The peace was inadequate, because the places gained were no equivalent for the places surrendered."

Towards the conclusion of his speech Mr. Pitt was so ill and faint that he could scarcely be heard. It was his intention to have spoken on the articles relative to Spain, but he was unable to do so.

The motion was carried by a majority of 319 to 65; and on the 10th of February, 1763, the definitive treaty was signed at Paris between Great Britain, France, and Spain.

PROCEEDINGS RESPECTING MR. WILKES.

1763. In the forty-fifth number of a weekly paper called The North Briton, of which John Wilkes, the member for Aylesbury, was the avowed author, his Majesty was charged with uttering a falsehood in his speech from the Throne ;* upon which a general warrant for apprehending the authors, printers, and publishers, of the above seditious and treasonable libel, was issued by the Earl of Halifax, one of the principal Secretaries of State. By virtue of this warrant, Mr. Wilkes was taken into custody, and committed to the Tower; but on being brought before the Court of Common Pleas by a writ of habeas corpus, Lord Chief Justice Pratt,† in delivering the judgment of the Court, said, that Mr. Wilkes was entitled by his privilege as a member of Parliament to be free from arrest in all cases, except treason, felony, and actual breach of the peace; and that he ought therefore to be discharged from imprisonment without bail. Mr. Wilkes was thereupon released from custody; but criminal proceedings were immediately commenced against him by the Attorney-General.§

Upon the meeting of Parliament on the 15th of November, as soon as the Commons had returned to their own house after hearing the speech from the Throne, Mr. George Grenville, who, on the retirement of the Earl of Bute on the 8th of April preceding, had succeeded to the office of Prime Minister, said that he was commanded by the King to inform them that his Majesty, having received information that John Wilkes, Esq., a member of that House, was the author of a most seditious and dangerous libel, published since the last session of Parliament, had caused him to be apprehended and secured, in order that he might be tried for the same by due course of law;

* The forty-fifth number of The North Briton appeared on the 23rd of April, 1763, and the speech from the Throne which it attacked was delivered by the King at the close of the session on the 19th of that month.

Afterwards Earl Camden, and Lord Chancellor.

Wilson's C. P. Reports, vol. ii. p. 159.

§ Two prosecutions were instituted against Mr. Wilkes; one in respect of the libel on the King in the forty-fifth number of The North Briton, and the other in respect of an obscene and impious publication, entitled An Essay on Woman. Mr. Wilkes was convicted on both prosecutions; but, when called on to receive the judgment of the Court, he refused to appear, and he was outlawed.

but that Mr. Wilkes had been discharged out of custody by the Court of Common Pleas, upon account of his privilege as a member of that House. Mr. Grenville concluded by laying on the table the libel, with the examination upon which Mr. Wilkes had been apprehended. On the same day, after the address in answer to the speech from the Throne had been voted, the House resolved, by a majority of 273 to 111, that the paper intituled The North Briton, No. 45, was a false, scandalous, and seditious libel, containing expressions of the most unexampled insolence and contumely towards his Majesty, the grossest aspersions upon both Houses of Parliament, and the most audacious defiance of the authority of the whole legislature; and that it should be burned by the hands of the common hangman. Mr. Wilkes having complained of the proceedings which had been taken against him by the Government, the further consideration of the question which the King's message and Mr. Wilkes's complaint involved, was adjourned to the 23rd of November, when the following motion was made: "That the privilege of Parliament does not extend to the case of writing and publishing seditious libels, nor ought it to be allowed to obstruct the ordinary course of the laws in the speedy and effectual prosecution of so heinous and dangerous an offence." The debate which arose upon this motion was adjourned to the next day.

November 24. Mr. Pitt attended upon this occasion, although so severely afflicted with the gout that he was obliged to be supported to his seat.

"He spoke strongly against this surrender of the privileges of Parliament, as highly dangerous to the freedom of Parliament, and an infringement on the rights of the people. No man," he said, “could condemn the paper or libel more than he did; but he would come at the author fairly, not by an open breach of the constitution, and a contempt of all restraint. This proposed sacrifice of privilege was putting every member of Parliament, who did not vote with the Ministry, under a perpetual terror of imprisonment. To talk of an abuse of privilege, was to talk against the constitution, against the very being and life of Parliament. It was an arraignment of the justice and honour of Parliament, to suppose that they would protect any criminal whatever. Whenever a complaint was made against any member, the House could give him up. This privilege had never been abused; it had been reposed in Parliament for ages. But take away this privilege, and the whole Parliament is laid at the mercy of the Crown.— This privilege having never been abused, why then is it to be voted away? Parliament had no right to vote away its privileges. They were the inherent rights of the succeeding members of that House, as well as of the present; and he doubted whether the sacrifice proposed to be made by that House would be valid and conclusive against the claim of a future Parliament. With respect to the paper itself, or the libel which had given pretence for this request to surrender the privileges of Parliament, the House had already voted it a libel-he joined in that vote. He condemned the whole series of North

Britons; he called them illiberal, unmanly, and detestable. He abhorred all national reflections. The King's subjects were one people. Whoever divided them was guilty of sedition.* His Majesty's complaint was wellfounded, it was just, it was necessary. The author did not deserve to be ranked among the human species-he was the blasphemer of his God, and the libeller of his King. He had no connexion with him. He had no connexion with any such writer. He neither associated nor communicated with any such. It was true that he had friendships, and warm ones; he had obligations, and great ones; but no friendships, no obligations, could induce him to approve what he firmly condemned. It might be supposed that he alluded to his noble relation (Lord Temple).† He was proud to call him his relation; he was his friend, his bosom friend, whose fidelity was as unshaken as his virtue. They went into office together, and they came out together; they had lived together, and would die together. He knew nothing of any connexion with the writer of the libel. If there subsisted any, he was totally unacquainted with it. The dignity, the honour of Parliament had been called upon to support and protect the purity of his Majesty's character; and this they had done, by a strong and decisive condemnation of the libel, which his Majesty had submitted to the consideration of the House. But having done this, it was neither consistent with the honour and safety of Parliament, nor with the rights and interests of the people, to go one step further. The rest belonged to the courts below."

When Mr. Pitt had finished speaking, he left the House, being unable to remain until the division. The motion was carried by a majority of 258 to 133.

Mr. Wilkes shortly afterwards withdrew into France; and on the 20th January, 1764, he was expelled the House of Commons, for having written and published the libel on the King contained in the forty-fifth number of The North Briton, and a new writ was issued for Aylesbury.

"that a

On the 14th February it was moved by Sir W. Meredith general warrant for apprehending and seizing the authors, printers, and publishers of a seditious libel, together with their papers, is not warranted by law." The House having sat until about seven o'clock in the morning of the 15th, the question to adjourn till the 17th was put, and carried by a majority of 208 to 184. On the 17th, an amendment to Sir W. Meredith's

* "In his real politics," says Mr. Butler, who was on terms of great intimacy with Mr. Wilkes for several years, "he was an aristocrat, and would much rather have been a favoured courtier at Versailles, than the most commanding orator at St. Stephen's Chapel. His distresses threw him into politics."-Reminiscences, vii.

+ Lord Temple, Mr. Pitt's brother-in-law, was the avowed supporter and patron of Mr. Wilkes. When the King deprived Mr. Wilkes of his commission as colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia, his Lordship announced the resolution with such expressions of regret, and spoke in such complimentary terms of Mr. Wilkes, that his name was struck off the list of privy-councillors, and he was dismissed from the lord-lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire.

Horace Walpole, in a letter dated February 15th, 1764, says, "It was half-an-hour after seven this morning before I was at home."-Letters, vol. iv. p. 365.

motion for the insertion of the words "and treasonable" after "seditious," having been agreed to, another amendment was made to this effect, "although such warrant has been issued according to the usage of office, and has been frequently produced to, and, so far as appears to this House, the validity thereof has never been debated in, the Court of King's Bench, but the parties thereupon have been frequently bailed by the said Court." The motion, thus amended, was the one which the House eventually adopted as the question to be discussed.

In justification of the measures which the Ministry had adopted in the apprehension of Mr. Wilkes, much stress was laid on precedents, and Mr. Pitt's administration was instanced as having sanctioned the principle upon which they had proceeded. The impropriety, also, of deciding a subject which was yet to be discussed in the Courts below, was urged.

Mr. Pitt began with observing, "That all which the Crown had desired, all which Ministers had wished, was accomplished in the conviction and expulsion of Mr. Wilkes; it was now the duty of the House to do justice to the nation, to the constitution, and to the law. Ministers had refused to lay the warrant before the House, because they were conscious of its illegality. And yet these Ministers," he said, "who affect so much regard for liberty and the constitution, are ardently desirous of retaining for themselves and for their successors, a power to do an illegal act. Neither the law officers of the Crown, nor the Minister himself, had attempted to defend the legality of this warrant. Whenever goaded upon the point, they had evaded it. He therefore did not hesitate to say, that there was not a man to be found of sufficient profligacy to defend this warrant, upon the principle of legality. It was no justification," he said, "that general warrants had been issued. Amongst the warrants which were laid before the House, to show the practice of office, there were two which had been issued by himself; but they were not against libels. One was, for the seizure of a number of persons on board a ship going to France; the other for apprehending the Count de St. Germain, a suspected foreigner; and both in a time of war with France. Upon issuing the latter warrant, he consulted his friend the Attorney-General,* who told him the warrant would be illegal, and if he issued it, he must take the consequences; nevertheless, preferring the general safety, in time of war and public danger, to every personal consideration, he ran the risk, as he would of his head, had that been the forfeit, upon the like motive, and did an extraordinary act, against a suspicious foreigner, just come from France; and who was concealed, at different times, in different houses. The real exigency of the case, of the time, and the apparent necessity of the thing, would, in his opinion, always justify a Secretary of State in every extraordinary act of power. In the present case there was no necessity for a general warrant. Ministers knew all the parties. The plea of necessity could not

VOL. I.

Mr. Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden,

F

be urged; there was no pretence for it. The nation was in perfect tranquillity. The safety of the state was in no danger. The charge was the writing and publishing a libel. What was there in this crime so heinous and terrible as to require this formidable instrument; which, like an inundation of water, bore down all the barriers and fences of happiness and security? Parliament had voted away its own privilege, and laid the personal freedom of every representative of the nation at the mercy of his Majesty's Attorney-General. Did Parliament see the extent of this surrender which they had made? Did Parliament see that they had decided upon the unalienable rights of the people, by subjecting their representatives to a restraint of their persons, whenever the Ministers or the AttorneyGeneral thought proper? The extraordinary and wanton exercise of an illegal power, in this case, admits of no justification, or even palliation. It was the indulgence of a personal resentment against a particular person: and the condemnation of it is evaded by a pretence that it is false, a mockery of justice, and an imposition on the House. They were told that this warrant was pendente lite; that it would come under judicial decision, in the determinations of the Court on the bills of exceptions; and, therefore, that Parliament ought not to declare any judgment upon the subject. In answer to this, he said, that whenever the bills of exceptions came to be argued, it would be found that they turned upon other points. Upon other points, he repeated. He was confident in his assertion. He concluded with saying, that, if the House negatived the motion, they would be the disgrace of the present age, and the reproach of posterity; who, after sacrificing their own privileges, had abandoned the liberty of the subject, upon a pretence that was wilfully founded in error, and manifestly urged for the purpose of delusion."

After some other members had spoken, a motion to adjourn the debate was carried by a majority of 234 to 220.

THE AMERICAN STAMP ACT.

The large increase which had been made to the national debt during the last widely-extended war being found to press heavily upon England, it was proposed by Mr. George Grenville to relieve that country, by making the colonies contribute to the revenue.* It was contended that the national

The project of taxing America had been proposed to Sir Robert Walpole many years before this period, but that statesman replied, that it was a measure too hazardous for him to venture upon, and that he would leave it to some daring successor in office to make the experiment. It was revived in 1754, but the differences then existing between England and France in relation to America, rendered it unsafe to irritate the feelings of the colonists by carrying it into execution.-Belsham, vol. v. p. 112. Smyth's Lectures on Mod. Hist. vol. ii. p. 406.