'

have made you the motion I shall now make, had not been promised the assistance and support of my most worthy, learned, and honourable friend, whose abilities as a lawyer, and whose integrity as a member of parliament, claims so respectable a character in this country.

There is a weed, Sir, which has taken so deep a root in this free soil; and has, at times, been of so rampant a growth, as to well nigh have overshadowed the fairest flowers in the plain. The weed that I mean, Sir, is that practice of the Attorney General filing bills of Information ex officio: a practice so diametrically opposite to every part of this constitution!

I shall probably be told, that it has been adjudged; that the old statutes enact that proceedings shall be by presentment or indictment; that informations are but presentments; and that informations were at common law.' Not by Attorney Generals, nor could one instance be brought to prove the practice, earlier than the date in which I shall fix their commencement; for, should some old musty revenue laws be brought out of the Exchequer, giving such power, will it at all affect the foundation I shall build my opposition to it upon? I shall not now hesitate a moment, Sir, in pronouncing this practice a legitimate offspring of that accursed court, the court of Star Chamber. I shall probably be told, that the court of Star Chamber is a court of as old an institution as most in the kingdom. Sir, that court, which in its first institution was nothing more than for the better governing the king's household, under a series of bad kings, and worse ministers, became one of the most severe scourges this country ever was oppressed with.

Sir, I shall date the growth of this evil from the reign of that avaricious prince, Henry 7; and though possibly one instance of an information may be found of an earlier date, it is from this period this evil first took any root in this constitution. One instance produced, and not followed with a subsequent practice, shews very plainly the reception it met with, even at that time.

I shall give it, Sir, to the honour of those two great patriots, Empson and Dudley, whose fame, Sir, will be suspended to all future ages, as their bodies were when living, a terror to all proud, daring, profligate ministers.

We find, Sir, this power carried on through the succeeding reigns, constantly

accompanying the court of Star Chamber, down to the reign of Charles 1, when the very vigorous use of it in the beginning of that king's reign, against all those who presumed to dispute the prerogative royal,' as it was then called, brought on the general resentment of the nation, and the abolition of the act of Star Chamber, July 5th, 1641.

It is well worth observing, that from that time to the Restoration, not the least shadow of an information by the Attorney General appears.

Upon the Restoration, Sir, on the return of that merry king, Charles 2., and his patriot brother, the duke of York, this practice is revived. These kings wanted then more powers than the laws could give. The court of Star Chamber being at an end, it was thought this offspring of the Star Chamber was now strong enough to walk alone; and accordingly, this power of the Attorney General, at filing bills of Information ex officio, was revived, and continued in its fullest force, till that blessed era of our liberties, that era which so much graces the annals of our history, when this country, by its two Houses of Parliament, marked out, fixed and determined, the power of all succeeding kings in this country.

It may be argued, If this was then so great a grievance as urged to be, how came it not to be remedied at that time, when you had a king both willing and desirous of coming into any measures which might be thought for the future security of the liberty of the subject.? Sir, the committee which then sat for the redress of grievances, reported to the House, article 22d,-" Informations from the court of King's-bench to be taken away.”—“ It was agreed to by the House:" and the only good reason which can be given why they were not then taken away, is the great weakness of the government at that time; and the great interest the abdicated monarch still had in the kingdom. The government, Sir, was then young, and wanted every prop and assistance it could lay hold on.

The act which passed the 4th and 5th of William and Mary, which in some degree lessens the power of the master of the crown office, gave some relief between subject and subject, as it obliges the informer to enter into bond of 201. penalty (a paltry recognizance) to carry his suit to an issue; and likewise gives costs; but there is a clause in this act, which declares

that act shall extend only to informations from the master of the crown office, so that the power of the Attorney General remains as before the passing this act. This, Sir, I think, is the fair state of the power exercised by the Attorney General of filing bills of Information ex officio.

It may now be asked, and I think fairly too, what reasons have you to urge, why a practice of so long a continuance should at this time be put an end to? And what have you to shew, that shall convince a majority of this House of its inconsistency with the liberty of this free country?

A succession, Sir, of acts of parliament from the Great Charter to this hour, which in spirit and letter diametrically oppugn every part of this practice.

Sir, by the Great Charter, I am not to be passed upon or condemned, but by lawful judgment of my peers, viz. I cannot be put upon my trial before a jury has found sufficient reason, either from their own knowledge, or from evidence upon oath, to return a free bill against me; I am then put upon my trial, and if I am found guilty of what I am charged by another jury, the law punishes me.

This is confirmed by the 5th of Edward 3, 25th Edward 3, (which says none shall be condemned by suggestion, with out lawful presentment;) 28th of Edward 3; 42d of Edward 3, (none shall be put to answer to an accusation made to the king without presentment or some matter of record;) 2nd of Charles 1; Petition of Right, 16th of Charles 1, the preamble of which you have heard read. The Bill of Rights, 1st of William and Mary. Lastly, by the Act of Succession, which puts the crown upon the head of his present Majesty.

It may possibly be said, that the pleading the statutes would be of no effect in a court of law, since the cause has been already decided, and these informations declared legal.

Sir, I should not think that even these informations having been declared legal in a court below, would at all take off from the weight these statutes must have in this House.

Sir, I have ever looked upon Magna Charta as the fundamental, invariable, unalterable basis of this constitution; I say, Sir, unalterable: I do not think it in the power of the three parts of the legislature, King, Lords, and Commons, to take away the spirit and essence of Magna Charta.

I think, Sir, every part of this free constitution is limited; the three parts of the legislature connected, have no more right to take away the liberties of the people, than any one of them singly. The contrary would be one of the most absurd propositions that ever entered into the head of man to conceive; to think that this House, invested only with a secondary power of acting, merely for the good and preservation of the people, should think themselves authorised to destroy that primary power, for whose sole defence and preservation they were created.

But, Sir, if these ancient boundaries, these coeval land-marks of the constitution, should not have that attention paid them in this House, which I shall ever expect till I see the contrary, let gentlemen reflect upon the situation they leave their fellow subjects in.

I may give a minister displeasure with what I have this day done; instead of a bill of presentment or indictment found against me by my peers, this monster, this diabolus regis, stalks into court, teeming with destruction, like the Trojan horse with the Star Chamber in his guts,

-Scandit fatalis machina muros

Fæta armis

by his own authority files an Information in the King's name, which the judges cannot refuse, nor has the defendant any privilege to shew cause against it; I must plead instanter, though I never heard the information read before that moment. Possibly he may drop this information, file another, for he is not obliged to carry the suit to an issue. If I am at last suffered to carry the cause to an issue, and am honourably acquitted by a jury of my countrymen; the crown being exempted by prerogative from paying costs, though an innocent man, I may be involved in an insupportable offence, or be punished without conviction. Thus bad ministers have it in their power to harass any the best-designing men with frivolous and vexatious prosecutions.

It was said by sir Francis Winnington, in his pleadings in Prynn's case, concerning a riot, that the judges were no friends to this practice; that one of them (lord chief justice Hales) he remembered to have heard say, That if ever these informations came to be disputed, they could never stand, they must fall to the ground." As I neither knew sir Francis Winnington, or lord chief justice Hales, I can

privy counsellor is responsible for the advice he shall give his sovereign.

I revere him, Sir, as a magistrate in whom the whole executive part of government is lodged; and having the executive part of government in his hands, undoubtedly the power of promoting or discarding officers. But that, like every other of his prerogatives, must be exercised for the good of his people, for whose support and protection he is made a king.

This, Sir, is my idea of the constitution. If any gentleman's ideas carry him still farther, even to imagine that the King has that power in a much higher degree than what I have stated, and that no one is responsible, even to this House; but that it is sufficient to say-the King has done it; he chose to do it; you have no right to ask why or wherefore: that gentleman will be so good as to inform me, where I shall find such a power lodged in the crown by the constitution, not in the act 13th of Charles 2; that act, Sir, gives no more power than what then was, and always had been in the crown of England; not in the act 17th of Edward 3, called the prerogativa regis, that act, Sir, gives no such power. It is not to be found in the act of the 27th of Henry 8, which is a confirmation of the former act; that, Sir, gives no such power. Where then am I, Sir, to look for this high prerogative royal! I will tell gentlemen, where I will ever look for conviction in matters of this high importance, in those long, dry, tedious, but instructive remonstrances, which passed between the king and parliament in the times of Charles 1. They were drawn up, Sir, on both sides, by men the most able, the most informed, most conversant in every part of this constitution, that perhaps ever lived in any country.

The true constitutions of countries are not to be learned, Sir, in peaceable quiet times; but by studying their different revolutions, and searching out the causes from whence those revolutions took their rise; this is it that makes the statesman.

Whoever will give himself the trouble to look into that great historian, lord Clarendon, will find the very point before us sifted to the bottom.

Sir John Hotham denies the king's entrance into Hull.

The king proclaims him a traitor.

No, says the House of Commons, the law must proclaim a man a traitor. The king urges it as the greatest breach of private property that ever passed between

subject and subject, that he had as much a right to his forts and garrisons, as any private man had to his lands and estates; that he had as good a right to the ammunition, ordnance, &c. therein, as any private person had to his jewels, plate, or any other furniture; and he had not only claimed this right, but exercised it; for in the beginning of his reign, he had sent. eight ships of war under the command of captain Pennington, with an order that he should surrender them to the French king; and if any other of the captains refused obeying the order, he was immediately to sink them. They were surrendered to the French king, and it was by this force the Rochelle Protestants were subdued.

But, Sir, there was not wanting, even in that day, one patriot officer, sir Ferdinando Gorges; who, in contempt of those orders, and in despite of the obsequious Pennington, brought his ship home to the Thames.

These were the prerogatives the king laid claim to.

What said the Commons? They urged, that his majesty's pretensions were subversive of every part of the law and the constitution; that if his majesty had that right he laid claim to, they were all his slaves and minions; that if he had the same right in his forts and garrisons as they had in their private estates; the same right to the ammunition, ordnance, &c. as they had in their jewels, plate, or furniture, what should hinder his majesty from selling not only his kingdom, but his subjects, to the best bidder; that they conceived the trust that was reposed in his majesty were for the good and preservation of his people; that if his majesty made use of that force, which was invested in him merely for their preservation, to their destruction, he certainly broke through his coronation oath.

These, Sir, were the arguments made use of by the then House of Commons. I think, Sir, they were warranted by the law and constitution of this country. Most certainly, had the king had any such power as was here set up, from that moment the nation must have ceased to have been that free people they have always imagined themselves to be.

Had the crown that power that was then contended for, what havoc might not a bad or ill-advised king make in this constitution! Might not the army be garbled and modelled into the situation this House once knew it? What could an un