, at their discretion, any one who publishes a report of any speech or speeches delivered in either House. Is any thing more wanted to preserve their proceedings from the rude touch of the press? They have only to enforce their own standing orders, and then no one can comment on their speeches, without becoming liable to punishment at their own discretion; but, while those orders are not enforced, while people are suffered to take down and to publish the speeches, and while the means of taking them down, while admission to the gallery of the House of Commons, is sold, and sold, too, at a very high

price; while this is the case, shall we be forbidden to comment upon publications thus produced, especially when we consider, that these publications frequently contain very severe animadversions upon individuals as well as upon bodies of men? The truth, is, that the speeches have, for so long a time, been suffered to be taken down and published, that there is now little reason to suppose, that the practice will ever be put a stop to; and, the right of commenting upon what has been printed and published is so evident, that it is not likely it should ever be seriously called in question. The same rules, therefore, that are observed with respect to other publications will, of course, be observed with respect to comments upon proceedings in parliament. If they be neither seditious nor libellous, in the eye of the law, as that law is interpreted in other cases, they ought to be regarded as innocent; and if they be seditious or libellous, they ought to be regarded as criminal; the only difference being, that each House possesses, as it ought to possess, the right of inflicting immediate punishment, without having recourse to any other tribunal. Here, then, we come, Sir, to the point in view, namely, whether the libel published by Mr. Stuart, and inserted in p. 673, was, or was not, libellous, and whether it did, or did not, exhibit a wide departure from the practice which those who conduct the press of this country have generally observed with regard to the decisions of parliament as well as to the speeches, or imputed speeches, of its members. It was no ordinary measure, on which the writer in the Oracle was commenting: it was not on a regulation or law, the expediency or inexpediency of which had become matter of dispute; it was a decision upon a most important subject, a solemn decision of the House of Commons, and that, too, let it be remembered, in the judicial capacity of that House. The majority of the House were termed "intemperate judges;" their decision was called a presumptuous" one, "directed and en

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*This circumstance is not introduced for the purpose of swelling out an enumeration. I am ready to prove the fact I here allude to. I am ready to prove, not only that the doorkeepers of the House of Commons take money for admitting persons into the gallery, but, that they demand money for such admission, and that they turn persons away who refuse to come up to their demands. Whether these practices be sanctioned by, or known to, the superiors of these door-keepers, I know not, but of their existence I am certain, and am ready to produce proof.

"forced by the violence of the times;" and, the whole proceeding was imputed to "party rancour and popular clamour." That this was audaciously libellous will, surely, not admit of a doubt, especially with those who have affixed the epithet "libellous" to the reports of the Naval Commissioners; and, Sir, I think, it may be safely asserted, that a libel so audacious was never before, in any English print, your weekly paper (of which more hereafter) not excepted, published against either House of Parliament. And, because a libel like this, published in a ministerial paper, be noticed by the Opposition, are all the prints in England to be threatened with a total change of the system upon which they have been conducted! Are we, for this cause, to be bidden to tremble, and to hear proclaimed a new cra" in the history of the press! At this moment there occur to me only two instances of serious proceedings against printers, publishers, or authors, for breach of parliamentary privilege in their publications; I mean those relating to Mr. Reeves in 1795, in the House of Commons, and those relating to Mr. Perry, in 1798, in the House of Lords. Mr. Reeves wrote a pamphlet, in which was the following passage: "The government of England "is a monarchy, the monarch is the ancient "stock, from which have sprung those

goodly branches of the legislature, the "Lords and Commons, that at the same "time give ornament to the tree, and afford "shelter to those who seek protection un"der it. But, these are still only branches, "and derive their origin and nutriment "from their common parent; they may be lopped off, and the tree is a tree still; shorn, indeed, of its honours, but not, "like them, cast into the fire. The kingly government may go on, in all its func“tions, without Lords or Commons: it has heretofore done so for years together, and, "in our times, it does so during every recess "of parliament; but, without the King his parliament is no more.” Of this passage, respecting which I have before given an opinion to which I still adhere, I shall only further observe, at present, that the House declared it to be a malicious, scandalous, and "seditious libel," that the author was ordered to be prosecuted by the law officers of the crown, and that, amongst the personswho voted for these measures, were yourself and Mr. Pitt, by whom no struggle was made to save Mr. Reeves, who, however, found protection in a jury, in the Court of King's Bench. The affair of Mr. Perry terminated more seriously. He published in his paper, the Morning Chronicle of the 19th of March, 1798, the

"

thing more than a chamber where the mi"nister's edicts are registered for forms' "sake. Some of their lordships are deter"mined to vindicate their importance. It is "there that the dresses of the Opera dancers are regulated! One of the Ronan Emperors recommended to the Senate, when they were good for nothing else, to discuss "what was the best sauce for a turbot. To regulate the length of a petticoat is a much more genteel employment." This paragraph, which was certainly a gross libel, Mr. Perry declared, that he never saw, till it was too late to stop the circulation of the paper which contained it. He acknowledged that it was a gross and scandalous libel; that it expressed sentiments which he had never entertained; that he was deeply penetrated with sorrow for its having appeared in his paper; and that, the Printer, being perfectly innocent of all intention to offend, he, Mr. Perry, humbly hoped that their lordships would pardon him, whatever might be their determination with respect to himself. Both Proprietor and Printer were, however, fined each 501, besides being obliged to pay nearly 501. each in fees; and were imprisoned in Newgate for the space of three months. Now, Sir, compare these libels and the proceedings thereon, with the libel which Mr. Stuart was instigated to publish and the subsequent proceedings relative thereto. Mr. Reeves's was a metaphorical libel; few people could possibly suppose that it was written of published with any evil intention; - its meaning admitted of many interpretations; and, at last, though almost every public print in London had, in the interim, joined in the cry against him, a jury determined, that it was no libel at all. The libel published by Mr. Perry called loudly for animadversion: it was disrespectful and contemptuous in a very high degree: it was as false, but it was not nearly so malicious as the libel, which Mr. Stuart was induced to publish, and which accuses the House of Commons of having, in their judicial capacity, passed an unjust judgment from foolish or wicked mo» tives, than which, in my opinion, it is impossible to conceive any thing more libellous in itself, or more likely to be productive of mischievous consequences. Then, as to the subsequent conduct of the gentle men, of whom we are speaking; Mr. Perry clearly acknowledges the libellousness of the publication, states his ignorance of its inser tion, and his deep regret at its having been

inserted. Mr. Stuart comes with his mouth teeming with praises of the person, for censuring whose conduct he had libelled the House: he comes with a statement of his own virtues and services: he very nearly 'tells the House, that, had it not been for him and Lord Melville, they would not have been in existence either to pardon the one or to condemn the other. Mr. Perry did nothing of this sort; he attempted no justification; tendered no set-off'; offered no impertinent ssuggestions; threw out no saucy insinuations against either side, or any member of the House: yet, was he, and his printer along with him, fined in a considerable sum, and imprisoned three months in Newgate. And now, behold, because a ministerial writer, or rather printer, has not been suffered openly and unequivocally to charge the House of Commons with intemperance, presumption, and injustice in a decision, in their judicial capacity; because he has not been suffered to do this with perfect impu-. nity, all of us, who are concerned in the conducting of the press, are to be told that " a "new æra has begun," and are to be threatened with a total change of the system of "forbearance," as it is called, under which we have hitherto written and published! Very wide indeed is the difference between censuring the language, opinions, and conduct of individual members, or of parties, and censuring the decisions of either House of parliament, particularly decisions in its judicial capacity; but, in censures of the former description, there are very few of the public prints which have not refrained from asperity of language when speaking of the conduct of members of parliament, as members of parliament; or, at least, which have 110t exercised a greater degree of cautiousness in such cases than in any other; and, if this practice has been departed from in any one instance more than in all others put together, it has been in that of the newspaper, of which you, Sir, was the principal conductor.

This leads us to the THIRD point which I posed to consider, that is to say, the injudiciousness of the writer in the Oracle in selecting your name, under which to publish a threat against the editors of public papers, and that of Sir Henry Mildmay, under which to make a sort of protest against an alleged attempt to abridge the liberty of the press as to parliamentary proceedings.That you were the principal conductor of the newspaper, published in 1797 and 1798, called the "Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner," is notorious to all those who are connected with the press, and, indeed, to every one moving in the political circles of the metro

polis; but, to leave nothing dubious as to this fact, I positively assert, that you were the principal conductor of that print, of which assertion, if required, I can, at any time, prove the truth. Upon looking over the 36 numbers, to which the Anti-Jacobin extended, I should suppose, that about one-fourth part of its contents consists of comments upon the speeches of members of parliament, and upon their conduct as members of parliament. As a specimen of these comments one might take the passage, where you speak of "that man's speech, who stood up in his "place in the House of Peers, and, as the "best way of furnishing the enemy with ar

but

I

guments, without endangering his head, "declared that he put himself in the place of "the French Directory, and spoke accordingly." (Anti-Jacobin, No. 2.) What man you alluded to here I cannot say; he must have been a peer of the realm, and it ought to be remembered, that you, who were thus publishing upon his conduct, were, at the same time, a member of the House of Commons. But, I will come to a "man," whom you thought proper to designate by his proper name, and, not to fatigue you, will confine myself to one, Lord Moira, whose speech relative to the state of Ireland, in 1797, was commented on in language too indecent to be repeated.. His lordship was described as a dupe;" as having stated "gross falsehoods" in his place in parlia ment; as having attempted" to cozen" the House of Lords; and, in short, there is scarcely an act which a gentleman ought not to be guilty of, scarcely a quality which a gentleman ought not to be ashamed to pos sess, that was not imputed," over and over again, to Lord Moira; and this, as far as appears from your paper, for no other reason than that this nobleman had, in his place in the House of Peers, made a speech, in which he censured the conduct of the ministers. The many instances, in which you bestowed on other persons the name of " fool" and

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liar," I shall, perhaps, refer to another time. At present I have confined myself to your attacks upon one particular person, which were avowedly made on him in con sequence of something which he had spoken in his place in parliament, and which attacks will, I am persuaded, be found very far to surpass, in point of rudeness and malignity, any thing ever, before or since, published, in this country, by way of comment on the speeches of a member of parliament. Let the public judge, then, of the decency of Mr. Stuart, in now proclaiming, under your name, the commencement of “ a new era,” and the cessation of "the systein of før