danger, and therefore it was that he op posed the present bill. If ministers would prove the internal danger to exist, he would consider himself bound to vote for it on the third reading. Colonel Hartley observed, that as he believed the country to be at this time in danger, whatever opinion he might have of administration, he thought he could not do better than confide in them in the present instance, and give his assent to the present bill. When the danger was over, the House would expect ministers to give a very good account of the whole proceedings, and if they did not satisfy the House, proper steps could be taken to express disapprobation; but at present, under all the circumstances, he was for passing the bill as the best measure that could be adopted. January 4, 1793. The order of the day being read for taking into consideration the report of the committee on the Alien Bill, on the feelings of others on a former day. The whole subject had been explained by the noble marquis with so much propriety, dignity, and perspicuity, that he could not entertain a doubt as to his principles and sentiments. He had so properly come forward to state his opinion as a member of that House (which, by the way, was more regular than alluding to the opinion of other persons who were not members), that no doubt could now remain; all that he had to say on that subject was, that he concurred entirely with the noble marquis in every thing he had said that night, except his approbation of the present bill. The committee might, perhaps, be the proper stage for him to deliver his sentiments upon the subject. At present, he must confess, he was not ready to give his assent to the bill. He was not surprised that there was a dif- The House then resolved itself into the ference of opinion between the noble committee. The bill was read clause by marquis and himself upon the bill. They clause, and a great number of amendhad formed different opinions on the statements made and additional clauses inof the country: the noble marquis had troduced. thought the country in danger, and therefore very properly thought that the executive power should be strengthened. He, on the contrary, was not aware of such danger, and saw no necessity for the bill; and therefore, when the case was Mr. M. A. Taylor said, that the printhus explained, it was not surprising that ciple of the bill appeared to him of the they differed in opinion. The bill must, most dangerous tendency. If once estahe apprehended, be discussed on two blished, he did not well see where it was grounds. The first was, whether any to stop, or why it might not be extended danger did exist? If that was determined to British subjects as well as foreigners, in the negative, there would be an end of and lead to a total repeal of the Habeas the bill; if in the affirmative, then, se. Corpus act, upon grounds of danger tocondly, whether the bill contained the tally ideal, or at least unsupported by any proper remedy for such danger? The evidence. His majesty's ministers had felt present was not a question of general it necessary, in order to justify themselves support of administration, as had been for calling parliament together so unexvery erroneously stated: it was, whether pectedly, to state not only that there exany thing was necessary in the present isted a formidable body of men in this case; and if any thing was necessary, country, who professed principles inimical whether the bill was adapted to the end to the constitution, but that there had proposed? He was ready to say, that if actually happened in various parts of the the circumstances of the time were such kingdom riots and insurrections. That as ministers described them to be, it would there had existed riots and insurrections be necessary for him to support govern- of a very alarming nature, he was very ment, and he would support government ready to admit. But they were composed if there was really danger in this country. of men who, while they were acting in the He was always ready to support govern- most outrageous manner, had the words ment when he thought it wanted support." Church and King" constantly in their As a proof of this, he had given his vote for the augmentation both of the army and navy this year. He had done so because he believed this country was threatened with external danger. But he did not belive that there was any internal [VOL, XXX.] mouths. These however were not the kind of riots to which ministers had alluded: they had spoken of insurrections, fomented by disaffected persons at home, for the purpose of subverting the constitu tion. Ministers had been repeatedly called [0] upon to state where and when these riots had existed; but in vain. The right hon. secretary had mentioned four or five instances, every one of which had been disproved. Then came the present bill, brought in with as little argument, and supported by as few facts, as any measure of the kind ever was. It appeared to him, that it violated in its principle, the most sacred rights of our constitution, without any cause to justify such violation; it violated the rights of aliens. It left them entirely in the power of the king, and that power might go even as far as death; which would be the certain consequence to an emigrant from France, if sent back to his own country. He said, he never would agree to leave any man at the mercy of ministers, without evidence of guilt, though he did not mean to doubt their humanity. But, amidst all this dreadful alarm, had any man been taken up; had any prosecutions been brought? No such thing; all was bare assertion. Of late, the great body of the people had been held of no account whatever; but the law and constitution of this country, and the bill of rights, recognised the rights of the people. He hoped that the friends with whom he had the honour to act, would steadily pursue that line of conduct which had hitherto distinguished them. He knew they were not to be terrified; and he trusted that if deprived, for the present, of some of those friends who had been accustomed to agree with them those who remained would be the more firm and determined. The words of his right hon. friend (Mr. Fox) were of sterling weight, and he was convinced would be found in the end to be of sound policy. It appeared to him, that it would be much wiser to exercise the king's prerogative, of sending aliens out of the kingdom, should circumstances render such exercise of it necessary, than to have recourse to the present bill. severe The Earl of Wycombe said, that no facts had been brought forward to justify the restrictions proposed by this bill to be imposed on aliens. He would rather wish that all the benefits of our constitution should be extended to foreigners resident here. Let them have a fair trial, and if proved to be guilty, let them be punished. He disapproved of the bill as being unjust, and leading to the most dangerous consequences as a precedent. He was decidedly of opinion, that there existed no ground for any alarm from disaffection to the constitution; but he was not equally free from alarm at the conduct of ministers. He was yet to learn that there existed any external danger. We were not menaced, nor were we likely to be attacked. He would not enter into a detail of the internal situation of France, but it appeared to him that to engage this country in a war at present, would be a most ruinous measure. Our adversaries had unquestionably much less to lose than we had; What could we gain by possessing ourselves of any of their West-India islands? On the contrary, he rather thought it would be advantageous to this country, if our own West-India islands were independent of it. Experience had, in repeated instances, shown of how little advantage colonies were to a mother country. Every day made him more clearly of opinion, that there was not any necessity for our going to war. An explanation had been given of the decree of the 19th of November: and shall we, said the noble lord, embark in a war in defence of aliens, who are not ready to go to war themselves? Holland seemed by no means disposed to go to war. His lordship then adverted to the conduct of the Dutch towards Great Britain in the year 1780, and read a variety of instances of their having given to our enemies every assistance in their power, while they peremptorily refused to us the assistance which they were engaged to afford us. Until he heard some better argument brought forward in support of the conduct of ministry, than well-turned phrases and specious declamation he would give his most determined opposition to measures which appeared to him in the highest degree detrimental to the public interest. Lord Fielding observed, that having given notice on the very first day of the session, of his intention to move for leave to bring in a bill for suspending the Habeas Corpus act, as far as might relate to the persons of foreigners, no one could suppose that he was not a friend to the present bill; and yet it so happened, that the bill itself did not very much please him. Several new clauses, framed without previous deliberation, had been added to it in the committee; and one in particular respecting alien merchants; which he greatly feared would completely defeat the whole object of the bill, as under the exception which was enacted in favour of persons of such a description, the very men against whom the bill was intended been dispersed through this kingdom to effect those dreadful disasters; he had no hesitation in supporting any measure which could tend to prevent the threatened mischief. It was needless to refer to M. le Brun's letter, in which he menaced an appeal to the people of England against the government. He would content himself with a reference to his letter to the American states, in which he says, to operate, might be able to escape. An hon. member had said much about the rights of aliens: no man was more ready to respect them than he was; but his first object was to secure the safety of the state: and that being once out of danger, he would be happy to see aliens in the fullest enjoyment of every right which the law and constitution of England allowed them. Gentlemen had called for evidence of the facts on which the bill" we will establish liberty among all sur. was grounded; but he, for one, would not press for the production of such evidence pending either a negociation or preparations for war. He was disposed to hope that war might be avoided; but should it become inevitable, he trusted, that every Englishman would be ready to sacrifice both life and fortune in the defence of his country and its constitution. Lord Beauchamp warmly supported the bill. The present discussion was, he said, impatiently expected by the public. There was no period in our history distinguished for such an uncommon influx of foreigners; many of whom were the most questionable characters. If this bill were not adopted, this would be the only country to which the mal-contents abroad would direct themselves, under pretext of an asylum; by which the government might be endangered, and our liberties exposed to the wanton innovations of projectors. There were numbers who inundated our coasts, in quest of new crimes, or to conceal themselves with impunity for the abominable deeds of which they had been guilty. These wretches ought to be expelled society, with the strongest marks of reprobation. the bill was, in his opinion, well calculated to preserve us from the calamities which France had experienced. The clause relating to passports he highly commended. If France, in times of the greatest tranquillity, had exercised this power against natives of this country, as well as others, the same system could not give offence to those who now came to us for relief. The bill merely refused residence to any foreigner who did not assign satisfactory reasons for his abode in this country. Several cases occurred, which justified the measure at this alarming crisis. When he found every where men looking upon our constitution with jaundiced eyes; when he had heard them announce their abandoned designs to overturn all government; when he learnt that foreign money and foreign agents had rounding nations, or perish in the attempt." Let not gentlemen vainly imagine, if France be permitted to add coun. try to country by her conquests, that she will spare Great Britain. Let us not neglect to adopt modes of averting the storm: let us not look supinely on, till London contains more French soldiers than British guards. It had been fashionable to ridicule the proclamation. In his opinion it was prudent. Seditious practices he was convinced existed. The snake was scotched, not killed. It was a crisis of great delicacy, and whatever might be his opinion of those who composed the present administration, public duty called upon him, at this moment, to give them a fair, reasonable, and honourable support; and he begged to be understood that he pledged himself to no more than to do so in this instance. Major Maitland thought it his duty to oppose the bill, because the reasons which had been assigned for its introduction were not founded on fact, and because it went to give powers to government, which, considering the prejudice that was at present generally entertained against aliens, ought not to be delegated. If he could beinduced to believe that the danger which was so much talked of really existed, he should have no objection to giving his support to the executive government; but he saw no danger, except that which had been created by ministers themselves, and which they wished to be generally propagated and believed, in order that, taking advantage of the ferment of the people, they might carry measures which they would not dare to bring forward at any other period. He declared that he could not conceive the utility of going to war. If a war was entered into for the pur pose of preventing the circulation_ of French principles, it would have an effect directly opposite. The troops who might be sent to France would imbibe those principles, and bring them back again into this country. Such had been the case | with the French troops who had been sent sure prompted by a just impression of an to America, and who had thus proved the alarm and peril, universally felt, and cause of the recent revolution. With re- prompted as a defence, not only of the exgard to the bill, it went to vest ministers ecutive government for the day, but of with powers which he should always op- those great principles which every ingepose; but a view of their uniform conduct, nuous mind, upon either side of the House, and an ill opinion of their intentions, was in the habit of cherishing the most; formed in his mind an irresistible objec- the defence of liberty and religion (to say tion. When the late proclamations came nothing of property and life, in compariout, he believed the nation at large were son) against incendiaries abroad, conspirastonished; but it was hoped that, at the ing with incendiaries at home, to desmeeting of parliament, government would troy, in one flame, every order of governgive a satisfactory explanation of their ment, ecclesiastical or civil, in our conconduct. That House had heard of no stitution. He had once hoped that opsuch explanation, nor had any proofs been position would come forward, as one man given of the existence of the danger. at such an awful crisis of national danger, Whatever alarm ministers might have af- friends, and auxiliaries to the executive fected with respect to aliens, they were government, without prejudice to their themselves assidiously creating ground for dislike of the minister's conduct, or of the that alarm, by the importation of aliens, mode in which he was appointed, and duty free, into this country. He had without prejudice to their general hope of heard, that a number of foreigners had continuing together, a phalanx against him; lately arrived at Harwich, by means of a phalanx, by the way, a little more compact passports from the British ambassador at than it has been, which may be an adthe Hague, who had assured them of vantage to it. He had hoped they would admission into this country free of any say, as a party, what some of them had duty at the custom-house. Of this alarm, said as individuals, when they seceded what had been the consequence? Not from the rest: "We dislike the minister, that the prisons were crowded with fo- we like ourselves better (a very natural reigners, but that a reward of 100l. had preference!) but we support the minister been offered for apprehending an indivi- to defend the country." Such, to his imdual, Mr. Frost, who had been educated mortal honour, were the emphatical words in the school of the present minister, and of a noble marquis (Titchfield). He had who, it was understood, was shortly com- hoped, that such of the party, at least as ing over to take his trial. As a reason the had signed papers, confessing the existmajor ridiculed the story which had been ence and prevalency of opinions dangepropagated relating to the nineteen as- rous to the government, would confess it sassins, whom lord Grenville had repre- in parliament; that such of them as were sented as having arrived here; and whom friends of the people would be anxious to Mr. Burke, in the plenitude of his indig- exculpate the popular character in this nation, had affirmed to have come for the kingdom, from the original sin of those purpose of murdering his majesty and the levelling opinions, assigning it, as they royal family. He concluded, by giving could, with more truth, to artifice and mothe bill his negative; at the same time ney, imported from the continent;-that maintaining, that if any real cause of dan- confessing the danger and the origin of it ger existed, either to the king or the in conformity with such notorious facts, constitution, he would show as much ala- they would either support this bill, or sugcrity as any man either within or without gest a wiser and a better. In all these the House to repel the attack. hopes, he had been cruelly disappointed; and he was timid enough to lament, as a disadvantage to the public interest, Mr. Fox's persevering opposition to such a measure. That as to the bill itself, if it had a fault, it was the fault of inadequacy, not excess, in the powers given to the executive government; that he had in the committee entered his protest against the exception of alien merchants, from the power to send mischievous aliens out of the kingdom, and had been fortunate Mr. Hardinge rose to give, in the most unequivocal and clear manner, his own sentiments upon the necessity of the bill, and upon the bill itself. He had once hoped, that instead of the animated opposition which this bill had already encountered, and the able opposition it was likely to encounter, he should attest, in support of it here, not a bare unanimity, but the most cordial, that parliament had ever known. It was, in his view of it, a mea enough to see that exception removed. If quarantine was thought expedient upon the apprehension of plague, before the suspected vessel could land her goods if by the law of nations we can send even a ship in distress, by cannon from the shore, when plague infects her cargo, how infinitely more expedient is the safeguard of this bill, against the most infernal pestilence that ever scourged a nation-the creed and profession of anarchy, which every day poured in upon us from the continent! Was he to be challenged here, as in a court of justice, with two important little words, in that scene of action, .but ridiculous here? To the words "prove it," he would answer, first, that it was not juridical but prudential inquiry; next, that it would or might be dangerous, to go into the detail, perhaps impracticable, from the nature of the subject, but most of all he would answer, that it was a bold and rash contumely upon the sense of the whole kingdom, to call in question the fact of disaffection, which a people so enlightened had believed, and had resisted with such patriotism and public spirit. He would therefore say, upon these grounds, "I will not prove it." He then stated, the power given by the bill, and said, he would follow it up against those who could alone be the objects of it, in order to see what power it gave to oppress the innocent. If the bill should operate with restraint and punishment upon the emissaries of atheism and sedition, it would fall where it should. If it should punish or discover and exclude, the leveller in principle, who was an incendiary at heart, it would fall where it should; whether it found him with or without a dagger in his hand, with or without French money or French paper in his pocket, it would find him at least with French principles in his head -principles of rebellion against all government-and an avowed and boasted contempt for every oath of allegiance in the world. If the name of an emigrant should be the mask of an emissary and a leveller, this act would pull it off, and would catch the emissary or the leveller again. If it should be the case of an emigrant here, from the emigrants abroad, from the emigrant army, for example, he considered such an alien as the just object of suspicion; because if he should negociate his reinstatement in France, his interest may tempt him to make proselytes here as a merit and plea to urge at Paris. If it should be the case of an emigrant and refugee from the desolations and cruelties of Paris, that emigrant was our friend; he had come to us for shelter and mercy; he had come to us, appealing to a government by law, against a government by the sword; he had merited our sympathy, and we had given him unequivocal proofs of it. Without compliment to the minister, could it be imagined that he would be so mad as to go out of his way in shaking, by the oppression of such an alien, that center of union which incorporated the public interest and the public opinion, and formed his own? The only other class that remained was the indifferent alien, the by-stander, who took no part in the conflict, but was blameless, and, as an alien, was entitled by that character alone to an hospitable reception. That a minister could oppress him, that he could oppress an alien merchant for the sake of oppressing him, and with no possible temptation of interest, he confessed, and, thinking all discretionary powers dangerous, he lamented it, but it was a necessary evil because, without an indefinite power over aliens of all descriptions, the mischievous could never be separated from the good. He said, the report of M. le Brun, read the other night, would, of itself, in his opinion justify this bill. That minister had stated in the national assembly, that Paris employed political agents here (not of course accredited by us); and he adds a direct menace to appeal from what he affects to call "the palace," and "the minister," (but knowing it well to be the sense of parliament) ad populum, by which he means the lowest classes of the mob. This report was the signal of rebellion to the disaffected here, and the bill would act with a salutary effect in averting that mischief. The libels of the day would of themselves justify this bill. They were French to the bone, in connexion as well as principle. They had given birth to doctrines upon the subject of public libel, which he made no scruple to condemn as at once ignorant and mischievous; nor could sedition of the worst kind receive a more powerful help. It had been asserted for example, that intention proved the libel, instead of libel proving the intention, and that all opinions upon government were "free," that is, free in the sense of legal impunity, after publication, as well as before it, "let the seditious tendency of such opinions be ever so apparent." The most eminent republican of his day, |