conclusion in the present session of parliament: the mode of obtaining this object, whether by requesting a conference on the subject with the Lords, or otherwise, your Committee beg leave to submit to the judgment of the House-at the same time, considering that the application would be merely to desire that the Lords would allot more days, in a given time, than has been usually allowed for this trial, if it could be done consistently with the dispatch of the other great and important concerns which engage their time and attention; and considering also the great length of the trial hitherto, and the time during which it may still continue, and all the circumstances attending this case, your Committee cannot but hope that such a measure might with benefit and propriety, be adopted on the present oc casion.' Resolved, That this House do meet as a committee, to-morrow morning, in Westminster-hall, at the trial of Warren Hastings, esq. Debate on Mr. Sheridan's Motion relative to the Existence of Seditious Practices.] Mr. Sheridan rose to submit to the House his promised motion; the object of which would be for the House to resolve itself into a committee to inquire into the truth of the reports of seditious practices in this country. He should not attempt to prove, that there never existed any sufficient reason for apprehending the danger of the sedition, or that there had not been any act of insurrection in any part of the kingdom, to warrant the propagation of such reports: it was well known, that there never was any thing of that sort of consequence enough to merit the description which had been given of it, or to create the alarm which followed. However, he perhaps might be obliged to retract that opinion in consequence of the proofs that might be brought forward before the committee of inquiry, for which he intended to move; if that should happen to be the case, he should be glad to see that ministers had only done their duty in spreading an alarm at a time of real danger, and should be glad to praise them for their vigilance, however he might deplore the necessity that gave it birth. When he said he should move for a committee to inquire into those things, he did not wish to say any thing upon the effect of such inquiry at present; his object was to know in what situation this country really was, and whe ther the language made use of by ministers upon the subject of sedition, conspiracy, and treason, was not at least premature at the time it was uttered, and consequently that nothing had happened that could justify government in the steps they had taken, and the proceedings they instituted: at present he had the satisfaction of thinking, that these reports were ill founded; to remove all doubt, however, upon that subject, and to obtain complete information, were the objects of his motion. Parliament met early in December last, and they were called together in a very extraordinary manner: this of itself was matter of alarm to the country; for they naturally concluded that it would not have been so assembled, had there not been strong reasons for it. We were then under the apprehension of a foreign war. From that very moment parliament seemed so taken up with that object, that they lost all curiosity with respect to the internal situation of this country; they took it for granted, that every thing that was said by ministers was true upon the subject of sedition lurking in the country at the beginning of the session: they took it for granted, too, that every step taken to check it was just: this was a fraud upon the public, and the House ought to feel it so, for he in his conscience believed, that the alarm was spread for the express purpose of diverting the attention of the public for a while, and afterwards leading them the more easily into a war. When ministers called upon that House to strengthen the hands of government, they were always bound to explain the real motives they had for asking for that assistance, in order that the House, as the representatives of the people, might be able to tell that people, whose lives and money were to be expended, the reasons why they were to be deprived of the rights they had before enjoyed; for he would maintain it as a maxim, that to strengthen the hands of government was necessarily, for a time, to weaken the rights of the people; and that to strengthen the hands of government in carrying on a foreign war, without informing the people of the real state of the country, was making mere machines of them, was a conspiracy against the constitution, and was laying down a plan by which their liberties might be lost for ever. With respect to the late supposed sedition in this kingdom, and of that supposed temper for insurrection, and of the lurking treason of which we had heard so much by hints and conjectures, there were three circumstances to be considered, and three points of view in which the subject might be placed. The first was, that the danger in this country had been real: secondly, that the danger was not real, but that the whole was a false alarm, really entertained by government, the effect of a delusion successfully practised upon them; in which case the propagation, on their part, although unfortunate, was yet honest. The third was, that the whole was founded on a systematic plan, laid by government for deluding the sense, and finally subduing the spirit, of the people. It was, in his opinion, the duty of parliament to regard the subject in these three points of view; and he saw in all of them no way of proceeding with propriety but by instituting a committee of inquiry. Let us suppose, for instance, the whole evil was really felt as ministers had described at the beginning of the session. What then would follow? Most certainly, the adoption of a committee of inquiry, in order that a plan should be laid for our future safety. What was the next thing to be attended to, and the next view of the subject, supposing that ministers really apprehended danger, although in truth there had not existed any? Most certainly, that a committee should be appointed to inquire, and that they might make their report upon the situation of the country, announce it to be in a state of safety, and calm the apprehensions of the public. In the third point of view, that supposing the whole to be a mere device on the part of government, for the purpose of leading the people the more easily into a war with France, again he must say, that a committee should be appointed to inquire, in order that the public should know the deception which had been practised on them. Mr. Sheridan observed, that we were at war with a great, a powerful, and hi therto victorious republic; it was idle to conceal the truth. He then came to the hints which had been thrown out by the attorney-general at the beginning of the session concerning the plots and conspiracies that were said to be formed in this country. Had any thing of this been proved? Not a syllable. But this made part of the system adopted by government; and the public were to be alarmed at the apprehension of the progress of French principles, in order that they might the more readily be induced to go to war with the French; and by the conduct of the wor thy gentlemen of the associations the people of this country were called upon to revile the French in expressions, and to follow their system in practice, namely, to establish a government by clubs. He wished the House to reflect on what was likely to be the result of all this. The people of this country were accused of a spirit of disaffection; many plots and conspiracies were said to be hatched; and now he, in his conscience, believed there was not an iota of truth in any part of the charge to justify the apprehension which government expressed at the commencement of the session. What was to be done? Institute a committee of inquiry; for if there was any of this treason or conspiracy lurking any where, it remained at this hour as undiscovered as at the first moment when it was apprehended to be formed. These associations were formed, as it was said, for the protection of persons and property against republicans and levellers; and what were they about to do, and what in fact had they been doing? First of all, they had been employed to prevent the circulation of Mr. Paine's book, and the Jockey Club, and to bring to punishment the distributors of those publications-works which had for many months been spread all over the country by the connivance, as he might say, of his majesty's ministers, and this, too, when one of those very ministers had an opportunity of reflecting on the impropriety of such publications, who had himself formerly indulged a disposi tion not to treat the high powers of this country with that respect which was due to them, and had, no doubt, repented of that temper, and thoroughly changed his sentiments. What care I for the king's birth-day. What is the king's birth-day to me? or some such coarse expression, had, he believed, been uttered by a noble duke sometime since. What, he asked, had appeared of late to justify our dreadful apprehensions? He was not sure that ministers felt any alarm at the time that they were endeavouring to alarm the country; for how did the chancellor of the exchequer act? In the course of the summer he proceeded with due solemnity to take the weight on himself of the laborious office of Warden of the Cinque Ports, and he conducted himself in that situation in a manner equally pleasing to his hosts and to his guests, and returned to town without any great apprehension of danger; but as the meeting of parlia ment approached, things became more and more alarming, until at last the whole country was said to be threatened with destruction. The whole of this was a panic created by ministers, fcr the purpose to which he had alluded before; this he felt no difficulty in saying, and he called on ministers to deny it: he was so well convinced of the truth of it, that he would venture to affirm, that if all the magistrates appointed under the new police bill were to appear at the bar of that House, they would not be able to give one instance of the existence of that sedition which ministers had so often adverted to in calling upon the House to support them. All be requested of the House was, that a committee of inquiry should be appointed, or of ministers, if they said that such a committee was unnecessary, to confess that they themselves had been deceived upon the subject, and that what they advanced upon that topic some time since, they were now ready to retract. This, he said, was due to the public; for the people of this country ought not to be practised upon by fraud; they were a generous and a brave people; and he believed that if this country were to be invaded by a foreign enemy, it would only increase our energy and stimulate our exertion. He must therefore say, that to accuse them of seditious motives was highly unjust, as well as indecent. This panic had already had a great effect; and indeed, it was much too general an impression to proceed from real danger; a general panic was always created by phantoms and imaginary evils. It had been always so in the panics of armies, for instance; he believed that there was not to be found in history an instance in which the panic of an army had proceeded from real danger; it had always proceeded either from accident or some stratagem of the enemy. Indeed, the thing bore evidence for itself; had the danger been real, there must have been a difference of opinion as to the amount of it; for while there was a difference in the size and character of the understandings of men, there must be a difference in their opinions: but those who believed any thing upon the tales of sedition which he had before alluded to, believed every thing that was said about it; and that of itself proved its fallacy. There were numerous instances recorded, both in prose and verse, where nations had been misled, and had acted upon such false alarms. There were many instances in which a panic had been communicated by one class of men to the other -Sic quisque pavendo Dat vires famæ; nulloque auctore malorum Quæ finxere, timent. Nec solum vulgus inani Percussum terrore pavet: sed curia, et ipsi Sedibus exiluere patres, invisaque belli Consulibus fugiens mandat decreta senatus. His hon. friend (Mr. Windham) had been panic-struck, and now strengthened the hand of government,-he who, last session, to use a vulgar adage, had "rolled his majesty's ministers in the dirt." At that period his hon. friend was for pulling off the mask of perfidy, and declaimed loudly against that implicit confidence, which some had argued ought to be placed in ministers. He now thought such arguments were impolitic, and no man was more strenuous for that confidence which he had before with so much warmth reprobated. Another friend, Mr. Burke, to whose doctrines Mr. Windham had become a convert, had also been panicstruck. He had been so affected, that he saw nothing but a black and clouded sky; a bleak opposition, where there was not a shrub or bush to shelter him from the gloomy aspect of public affairs; but he had taken refuge in the ministerial gabardine, where he hoped for security from the approaching storm. He had now dismissed the two first parts of the subject, and came to the question, whether ministers had spread those alarms, for purposes which they did not avow. It would be with great reluctance, that he should put that construction upon their conduct; but there had been such encouragement given to reports of a certain nature, that he hardly knew how to avoid saying, that these alarms were created for very dangerous purposes: indeed, he could not refrain from saying, that there appeared on the part of ministers, first, a desire to inflame the minds of the people to prepare them to go to war with France; secondly, an inclination to divert the public mind from the question of parliamentary reform, for the purpose of concealing the apostacy of certain individuals, who do not choose to be put to the test and tried by the public upon the standard of their own profes sions. As to the first of these points, he need only refer to the speech of the chancellor of the exchequer himself, who had said, at an early stage of the discussion of that subject, that he believed the stopped; the duke of Richmond stationed himself, among other curiosities, at the Tower; the lord mayor of London had found out that there was, at the king's where principles of the most dangerous tendency were propagated, where people went to buy treason at sixpence a head, and where it was retailed to them by the glimmering of an inch of candle, and five minutes, to be measured by a glass, were allowed to each traitor to perform his part in overturning the state. And yet coarse and ridiculous as they were, these things had their effect with the public for a time and certainly did create a general impression of fear.-Here Mr. Sheridan entered into a detail of many circumstances and stories, founded upon false alarms in seve ral parts of the kingdom: first, when the alarm began, carts, waggons, and coaches, were said to arrive daily and hourly at the Tower, filled with traitors from different parts of the island, and ministers were applauded for their prudence and activity in the service of the state. Not one word of truth in the whole case! not a being brought to the Tower-not a being charged with treason! The whole was a miserable fabrication to deceive the credulous. Suspicion, indeed, had been entertained; and he believed that many letters had been stopped at the post-office, and he had no doubt that many of his were among the number. He did not wish to talk of himself, but as so much had been said upon the subject of correspondence with foreign powers, and as hints were thrown out in various chan public rather reproached government for great pomp and form, on Saturday morn supineness, than blamed it for its promp-ing. At night all the mail coaches were titude in going to war. This was a mode of bespeaking the opinion of the public; and he could not help saying it appeared to him, from that and other things, that attempts were made to inflame the pub-arms in Cornhill, a debating society, lic mind with regard to France. He was surprised to hear it said by one right hon. gentleman that the only consolation that could arise from the death or murder of the late unfortunate Louis, was, that it would rouse the indignation and animosity of mankind against France. This was a consolation arising from inhumanity, that he did not envy; he knew there were those who did not mourn that unhappy event; there were those who did not interest themselves to avert that misfortune. But those who loved freedom, or cherished liberty, must ever deplore the transaction, because by one act they had armed despotism, and given a fatal blow to the general interests of mankind. Such was his opinion now, and such it always had been upon that subject.-With regard to the other motive of ministers, namely, that of diverting the attention of the public from the question of parliamentary reform, he believed in his conscience that there was a design of that nature entertained by ministers which had succeeded for a time; but all this was temporary, for the people were not to be deluded for ever. God forbid they should! God forbid that a brave nation should be blinded for a long time by a few individuals, and that a whole country should be false to itself, and destitute of honour, because an individual or two had betrayed their character, and because a few persons were interested in propagat-nels, under the direction and encourage ing false alarms! That was not to be expected; indeed, the deception was too coarse in its nature to last for any length of time, and the reports were too ridiculous about plots, conspiracies, and treasons, to be long credited. How stood facts upon this occasion? A noble duke (the duke of Richmond) had formerly been of opinion, that there was nothing to be seen but danger for want of a parliamentary reform; but he had so elevated himself of late upon fortifications of his own creating, and availed himself of his great power of discernment, that he was now able to discover plots, conspiracies, and treasons, under the garb of a parliamentary reform, or under any reform. The alarm had been brought forward in [VOL. XXX.] ment of ministers, that he and others with whom he agreed on public subjects, held improper correspondence with other powers, he trusted the House would excuse him for adverting to himself, and saying, that if government should think it worth their while, he should not have the smallest objection to publishing every word in every letter he ever wrote upon the subject of politics. This he did to refute at once all the calumnies which had been spread upon that subject. He had not the least doubt but that he might safely say the same thing of others who had been slandered in the saine way. There was a paper drawn up by him, which he had no difficulty in saying he should be glad to avow every [2 M] where, and on any occasion, and this he | the people of this country as they could, said in order that it might be understood and that attempts had been made to poithat no apprehension of misconstruction son the New River. There was no doubt should deter him from saying he wished but that these things appeared now to be it to be published; he was confident it too ridiculous to be believed; and yet was not repugnant to the principles of many gave credit to them, insomuch that justice and humanity. This related to the proprietors of the New River were the subject of the trial of the late king of obliged to advertise in all the newspapers France. He said this in hopes of defeat- the falsehood of that report. Was this ing the purposes of those who were so no hardship, or did it not show a shamemalicious as to insinuate, from the most ful disposition to impose upon the public unworthy motives, that there existed a and to work up the people of this country faction in this country connected with its into fury against the French? In farenemies. He could have wished that there ther confirmation of this, he referred the should not have been any necessity for his House to the gross, clumsy calumny of declaring, that he abhorred the principle the various newspapers which were pub of the decree of the National Convention lished from day to day, under the authoof France of the 19th of November. No- rity of administration, where every thing thing should have deterred him from hav- that had any relation to the French was ing written his sentiments upon such sub- abused without mercy: by this the French jects. Nothing, he hoped, would deter were given to understand, for many ministers from publishing them at some months, that our court was at enmity future day, as there was no doubt but with them. This also was part of the that they had kept copies of them, and system of delusion which had been pracvarious other letters, at the post-office. tised, in order to bring about a rupture between the two countries. There was one paper in particular, said to be the property of members of that House, and published and conducted under their immediate direction, which had for its motto a garbled part of a beautiful sentence, when it might with much more propriety have assumed the whole He then came to take notice of the manner in which government had proceeded to create the alarm to which he had alluded. They had advertised Mr. John Frost and captain Perry. The public were to look upon these two gentlemen as traitors: 100l. each was to be given for apprehending them. One of them, Mr. Frost, was at this hour in this. country, under bail, and ready for his trial, if he was to be tried; and the other was charged only with having printed in the Argus what the chancellor of the exchequer had himself delivered in a speech upon the subject of parliamentary reform. He should not have mentioned these things, but to prove that great pains had been taken to carry on a system of delusion. There was another fact, which was too extraordinary to be omitted. A story had been trumped up, that there was a plan for taking the Tower by the French; after which, the whole of our constitution was to be overturned, and the royal family were to be murdered. At the head of this plot was to be placed that most execrable character, Marat, whom the French would have done well long ago to have removed, and which they would have been able to accomplish, had they not joined to him Robespierre, and others of a different character. This fiction was not enough; for we were told that there were certain people in pay by the French for the purpose of destroying as many of -Solem quis dicere falsum But it was not the authority of govern |