Much less does forces. country were crowded into the space of a few not the shadow of justification for this increase months, have left the public mind listless and of force, what shall we say of the vacant. The stimulus is withdrawn, and change state of foreign affairs? Above all, the state of foreign affairs has had its accustomed sedative influence. They what shall we say of the comparison demand these who had been gazing till their eyes ached, and between the face of those affairs now they doubted if they were awake, upon the most and its aspect in 1792? That was really a prodigious sights ever presented in the political period of external danger. Never was there and the moral world-upon empires broken up greater room for anxiety; never had the statesand formed anew-dynasties extinguished or men, not of England only, but of all Europe, springing up the chains cast off by not merely more cause for apprehension and alarm-more a people, but a hemisphere; and half the globe occasion for wakefulness to passing eventssuddenly covered with free and independent more ground for being prepared at every point. states-wars waged, battles fought, compared to A prodigious revolution had unchained twentywhich the heroes of old had only been engaged six millions of men in the heart of Europe, galin skirmishes and sallies-treaties made which lant, inventive, enterprising, passionately fond of disposed of whole continents, and span the fate military glory, blindly following the phantom of of millions of men--could hardly fail to find the national renown. Unchained from the fetters contemplation of peace flat, stale, and unprofit- that had for ages bound them to their monarchs, able. The eye that had been in vain attempt- they were speedily found to be alike disentaning to follow the swift march of such gigantic gled from the obligations of peaceful conduct events, could not dwell with much interest upon toward their neighbors. But they stopped not the natural course of affairs, so slow in its mo- here. Confounding the abuses in their political tion as to appear at rest. And hence, if ever institutions with the benefits, they had swept there was a time of utter inaction, of absolute away every vestige of their former polity; and, rest to the public mind, it is the hour now chosen disgusted with the rank growth of corruption to for supposing that there exists some danger which religion had afforded a shelter, they tore which requires defensive preparation, and the up the sacred tree itself, under whose shade increase of the garrison with which the listless France had so long adored and slept. To the and motionless mass of the London population fierceness of their warfare against all authority, may be overawed. Why, my honorable and civil and religious at home, was added the fiery learned friend [the Attorney General] has had zeal of proselytism abroad, and they had rushed nobody to prosecute for some years past. It is into a crusade against all existing governments, above two years since he has filed an ex-officio and on behalf of all nations throughout Europe, information, unless in the exchequer against proclaiming themselves the redressers of every smugglers. Jacobinism, the bugbear of 1792, grievance, and the allies of each people that has for the past six years and more never been chose to rebel against their rulers. The uniform even named. I doubt if allusion to it has been triumph of these principles at home, in each sucmade in this House, even in a debate upon a cessive struggle for supremacy, had been folKing's speech, since Mr. Pitt's death. And to lowed by success almost as signal against the produce a Jacobin, or a specimen of any other first attempts to overpower them from without, kindred tribe, would, I verily believe, at this and all the thrones of the Continent shook before time of day, baffle the skill and the perseverance the blast which had breathed life and spirit into of the most industrious and most zealous col- all the discontented subjects of each of their lector of political curiosities to be found in the trembling possessors. This was the state of whole kingdom. What, then, is the danger-things in 1792, when Mr. Pitt administered the what the speculation upon some possible and expected, but non-existing risk-which makes it necessary at this time to augment the force applied to preserve the peace of the metropolis? But I fear there are far other designs in this measure, than merely to preserve a peace which no man living can have the boldness to contend is in any danger of being broken, and no man living can have the weakness really to be apprehensive about. Empty show, vain parade, will account for the array being acceptable in some high quarters; in others, the force may be recommended by its tending to increase the powers of the executive government, and extend the influence of the prerogative. In either light, it is most disgustful, most hateful to the eye of every friend of his country, and every one who loves the Constitution-all who have any regard for public liberty, and all who reflect on the burdens imposed upon the people. But if the internal state of the country offers affairs of a nation, certainly far less exposed either to the force or to the blandishments of the revolutionary people, but still very far from being removed above the danger of either their arts or their arms; and the existence of peril in both kinds, the fear of France menacing the independence of her neighbors, the risk to our domestic tranquillity from a party at home strongly sympathizing with her sentiments, were the topics upon which both he and his adherents were most prone to dwell in all their discourses of state affairs. Yet in these circumstances, the country thus beset with danger, and the peace thus menaced, both from within and from without, Mr. Pitt was content with half the establishment we are now required to vote! But see only how vast the difference between the This is a favorable specimen of Mr. Brougham's free, bold, animated painting and declamation, al ways made directly subservient to his argument, and filling his speeches with life and interest. present aspect of affairs and that which I have | I am now speaking the language of the noble Lord's argument, and not of my own. He holds valor of these troops no reason for still keeping them on foot. ple, how often are we told from that bench of office, from the Crown side of the bar, nay, from the bench of justice itself, that by becoming soldiers, men cease not to be citizens, and that this Driven from the argument of necessity, as the is a glorious peculiarity of our free Constitution ? Respect for the noble Lord seemed to feel assured he Then what right can the noble Lord have to conshould be the moment any one exam-sider that the retaining men under arms, and in ined the case, he skillfully prepared the pay of the state, is an exaltation and a disfor his retreat to another position, tinction which they cease to enjoy if restored to somewhat less exposed, perhaps, but far enough the status of ordinary citizens? I read the Confrom being impregnable. You can not, he said, stitution in the very opposite sense to the noble disband troops who have so distinguished them- Lord's gloss. I have not sojourned in congressselves in the late glorious campaigns. This topic es with the military representatives of military he urged for keeping up the guards. But I ask, powers-I have not frequented the courts, any which of our troops did not equally distinguish more than I have followed the camps of these themselves? What regiment engaged in the potentates-I have not lived in the company of wars failed to cover itself with their glories? crowned soldiers, all whose ideas are fashioned This argument, if it has any force at all, may be upon the rules of the drill and the articles of the used against disbanding a single regiment, or dis- fifteen maneuvers-all whose estimates of a councharging a single soldier. Nay, even those who try's value are framed on the number of troops it by the chances of war had no opportunity of dis- will raise, and who can no more sever the idea playing their courage, their discipline, and their of a subject from that of a soldier, than if men zeal, would be extremely ill treated if they were were born into this world in complete armor, as now to be dismissed the service merely because Minerva started from Jupiter's head. My ideas it was their misfortune not to have enjoyed the are more humble and more civic, and the only same opportunity with others in happier circumstances of sharing in the renown of our victories. It is enough to have been deprived of the laurels which no one doubts they would equally have gresses on the Continent in 1815, instead of sending won had they been called into the field. Surely, verest strictures from the Opposition, who considered surely, they might justly complain if to the disap-him as inflated by vanity, and in danger of being sepointment were added the being turned out of the duced into measures unbecoming the representative service, which no act of theirs had dishonored. of a free people. * The unusual course taken by Lord Castlereagh, as minister, of going himself to the various con an embassador, had before this drawn forth the se language I know, or can speak, or can understand in this House, is the mother tongue of the old English Constitution. I will speak none other-I will suffer none other to be spoken in my presence. Addressing the soldier in that language-which alone above all other men in the country he ought to know-to which alone it peculiarly behooves us that he, the armed man, should be accustomed—I tell him, “You have distinguished yourself-all that the noble Lord says of you is true-nay, under the truth-you have crowned yourself with the glories of war. But chiefly you, the guards, you have outshone all others, and won for yourselves a deathless fame. Now, then, advance and receive your reward. Partake of the benefits you have secured for your grateful country. None are better than you entitled to share in the blessings, the inestimable blessings of peace-than you whose valor has conquered it for us. Go back, then, to the rank of citizens, which, for a season, you quitted at the call of your country. Exalt her glory in peace, whom you served in war; and enjoy the rich recompense of all your toils in the tranquil retreat from dangers, which her gratitude bestows upon you." I know this to be the language of the Constitution, and time was when none other could be spoken, or would have been understood in this House. I still hope that no one will dare use any other in the country; and, least of all, can any other be endured as addressed to the soldiery in arms, treating them as if they were the hired partisans of the Prince, a caste set apart for his service, and distinguished from all the rest of their countrymen, not a class of the people devoting themselves for a season to carry arms in defense of the nation, and when their services are wanted no more, retiring naturally to mix with and be lost in the mass of their fellow-citizens. Nor does jus tice require it treat the common sailors who compose our in- These troops pensive than line. After the great constitutional question to which I have been directing your attention, you will hardly bear with me far more exwhile I examine these estimates in those of the any detail. This, however, I must say, that nothing can be more scandalous than the extravagance of maintaining the establishment of the guards at the expense of troops of the line, which cost the country so much less. Compare the charge of two thousand guards with an equal number of the line, and you will find the difference of the two amounts to be above £10,000 a year. It is true that this sum is not very large, and compared with our whole expenditure it amounts to nothing. But in a state burdened as ours is, there can be no such thing But it has been said that there is injustice and as a small saving; the people had far rather see ingratitude in the country turning adrift millions spent upon necessary objects, than thouher defenders as soon as the war is end- sands squandered unnecessarily, and upon mated, and we are tauntingly asked, "Isters of mere superfluity; nor can any thing be this the return you make to the men who have more insulting to their feelings, and less bearfought your battles? When the peace comes able by them, than to see us here underrating which they have conquered, do you wish to starve the importance even of the most inconsiderable them or send them off to sweep the streets ?" I sum that can be added to or taken from the inwish no such thing; I do not desire that they tolerable burdens under which they labor. should go unrequited for their services. But I can not allow that the only, or the best, or even a lawful mode of recompensing them, is to keep on foot during peace the army which they compose, still less that it is any hardship whatever for a soldier to return into the rank of citizens when the necessity is at an end, which alone justified his leaving those ranks. Nor can I believe that it is a rational way of showing our gratitude toward the army, whose only valuable service has been to gain us an honorable peace, to maintain an establishment for their behoof, which must deprive the peace of all its value, and neutralize the benefits which they have conferred upon us. See, too, the gross inconsistency of this argument with your whole conduct. How do you As for the pretext set up to-night that the question is concluded by the vote of last Friday, nothing can be more ridiculous. This House never can be so bound. If it could, then may it any hour be made the victim of surprise, and the utmost encouragement is held out to tricks and maneuvers. If you voted too many men before, you can now make that vote harmless and inoperative by withholding the supplies necessary for keeping those men on foot. As well may it be contended that the House is precluded from throwing out a bill on the third reading, because it affirmed the principle by its vote on the second, and sanctioned the details by receiving the committee's report. The estimate before you is £385,000, for the support of eight thousand one hundred guards. Adopt my honorable friend's amendment [Mr. | twice as great as was formerly deemed sufficient Calcraft], and you reduce them to about four thousand, which is still somewhat above their number in the last peace. jurious sys tem is pursued. when all Europe was involved in domestic troubles, and war raged in some parts, and was about to spread over the whole. It is not my fault that peace will have returned without its accustomed blessings; that our burdens are to remain undiminished; that our liberties are to be menaced by a standing army, without the pretense of necessity in any quarter to justify its continuance. The blame is not mine that a brilliant and costly army of household troops, of unprecedented numbers, is allowed to the Crown without the shadow of use, unless it be to pamper a vicious appetite for military show, to gratify a passion for parade, childish and contemptible; unless, indeed, that nothing can be an object of contempt which is at once dangerous to the Constitution of the country, and burdensome to the resources of the people. I shall further record my resistance to this system by my vote; and never did I give my voice to any proposition with more hearty satisfaction than I now do to the amendment of my honorable friend. Sir, I have done. I have discharged my duty Peroration to the country; I have accepted the The speaker free from all challenge of the ministers to discuss responsibili the question; I have met them fairly, ty if the inand grappled with the body of the argument. I may very possibly have failed to convince the House that this establishment is enormous and unjustifiable, whether we regard the burdened condition of the country, or the tranquil state of its affairs at home, or the universal repose in which the world is lulled, or the experience of former times, or the mischievous tendency of large standing armies in a constitutional point of view, or the dangerous nature of the arguments urged in their support upon the present occasion. All this I feel very deeply; and I am also very sensible how likely it is that, on taking another view, you should come to an opposite determination. Be it so; I have done my duty; I have entered my protest. It can not be laid to my charge that a force is to be maintained in profound and general peace ity of eighty. The amendment was voted down by a major SPEECH OF MR. BROUGHAM IN BEHALF OF WILLIAMS WHEN PROSECUTED FOR A LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM, DELIVERED AT DURHAM BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, AUGUST 9, 1822. INTRODUCTION. MR. WILLIAMS was editor of the Chronicle, a paper published at Durham, in the north of England, and distinguished for its assertion of free principles in Church and State. When Queen Caroline died, August 7, 1821, the established clergy of Durham would not allow the bells of their churches to be tolled in the ordinary manner as a token of respect to her memory. This fact called out the following remarks from Mr. Williams, in his paper of August 10, 1821: "So far as we have been able to judge from the accounts in the public papers, a mark of respect to her late Majesty has been almost universally paid throughout the kingdom, when the painful tidings of her decease were received, by tolling the bells of the cathedrals and churches. But there is one exception to this very creditable fact which demands especial notice. In this episcopal city, containing six churches independently of the cathedral, not a single bell announced the departure of the magnanimous spirit of the most injured of queens-the most persecuted of women. Thus the brutal enmity of those who embittered her mortal existence pursues her in her shroud. "We know not whether any actual orders were issued to prevent this customary sign of mourning; but the omission plainly indicates the kind of spirit which predominates among our clergy. Yet these men profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, to walk in his footsteps, to teach his precepts, to inculcate his spirit, to promote harmony, charity, and Christian love! Out upon such hypocrisy! It is such conduct which renders the very name of our established clergy odious, till it stinks in the nostrils; that makes our churches look like deserted sepulchers, rather than temples of the living God; that raises up conventicles in every corner, and increases the brood of wild fanatics and enthusiasts; that causes our beneficed dignitaries to be regarded as usurpers of their possessions; that deprives them of all pastoral influence and respect; that, in short, has left them no support or prop in the attachment or veneration of the people. Sensible of the decline of their spiritual and moral influence, they cling to temporal power, and lose in their officiousness in political matters, even the semblance of the character of ministers of religion. It is impossible that such a system can last. It is at war with the spirit of the age, as well as with justice and reason, and the beetles who crawl about amid its holes and crevices act as if they were striving to provoke and accelerate the blow, which, sooner or later, will inevitably crush the whole fabric and level it with the dust." Mr. Williams was prosecuted for these remarks as a libel on the clergy of Durham, and was defended by Mr. Brougham in the following speech, which for bitter irony and withering invective has hardly its equal in our language. Remarks on the speech of the Attorney General as showing how much he the dubculties SPEECH, &c. GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY,-My learned friend [Mr. Scarlett], the Attorney General for the Bishop of Durham, having at considerable length offered to you various conjectures as to the line of defense which he supposed I should pursue upon this occasion; having nearly exhausted every topic which I was not very likely to urge, and elaborately traced, with much fancy, all the ground on which I could hardly be expected to tread-perhaps it may be as well that I should now, in my turn, take the liberty of stating to you what really is the defendant's case, and that you should know from myself what I do intend to lay before you. As my learned friend has indulged in so many remarks upon what I shall not say, I may take leave to offer a single observation on what he has said; and I think I may appeal to any one of you who ever of his case. served upon a jury or witnessed a trial, and ask if you ever before this day saw a public prosecutor who stated his case with so much art and ingenuity-wrought up his argument with such pains-wandered into so large a field of declamation-or altogether performed his task in so elaborate and eloquent a fashion as the Attorney General has done upon the present occasion. I do not blame this course. I venture not even to criticise the discretion he has exercised in the management of his cause; and I am far, indeed, from complaining of it. But I call upon you to declare that inference which I think you must already have drawn in your own minds, and come to that conclusion at which I certainly have arrived—that he felt what a laboring case he had that he was aware how very different his situation to-day is from any he ever before knew in a prosecution for libel-and that the extraordinary pressure of the difficulties he had to struggle with drove him to so unusual a course. He has called the defendant "that unhappy man." Unhappy he will be, indeed, but not the only unhappy man in this country, if the doctrines laid down by my learned friend are sanctioned by your verdict; for those doctrines, I fearlessly tell you, must, if established, inevitably destroy the whole liberties of us all. Not that he has vertured to deny the right of discussion generally upon all subjects, even upon the present, or to screen from free inquiry the foundations of the Established Church, and the conduct of its ministers as a body (which I shall satisfy you are not even commented on in the publication before you). Far from my learned friend is it to impugn those rights in the abstract; nor, indeed, have I ever yet heard a prosecutor for libel-an Attorney General (and I have seen a good many in my time), whether of our Lord the King or our Lord of Durham, who, while in the act of crushing every thing like unfettered discussion, did not preface his address to the jury with "God forbid that the fullest inquiry should not be allowed." But then the admission had LLL invariably a condition following close behind, which entirely retracted the concession-" provided always the discussion be carried on harmlessly, temperately, calmly"—that is to say, in such a manner as to leave the subject untouched, and the reader unmoved; to satisfy the public prosecutor, and to please the persons attacked. like the other institutions of the country, is established My learned friend has asked if the defendant knows that the Church is established The Church, by law? He knows it, and so do I. The Church is established by law, as the civil government-as all the insti- by law. tutions of the country are established by lawas all the offices under the Crown are established by law, and all who fill them are by the law protected. It is not more established, nor more protected, than those institutions, officers, and office-bearers, each of which is recognized and favored by the law as much as the Church; but I never yet have heard, and I trust I never shall; least of all do I expect, in the lesson which your verdict this day will read, to hear that those officers and office-bearers, and all those institutions, sacred and secular, and the conduct of all, whether laymen or priests, who administer them, are not the fair subjects of open, untrammeled, manly, zealous, and even vehement discussion, as long as this country pretends to liberty, and prides herself on the possession of a free press. like them, to the severest Those In the publication before you the defendant has not attempted to dispute the high It is liable, character of the Church; on that Establishment, or its members generally, scrutiny. he has not endeavored to fix any stigma. topics, then, are foreign to the present inquiry, and I have no interest in discussing them; yet, after what has fallen from my learned friend, it is fitting that I should claim for this defendant, and for all others, the right to question-freely to question-not only the conduct of the ministers of the Established Church, but even the foundations of the Church itself. It is, indeed, unnecessary for my present purpose, because I shall demonstrate that the paper before you does not touch upon those points; but unnecessary though it be, as my learned friend has defied me, I will follow him to the field and say that if there is any one of the institutions of the country which, more emphatically than all the rest, justifies us in arguing strongly, feeling powerfully, and expressing our sentiments as well as urging our reasons with vehemence, it is that branch of the state which, because it is sacred, because it bears connection with higher principles than any involved in the mere management of worldly concerns-for that very reason, entwines itself with deeper feelings, and must needs be discussed, if discussed at all, with more warmth and zeal than any other part of our system is fitted to rouse. But if any hierarchy in all the world The Church of is bound on every principle of con- England ought sistency-if any Church should be court that forward, not only to suffer, but scrutiny. pro especially to |