and industrious man, with a family, and not in affluent circumstances, he should now move that he be discharged without paying fees.

The speaker said, he understood the prisoner was prepared to comply with the usual forms of the house, by presenting a petition praying for his release.

Shortly atferwards, Mr. Yorke appeared prepared to offer Mr. Dean's petition, and presented it to the house.

The petition having been read, Mr. Dean was then called to the bar; and the speaker, having reca. pitulated to him the nature and circumstances of his offence, told him, that in consideration of his "demeanour yesterday, and the peculiar circumstances of his case, it was the pleasure of the house that he should be discharged without fees; and he was discharged accordingly.

March 12. Sir F. Burdett rose, pursuant to the notice he had given, to call the attention of the house to a measure which had been adopted by them, involving the liberty of the subject; he meant the resolution of the house, by which John Gale Jones was committed to Newgate, for a breach of the privileges of the house. He lament edexceedingly, that he had not been present at the time that resolution was past, because he was aware, that he stood in a worse situation after the award of the house, than he should have done before it was adopted. He knew it was at all times easier to prevent the adoption of a measure, than to induce the house to retract a resolution after they had come to it. When he considered, however, the vast importance of the question, and how highly the public interest was in volved in it, he was satisfied he

should not discharge his duty, did he not still endeavour to induce the house to retract a step, which, according to his view of the case, they were not authorized to take. With regard to the privileges of the house, he knew there were persons who carried them to a very extraordinary length. But if there were privileges such as that which the house had exercised, they must be such as could only be discovered by men of much more stable minds than he could lay claim to. He professed only a plain mind and understanding; and when he wished to discover what were the privileges of the house, he could only go, where he felt inclined in the present instance to go, to the law of the land, to ascertain whether such privileges did or did not exist. If he, at any time, found what was claimed as a privilege to be above the law of the land, he must feel himself reduced to the neces sity of saying, that no such privilege existed. The law of the land he must always consider to be the standard by which the pri vileges of every individual, and of every body in this country, were to be measured. It would be necessary, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the right of imprisoning individuals, not members of the house, was one of their privileges, to look to the origin of those privileges; this being always kept in view, that the house was not the parliament of the country, but only one of the branches of that parliament: that in fact, to his mind, the house of commons was the inferior branch of the legislature. (Order! order!)

The speaker informed the honourable baronet, that it was not orderly to state so to that house. Sir F. Burdett continued.

This,

at least, he might be allowed to say, that that house and parliament were different; and he contended, that there was a difference in the extent of the privileges which they might, separately or jointly, be supposed to possess. On this ground he maintained, that the imprisonment of John Gale Jones was an infringement of the law of the land, and a subversion of the principles of the constitution. He hoped that gentlemen would

throw out of their minds that this was a question regarding their own privileges, and that they would come with calmness and dispassionate feeling to decide on their own case. If they were to take the question only as connected with the law of the land, he should endeavour to persuade them, and he hoped successfully, that nothing could be more consistent, either with the law of the land, or with common sense,than that they should retract the resolution they had come to. The question was, if the house of cominons had a right to imprison a person not a member of that house? As to those privileges which should enable the house to carry on its own proceedings uncontrolled, and without interruption or impediment, that was a question which he was not called on to argue. He begged to call the attention of gentlemen to this circumstance, that there were involved in this question two distinct qualities, privilege and power. The one, or that of privilege, the house possessed for its own protection; the other was a right which would fall to be exercised over others. Privilege they were to exercise to prevent the crown from molesting them in their proceedings. They were to use it as a shield for themselves, but they were not to allow

it to change its character, to be converted into power, and to use it for the destruction of others. The real nature of this privilege was to be seen from the very earliest periods of our history. It was recorded in Spelman, so early as the time of Canute, that the persons of members, in their way to and from parliament, should have protection. This was the ground-work of all the privileges of that house. Nothing seemed to him so absurd as the notion of an undefined privilege; it was a solecism in language; and he had the highest authority for saying, that such a privilege was not known. The next account of any privilege in that house was to be found in the time of Edward the Second, where it is laid down, that members of that house are not to be compelled to appear in other courts; and the reason was plain, that they might not be interrupted in their attendance on that house, by suits being taken out against them. Then there was a privilege granted to the members of the house as to their lands, and as to their servants and attendants. As to the extent of their privileges altogether, he could not state them better than as they appeared in a resolution, of the house itself, while lord Coke was a member of it; a resolution, too, supposed to have been drawn up by that great constitutional lawyer. They are shortly, freedom from arrestment for their persons, goods, and attendants, and freedom of speech. These were all in the nature of defences for the members; had reference to nothing but their own proceedings, and could not apply to others; surely, at all, events, not to sanction what was contrary to the law of the land. The honourable baronet proceeded to mention

the

the case of a servant of the speaker in the reign of Henry the Sixth, where, though the judges were of opinion in favour of the privilege, it was determined otherwise, after a debate in full parliament; because, if sustained, there would have been a failure of justice, and no remedy could have been had; which was always considered an evil not to be borne. There was another case, that of Mr. Cheddar, member for Somersetshire, on whom a grievous assault had been committed, but in whose case the house acted with such moderation as to order application to be made to the law of the land: and a new law, not an ex fot facto one, was passed for punishing assaults against members in future. Every thing else was done in the regular course of law; and in this way did things proceed up to the time of the long parliament; nor was any thing like this, to which he had now to call the attention of the house, once dreamt of. Never till the period of the civil wars was it pretended that parliament had any right of the kind. Then, indeed, the house of commons, assuming all the powers of government, after the sovereign was led to the block, scrupled not to act according to its own will and pleasure. That, however, he presumed, was not a time from which any argument was to be deduced, nor would any precedent be drawn from the mischievous principles then acted on, though probably they might then be somewhat necessary to check the usurpations which were then destroying the liberties of the land. These were powers, however, with which the house of commons, like an individual, had shown a strong reluctance to part, having once acquired them. From that time the house of com

mons was found laying claim to what they never before had, nor could now legally or constitu tionally exercise. Both houses, indeed, had from that period alternately endeavoured to arrogate that right to themselves, which neither would concede to the other. The honourable baronet produced here a variety of cases, on which he argued with great eloquence and force: and he said if such a proceeding came from the crown, or from any other authority, be what it might, it was the duty of every Englishman to stand up against it. Every page of lord Coke's book showed that this could not be done without lawful authority. If a committal went further, it was ill done, and contrary to the great charter. He asked, could John Gale Jones be liberated by lawful, or any other authority? Surely, he could not. Was not his imprisonment then against law, against the bill of rights, and subversive of every privilege of the subject? The offence attributed to Mr. Jones was that of ridiculing the proceedings of the house, and the charge was brought forward and determined by themselves. The first question, where crime was imputed to any man by the law of this country, was, if it was a crime or not; and the second, was the person accused guilty? It was necessary, first, that a grand jury should find a bill, and then, that the party should be put on his trial; but of these privileges the house deprived Mr. Jones. It took away the grand jury, and then, on his confession as to the fact, passed sentence upon him; thereby taking on themselves to determine the law as well as the fact; being complainants, judge, jury, and executive authority all in one. No tribunal could take two steps at E 3

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London, as that any evils resulting from the illicit trade at St. Bartholomew might be remedied. Next, with respect to Portugal and Spain, their flags could not certainly be used to any extent in protecting the illicit trade. When he was at Lisbon in his majesty's service, he was astonished and concerned to find, that from one district of Africa there were annually exported to the Portuguese settlements in America not less than from fifteen to sixteen hundred slaves, and this he was then told amounted to but one half of the whole trade for Portugal. He trusted that our representations upon this head would be found to have weight in the councils of Portugal; we might justly be supposed to have some influence in a country in the defence of which we had voted money for the support of 30,000 troops. With respect to Spain-Spain he had no doubt traded in slaves to nearly the twothirds of the slave-trade of Portugal; the principal part of this trade, as carried on by Spain, was carried on between Cuba and the Havannah; and it was but too justly apprehended that, in the intercourse between both, the illicit trade was supported by landing the slaves upon the British isles. With respect to America-the Americans had abolished the slave-trade, yet much of the illicit trade was carried on under the flag of Sweden; this was a topic peculiarly interesting to the Americans, and the house had seen that in the American correspondence respecting Mr. Erskine, they show their willingness to open a negotiation upon this subject: they had said that they could not make any concession affecting their right of sovereignty, yet that such of their ships as had been detected by our cruizers in that illicit trade, the

owners of those ships would not make any representation to their government, in the violation of whose laws they had so suffered. He apologized to the house for the few observations he had taken the liberty to throw out, and concluded with moving, That a humble address be presented to his majesty, praying that he would be graciously pleased to order, that there be laid before the house copies of all communications made by his majesty's secretary of state for foreign affairs to the ministers of foreign powers resident in London, with their answers thereunto. This was agreed to.

March 13. Mr. Ward moved the order of the day, for the second reading of the marine payoffice regulation bill, which was in many respects similar to the embezzlement bill already noticed.

Mr. Creevey observed, that he understood this bill was brought in as a consequence of the defalcation discovered in the accounts of Mr. Villiers. He therefore thought the bill ought not to proceed further, nor the house be called on to legislare upon this subject, without the advantage of having before them the report of the finance committee.

Mr. Ward answered, that if the office required a bill of regulation, he could not see how any delay was rendered necessary by the want of any information respecting the default of Mr. Villiers, with which this bill had nothing whatever to do.

Mr. Creevey replied, he wished to know how it was that Mr. Villiers's defalcation of 285,0007. occurred, or how it could possibly have happened, without being much sooner discovered; and he thought the house ought not to be called on to legislate for the regulation of the

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