inflict on the greatest crimes.

The next fault is, that the infli&ting of that punishment is not on the opinion of an equal and public judge; but is referred to the arbitrary difcretion of a private, nay interefted, and irritated, individual. He, who formally is, and substantially ought to be, the judge, is in reality no more than minifterial, a mere executive inftrument of a private man, who is at once judge and party. Every idea of judicial order is fubverted by this procedure. If the infolvency be no crime, why is it punished with arbitrary imprifonment? If it be a crime, why is it delivered into private hands to pardon without difcretion, or to punish without mercy and without measure ?

To these faults, grofs and cruel faults in our law, the excellent principle of Lord Beauchamp's bill applied fome fort of remedy. I know that credit must be preferved; but equity must be pre- ferved too; and it is impoffible, that any thing should be neceffary to commerce, which is inconfiftent with juftice. The principle of credit was not weakened by that bill, God forbid! The enforcement of that credit was only put into the fame public judicial hands on which we depend for our lives, and all that makes life dear to us. But, indeed, this bufinefs was taken up too warmly both here and elsewhere. The bill was extremely mistaken. It was fuppofed to enact what it never enacted; and complaints were made of claufes in it as novelties, which exifted before the noble Lord that brought in the bill was born. There was VOL. XXIII.

whole of the objections. The gentlemen who oppofed the bill, always argued, as if the option lay between that bill and the antient law. But this is a grand mistake. For practically, the option is between, not that bill and the old law, but between that bill and thofe occafional laws called acts of grace. For the operation of the old law is fo favage, and fo inconvenient to fociety, that for a long time paft, once in every parlia ment, and lately twice, the legiflature has been obliged to make a general arbitrary jail delivery, and at once to fet open, by its fovereign authority, all the prifons in England.

Gentlemen, I never relished as of grace; nor ever fubmitted to them but from defpair of better. They are a difhonourable invention, by which, not from humanity, not from policy, but merely because we have not room enough to hold these victims of the abfurdity of our laws, we turn loose upon the public three or four thoufand naked wretches, corrupted by the habits, debased by the ignominy of a prifon. If the creditor had a right to those carcafes as a natural fecurity for his property, I am fure we have no right to deprive him of that fecurity. But if the few pounds of flesh were not neceffary to his fecurity, we had not a right to detain the unfortunate debtor, without any benefit at all to the perfon who confined him.-Take it as you will, we commit injuftice. Now Lord Beauchamp's bill. intended to do deliberately, and with great caution and circumfpection, upon each feveral cafe, and with all attention Ꭰ

to

to the just claimant, what acts of grace do in a much greater meafure, and with very little care, caution, or deliberation.

I fufpect that here too, if we contrive to oppofe this bill, we fhall be found in a struggle against the nature of things. For as we grow enlightened, the public will not bear, for any length of time, to pay for the maintenance of whole armies of prifoners; nor, at their own expence, fubmit to, keep jails as a fort of garrifons, merely to. fortify the abfurd principle of making men judges in their own caufe. For credit has little or no concern in this cruelty. I fpeak in a commercial aflembly. You know that credit is given, because capital must be employed; that men calculate the chances of infolvency; and they either withhold their credit, or make the debtor pay the rifque in the price. The counting-houfe has no alliance with the jail. Holland understands trade as well as we, and he has done much more than this obnoxious bill intended to do. There was not, when Mr. Howard vifited Holland, more than one prifoner for debt in the great city of Rot. terdam. Although Lord Beauchamp's act (which was previous to this bill, and intended to feel the way for it) has already preferved liberty to thoufands; and though it is not three years fince the last act of grace paffed, yet by Mr. Howard's laft account, there were near three thousand again in jail. I cannot name this gentleman without remarking, that his labours and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. He has visited all Europe, not to furvey the fump

tuoufnefs of palaces, or the statelinefs of temples; not to make açcurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a fcale of the curiofity of 'modern art; not to collect medals, or collate manufcripts: but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hofpitals; to furvey the manfions of forrow and pain; to take the gage and dimenfions of mifery, depreffion, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forfaken, and to compare and collate the diftreffes of all men in all countries. His plan is original; and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of difcovery; a circumnavigation of charity. ready the benefit of his labour is felt more or lefs in every country: I hope he will anticipate his final reward, by feeing all its effects fully realized in his own. will receive, not by retail but in grofs, the reward of those who vifit the prifoner; and he has fo foreftalled and monopolized this · branch of charity; that there will be, I truft, little room to merit by fuch acts of benevolence hereafter.

Al

He

ftimulate avarice to do what nature refused, to inform and profecute on this law. Every Roman Catholic was, under the fame act, to forfeit his eftate to his nearest Proteftant relation, until, through a profeffion of what he did not believe, he redeemed by his hypocrify, what the law had transferred to the kinfman as the recompence of his profligacy. When thus turned out of doors from his paternal estate, he was difabled from acquiring any other by any induftry, donation, or charity: but was rendered a foreigner in his native land, only because he retained the religion, along with the property, handed down to him from those who had been the old inhabitants of that land before him.

Does any one who hears me approve this scheme of things, or think there is common juftice, common fense, or common honefty in any part of it? If any does, let him fay it, and I am ready to difcufs the point with temper and candour. But inftead of approv-, ing, I perceive a virtuous indigna. tion beginning to rife in your minds on the mere cold ftating of the ftatute,

But what will you feel, when you know from history how this ftatute paffed, and what were the motives, and what the mode of making it? A party in this nation, enemies to the fyftem of the Revolution, were in oppofition to the government of King William. They knew, that our glorious deliverer was an enemy to all perfecution, They knew that he came to free us from flavery and Popery, out of a country, where a third of the people are contented

Catholics under a Proteftant government. He came with a part of his army compofed of those very Catholics, to overfet the power of a Popish prince. Such is the effect of a tolerating fpirit; and fo much is liberty ferved in every way, and by all perfons, by a manly adherence to its own principles. Whilft freedom is true to itself, every thing becomes fubject to it; and its very adverfaries are an inftrument in its hands.

The party I fpeak of (like fome among ft us who would difparage the best friends of their country) refolved to make the king either violate his principles of toleration, or incur the odium of protecting Papifts. They therefore brought in this bill, and made it purposely wicked and abfurd that it might be rejected. The then court party, difcovering their game, turned the tables on them, and returned their bill to them ftuffed with ftill greater abfurdities, that its lofs might lie upon its original authors. They, finding their own ball thrown back to them, kicked it back again to their adverfaries. And thus this act, loaded with the double injuftice of two parties, neither of whom intended to pass, what they hoped the other would be perfuaded to reject, went thro' the legislature, contrary to the real with of all parts of it, and of all the parties that compofed it. In this manner thefe infolent and profligate factions, as if they were playing with balls and counters, made a fport of the fortunes and the liberties of their fellow-creatures, Other acts of perfecution have been acts of malice. was a fubverfion of juftice from wantonness and petulance. Look

This

into the hiftory of Bishop Burnet. He is a witnefs without exception.

The effects of the act have been as mischievous, as its origin was ludicrous and fhameful. From that time every perfon of that communion, lay and ecclefiaftic, has been obliged to fly from the face of day. The clergy, concealed in garrets of private-houses, or obliged to take a fhelter (hardly fafe to themfelves, but infinitely dangerous to their country) under the privileges of foreign ministers, officiated as their fervants, and under their protection. The whole body of the Catholics, condemned to beggary and to ignorance in their native land, have been obliged to learn the principles of letters, at the hazard of all their other principles, from the charity of your enemies. They have been taxed to their ruin at the pleasure of neceffitous and profligate relations, and according to the meafure of their neceffity and profligacy. Examples of this are many and affecting. Some of them are known by a friend who ftands near me in this hall. It is but fix or seven years fince a clergyman of the name of Malony, a man of morals, neither guilty nor accufed of any thing noxious to the ftate, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment for exercifing the functions of his religion; and after lying in jail two or three years, was relieved by the mercy of government from perpetual imprifonment, on condition of perpetual banishment. A brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, a Talbot, a name refpectable in this county, whilst its glory is any part of its concern, was hauled to the bar of the Old Bailey among common fe

lons, and only efcaped the fame doom, either by fome error in the procefs, or that the wretch who brought him there could not correctly defcribe his perfon; I now forget which.-In fhort, the perfe cution would never have relented for a moment, if the judges, fuperfeding (though with an ambiguous example) the frict rule of their artificial duty by the higher obligation of their confcience, did not conftantly throw every difficulty in the way of fuch informers. But fo ineffectual is the power of legal evafion against legal iniquity, that it was but the other day, that a lady of condition, beyond the middle of life, was on the point of being ftripped of her whole fortune by a near relation, to whom she had been a friend and benefactor: and the muft have been totally ruined, without a power of redrefs or mitigation from the courts of law, had not the legislature itfelf rushed in, and by a special act of parliament refcued her from the injuftice of its own ftatutes. of the acts authorifing fuch things was that which we in part repealed, knowing what our duty was; and doing that duty as men of honour and virtue, as good Proteftants, and as good citizens. Let him ftand forth that difapproves what we have done!

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