derness. "These excesses," he said, "are the mere eruptions of liberty, which break out upon the skin, and are a sign, if not of perfect health, at least of a vigorous constitution, and must not be repelled too suddenly, lest they should strike to the heart."

He then passed to the case of Mr. Wilkes, and the prevailing discontent throughout the kingdom, in consequence of his expulsion from the House of Commons. The privileges of the House of Peers, he said, however transcendent, stood on the same broad bottom as the rights of the people. It was, therefore, their highest interest, as well as their duty, to watch over and protect the people; for when the people had lost their rights, the peerage would soon become insignificant. He referred, as an illustration, to the case of Spain, where the grandees, from neglecting and slighting the rights of the people, had been enslaved themselves. He concluded with the following remarkable passage: "My Lords, let this example be a lesson to us all. Let us be cautious how we admit an idea, that our rights stand on a footing different from those of the people. Let as be cautious how we invade the liberties of our fellow-subjects, however mean, however remote. For be assured, my Lords, in whatever part of the empire you suffer slavery to be established, whether it be in America, or in Ireland, or here at home, you will find it a disease which spreads by contact, and soon reaches from the extremities to the heart. The man who has lost his own freedom, becomes, from that moment, an instrument in the hands of an ambitious prince to destroy the freedom of others. These reflections, my Lords, are but too applicable to our present situation. The liberty of the subject is invaded, not only in the provinces, but here at home! The English people are loud in their complaints; they demand redress; and, depend upon it, my Lords, that, one way or another, they will have redress. They will never return to a state of tranquillity till they are redressed. Nor ought they. For in my judgment, my Lords, and I speak it boldly, it were better for them to perish in a glorious contention for their rights, than to purchase a slavish tranquillity at the expense of a single iota of the Constitution. Let me entreat your Lordships, then, by all the duties which you owe to your sovereign, to the country, and to yourselves, to perform the office to which you are called by the Constitution, by informing his Majesty truly of the condition of his subjects, and the real cause of their dissatisfaction."

With this view, Lord Chatham concluded his speech by moving an amendment to the address, "That we will, with all convenient speed, take into our most serious consideration the causes of the discontents which prevail in so many parts of your Majesty's dominions, and particularly the late proceedings of the House of Commons touching the incapacity of John Wilkes, Esq., expelled by that House, to be re-elected a member to serve in the present Parliament, thereby refusing, by a resolution of one branch of the Leg. islature only, to the subject his common right, and depriving the electors of Middlesex of their free choice of a representative."

This amendment was powerfully resisted by Lord Mansfield. Nothing remains, however, of his speech, except a meager account of the general course of his argument. He contended" that the amendment violated every form and usage of Parliament, and was a gross attack on the privileges of the House of Commons. That there never was an instance of the Lords inquiring into the proceedings of that House with respect to their own members, much less of their taking upon themselves to censure such proceedings, or of their advising the Crown to take notice of them. If, indeed, it be the purpose of the amendment to provoke a quarrel with the House of Commons, I confess,' said his Lordship, 'it will have that effect certainly and immediately. The Lower House will undoubtedly assert their privileges, and give you vote for vote. I leave it, therefore, to your Lordships, to consider the fatal effects which, in such a conjuncture as the present, may arise from an open breach between the two houses of Parliament." Lord Chatham immediately arose and delivered the following speech in reply.

SPEECH, &c.'

MY LORDS,-There is one plain maxim, to which I have invariably adhered through life: that in every question in which my liberty or my property were concerned, I should consult and be determined by the dictates of common sense. I confess, my Lords, that I am apt to distrust the refinements of learning, because I have seen the ablest and the most learned men equally liable to deceive themselves and to mislead others. The condition of human nature would be lamentable indeed, if nothing less than the greatest learning and talents, which fall to the share of

This is the best reported and most eloquent speech of Lord Chatham, except that of November 18th, 1777. It was published at the time from manascript notes taken by an unknown individual, who is now ascertained with almost absolute certainty to have been the celebrated Sir Philip Francis, considered by so many as the author of Junias's Letters.

so small a number of men, were sufficient to direct our judgment and our conduct. But Providence has taken better care of our happiness, and given us, in the simplicity of common sense, a rule for our direction, by which we can never be misled. I confess, my Lords, I had no other guide in drawing up the amendment which I submitted to your consideration; and, before I heard the opinion of the noble Lord who spoke last, I did not conceive that it was even within the limits of possibility for the greatest human genius, the most subtle understanding, or the acutest wit, so strangely to misrepresent my meaning, and to give it an interpretation so entirely foreign from what I intended to express, and from that sense which the very terms of the amendment plainly and distinctly carry with them. If there be the smallest foundation for the censure thrown upon me by that noble Lord:

if, either expressly, or by the most distant im- | ing in that Parliament? And is it not their resplication, I have said or insinuated any part of olution alone which refuses to the subject his what the noble Lord has charged me with, dis- common right? The amendment says farther, card my opinions forever, discard the motion that the electors of Middlesex are deprived of with contempt. their free choice of a representative. Is this a false fact, my Lords? Or have I given an unfair representation of it? Will any man presume to affirm that Colonel Luttrell is the free choice of the electors of Middlesex? We all know the contrary. We all know that Mr. Wilkes (whom I mention without either praise or censure) was the favorite of the county, and chosen by a very great and acknowledged majority to represent them in Parliament. If the noble Lord dislikes the manner in which these facts are stated, I shall think myself happy in being advised by him how to alter it. I am very little anxious about terms, provided the substance be preserved; and these are facts, my Lords, which I am sure will always retain their weight and importance, in whatever form of language they are described.

Now, my Lords, since I have been forced to enter into the explanation of an amendment, in which nothing less than the genius of penetration could have discovered an obscurity, and having, as I hope, redeemed myself in the opinion of the House, having redeemed my motion from the severe representation given of it by the noble Lord, I must a little longer entreat your Lordships' indulgence. The Constitution of this country has been openly invaded in fact; and I have heard, with horror and astonishment, that very

My Lords, I must beg the indulgence of the House. Neither will my health permit me, nor do I pretend to be qualified to follow that learned Lord minutely through the whole of his argument. No man is better acquainted with his abilities and learning, nor has a greater respect for them than I have. I have had the pleasure of sitting with him in the other House, and always listened to him with attention. I have not now lost a word of what he said, nor did I ever. Upon the present question I meet him without fear. The evidence which truth carries with it is superior to all argument; it neither wants the support, nor dreads the opposition of the greatest abilities. If there be a single word in the amendment to justify the interpretation which the noble Lord has been pleased to give it, I am ready to renounce the whole. Let it be read, my Lords; let it speak for itself. [It was read.] In what instance does it interfere with the privileges of the House of Commons? In what respect does it question their jurisdiction, or suppose an authority in this House to arraign the justice of their sentence? I am sure that every Lord who hears me will bear me witness, that I said not one word touching the merits of the Middlesex election. So far from conveying any opinion upon that matter in the amendment, I did not even in discourse deliver my own senti-invasion defended upon principle. What is this ments upon it. I did not say that the House of mysterious power, undefined by law, unknown Commons had done either right or wrong; but, to the subject, which we must not approach when his Majesty was pleased to recommend it without awe, nor speak of without reverenceto us to cultivate unanimity among ourselves, I which no man may question, and to which all thought it the duty of this House, as the great men must submit? My Lords, I thought the hereditary council of the Crown, to state to his slavish doctrine of passive obedience had long Majesty the distracted condition of his dominions, since been exploded; and, when our Kings were together with the events which had destroyed obliged to confess that their title to the Crown, unanimity among his subjects. But, my Lords, and the rule of their government, had no other I stated events merely as facts, without the foundation than the known laws of the land, I smallest addition either of censure or of opinion. never expected to hear a divine right, or a diThey are facts, my Lords, which I am not only vine infallibility, attributed to any other branch convinced are true, but which I know are indis- of the Legislature. My Lords, I beg to be unputably true. For example, my Lords: will any derstood. No man respects the House of Comman deny that discontents prevail in many parts mons more than I do, or would contend more of his Majesty's dominions? or that those dis- strenuously than I would to preserve to them contents arise from the proceedings of the House their just and legal authority. Within the bounds of Commons touching the declared incapacity of prescribed by the Constitution, that authority is Mr. Wilkes? It is impossible. No man can necessary to the well-being of the people. Bedeny a truth so notorious. Or will any man yond that line, every exertion of power is arbideny that those proceedings refused, by a reso- trary, is illegal; it threatens tyranny to the peolution of one branch of the Legislature only, to ple, and destruction to the state. Power withthe subject his common right? Is it not indis-out right is the most odious and detestable object putably true, my Lords, that Mr. Wilkes had a that can be offered to the human imagination. common right, and that he lost it no other way It is not only pernicious to those who are subbut by a resolution of the House of Commons?ject to it, but tends to its own destruction. My Lords, I have been tender of misrepresent- is what my noble friend [Lord Lyttleton] has ing the House of Commons. I have consulted truly described it, "Res detestabilis et caduca."2 their journals, and have taken the very words of My Lords, I acknowledge the just power, and their own resolution. Do they not tell us in so reverence the constitution of the House of Commany words, that Mr. Wilkes having been expelled, was thereby rendered incapable of serv

A thing hateful, and destined to destruction.

It

mons. It is for their own sakes that I would | Parliament. We have a code in which every honprevent their assuming a power which the Con- est man may find it. We have Magna Charta. stitution has denied them, lest, by grasping at We have the Statute Book, and the Bill of Rights. an authority they have no right to, they should If a case should arise unknown to these great forfeit that which they legally possess. My authorities, we have still that plain English reaLords, I affirm that they have betrayed their son left, which is the foundation of all our Enconstituents, and violated the Constitution. Un-glish jurisprudence. That reason tells us, that

der pretense of declaring the law, they have made a law, and united in the same persons the office of legislator and of judge!

every judicial court, and every political society, must be vested with those powers and privileges which are necessary for performing the office to I shall endeavor to adhere strictly to the no- which they are appointed. It tells us, also, that ble Lord's doctrine, which is, indeed, impossible no court of justice can have a power inconsistent to mistake, so far as my memory will permit me with, or paramount to the known laws of the to preserve his expressions. He seems fond of land; that the people, when they choose their the word jurisdiction; and I confess, with the representatives, never mean to convey to them force and effect which he has given it, it is a a power of invading the rights, or trampling on word of copious meaning and wonderful extent. the liberties of those whom they represent. If his Lordship's doctrine be well founded, we What security would they have for their rights, must renounce all those political maxims by if once they admitted that a court of judicature which our understandings have hitherto been might determine every question that came bedirected, and even the first elements of learning fore it, not by any known positive law, but by taught in our schools when we were schoolboys. the vague, indeterminate, arbitrary rule of what My Lords, we knew that jurisdiction was noth- the noble Lord is pleased to call the wisdom of ing more than "jus dicere." We knew that "le- the court? With respect to the decision of the gem facere" and "legem dicere" [to make law courts of justice, I am far from denying them and to declare it] were powers clearly distin- their due weight and authority; yet, placing them guished from each other in the nature of things, in the most respectable view, I still consider and wisely separated by the wisdom of the En- them, not as law, but as an evidence of the law. glish Constitution. But now, it seems, we must And before they can arrive even at that degree adopt a new system of thinking! The House of authority, it must appear that they are foundof Commons, we are told, have a supreme juris- ed in and confirmed by reason; that they are diction, and there is no appeal from their sen- supported by precedents taken from good and tence; and that wherever they are competent moderate times; that they do not contradict any judges, their decision must be received and sub-positive law; that they are submitted to withmitted to, as ipso facto, the law of the land. My out reluctance by the people; that they are unLords, I am a plain man, and have been brought questioned by the Legislature (which is equiva up in a religious reverence for the original sim-lent to a tacit confirmation); and what, in my plicity of the laws of England. By what soph-judgment, is by far the most important, that they istry they have been perverted, by what artifices do not violate the spirit of the Constitution. My they have been involved in obscurity, is not for me to explain. The principles, however, of the English laws are still sufficiently clear; they are founded in reason, and are the masterpiece of the human understanding; but it is in the text that I would look for a direction to my judgment, not in the commentaries of modern professors. The noble Lord assures us that he knows not in what code the law of Parliament is to be found; that the House of Commons, when they act as judges, have no law to direct them but their own wisdom; that their decision is law; and if they determine wrong, the subject has no appeal but to Heaven. What then, my Lords? Are all the generous efforts of our ancestors, are all those glorious contentions, by which they meant to secure to themselves, and to transmit to their posterity, a known law, a certain rule of living, reduced to this conclusion, that instead of the arbitrary power of a King, we must submit to the arbitrary power of a House of Commons? If this be true, what benefit do we derive from the exchange? Tyranny, my Lords, is detestable in every shape, but in none so formidable as when it is assumed and exercised by a number of tyrants. But, my Lords, this is not the fact; this is not the Constitution. We have a law of

Lords, this is not a vague or loose expression. We all know what the Constitution is. We all know that the first principle of it is, that the subject shall not be governed by the arbitrium of any one man or body of men (less than the whole Legislature), but by certain laws, to which he has virtually given his consent, which are open to him to examine, and not beyond his ability to understand. Now, my Lords, I affirm, and am ready to maintain, that the late decision of the House of Commons upon the Middlesex election is destitute of every one of those properties and conditions which I hold to be essential to the legality of such a decision. (1.) It is not founded in reason; for it carries with it a contradiction, that the representative should perform the office of the constituent body. (2.) It is not supported by a single precedent; for the case of Sir Robert Walpole is but a half precedent, and even that half is imperfect. Incapacity was indeed declared, but his crimes are stated as the ground of the resolution, and his opponent was declared to be not duly elected, even after his incapacity was established. (3.) It contradiets Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, by which it is provided, that no subject shall be deprived of his freehold, unless by the judgment of

My

his peers, or the law of the land; and that elec- | give us for attempting to save the state. tions of members to serve in Parliament shall be Lords, I am sensible of the importance and diffifree. (4.) So far is this decision from being culty of this great crisis: at a moment such as submitted to by the people, that they have taken this, we are called upon to do our duty, without the strongest measures, and adopted the most dreading the resentment of any man. But if appositive language, to express their discontent. prehensions of this kind are to affect us, let us Whether it will be questioned by the Legisla- consider which we ought to respect most, the ture, will depend upon your Lordships' resolu- representative or the collective body of the peotion; but that it violates the spirit of the Con- ple. My Lords, five hundred gentlemen are not stitution, will, I think, be disputed by no man ten millions; and if we must have a contention, who has heard this day's debate, and who wishes let us take care to have the English nation on well to the freedom of his country. Yet, if we our side. If this question be given up, the freeare to believe the noble Lord, this great griev- holders of England are reduced to a condition ance, this manifest violation of the first princi- baser than the peasantry of Poland. If they deples of the Constitution, will not admit of a rem- sert their own cause, they deserve to be slaves! edy. It is not even capable of redress, unless My Lords, this is not merely the cold opinion of we appeal at once to Heaven! My Lords, I my understanding, but the glowing expression have better hopes of the Constitution, and a of what I feel. It is my heart that speaks. I firmer confidence in the wisdom and constitu- know I speak warmly, my Lords; but this tional authority of this House. It is to your an- warmth shall neither betray my argument nor cestors, my Lords, it is to the English barons, my temper. The kingdom is in a flame. As that we are indebted for the laws and Constitu- mediators between the King and people, it is our tion we possess. Their virtues were rude and duty to represent to him the true condition and uncultivated, but they were great and sincere. temper of his subjects. It is a duty which no Their understandings were as little polished as particular respects should hinder us from pertheir manners, but they had hearts to distinguish forming; and whenever his Majesty shall deright from wrong; they had heads to distinguish mand our advice, it will then be our duty to intruth from falsehood; they understood the rights quire more minutely into the causes of the presof humanity, and they had spirit to maintain them.ent discontents. Whenever that inquiry shall My Lords, I think that history has not done justice to their conduct, when they obtained from their sovereign that great acknowledgment of national rights contained in Magna Charta: they did not confine it to themselves alone, but delivered it as a common blessing to the whole people. They did not say, these are the rights of the great barons, or these are the rights of the great prelates. No, my Lords, they said, in the simple Latin of the times, “nullus liber homo" [no free man], and provided as carefully for the meanest subject as for the greatest. These are uncouth words, and sound but poorly in the ears of scholars; neither are they addressed to the criticism of scholars, but to the hearts of free men. These three words, "nullus liber homo," have a meaning which interests us all. They deserve to be remembered they deserve to be inculcated in our minds—they are worth all the classics. Let us not, then, degenerate from the glorious example of our ancestors. Those iron barons (for so I may call them when compared with the silken barons of modern days) were the guardians of the people; yet their virtues, my Lords, were never engaged in a question of such importance as the present. A breach has been made in the Constitution-the battlements are dismantledthe citadel is open to the first invader-the walls totter-the Constitution is not tenable. What remains, then, but for us to stand foremost in the breach, and repair it, or perish in it?

Great pains have been taken to alarm us with the consequences of a difference between the two houses of Parliament; that the House of Commons will resent our presuming to take notice of their proceedings; that they will resent our daring to advise the Crown, and never for

come on, I pledge myself to the House to prove that, since the first institution of the House of Commons, not a single precedent can be produced to justify their late proceedings. My noble and learned friend (the Lord Chancellor Camden) has pledged himself to the House that he will support that assertion.

My Lords, the character and circumstances of Mr. Wilkes have been very improperly introduced into this question, not only here, but in that court of judicature where his cause was tried-I mean the House of Commons. With one party he was a patriot of the first magnitude; with the other, the vilest incendiary. For my own part, I consider him merely and indif ferently as an English subject, possessed of certain rights which the laws have given him, and which the laws alone can take from him. I am neither moved by his private vices nor by his public merits. In his person, though he were the worst of men, I contend for the safety and security of the best. God forbid, my Lords, that there should be a power in this country of measuring the civil rights of the subject by his moral character, or by any other rule but the fixed laws of the land! I believe, my Lords, I shall not be suspected of any personal partiality to this unhappy man. I am not very conversant in pamphlets or newspapers; but, from what I have heard, and from the little I have read, I may venture to affirm, that I have had my share in the compliments which have come from that quarter. As for motives of ambition (for I must

3 Lord Chatham here refers, among others, to Junius, who had attacked him about a year before in his first letter. At a later period Junius changed

take to myself a part of the noble Duke's insin- | beg pardon, by his ministers-but I have sufuation), I believe, my Lords, there have been fered myself to be so too long. For some time times in which I have had the honor of standing in such favor in the closet, that there must have been something extravagantly unreasonable in my wishes if they might not all have been gratified. After neglecting those opportunities, I am now suspected of coming forward, in the decline of life, in the anxious pursuit of wealth and power which it is impossible for me to enjoy. Be it so! There is one ambition, at least, which I ever will acknowledge, which I will not renounce but with my life. It is the ambition of delivering to my posterity those rights of freedom which I have received from my ancestors. I am not now pleading the cause of an individual, but of every freeholder in England. In what manner this House may constitutionally interpose in their defense, and what kind of redress this case will require and admit of, is not at present the subject of our consideration. The amendment, if agreed to, will naturally lead us to such an inquiry. That inquiry may, perhaps, point out the necessity of an act of the Legislature, or it may lead us, perhaps, to desire a conference with the other House; which one noble Lord affirms is the only parliamentary way of proceeding, and which another noble Lord assures us the House of Commons would either not come to, or would break off with indignation. Leaving their Lordships to reconcile that matter between themselves, I shall only say, that before we have inquired, we can not be provided with materials; consequently, we are not at present prepared for a confer

ence.

It is not impossible, my Lords, that the inquiry I speak of may lead us to advise his Majesty to dissolve the present Parliament; nor have I any doubt of our right to give that advice, if we should think it necessary. His Majesty will then determine whether he will yield to the united petitions of the people of England, or maintain the House of Commons in the exercise of a legislative power, which heretofore abolished the House of Lords, and overturned the monarchy. I willingly acquit the present House of Commons of having actually formed so detestable a design; but they can not themselves foresee to what excesses they may be carried hereafter; and, for my own part, I should be sorry to trust to their future moderation. Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my Lords, that where law ends, tyranny begins!

Lord Chatham's motion was rejected; but he was sustained in his views by Lord Camden, who was still Lord Chancellor, and of course a leading member of the Grafton ministry. He came down from the woolsack, and broke forth in the following indignant terms: "I accepted the great seal without conditions; I meant not, therefore, to be trammeled by his Majesty1—I his ground, and published his celebrated eulogium on Lord Chatham.

This hasty expression shows, what has since
H

I have beheld with silent indignation the arbitrary measures of the minister. I have often drooped and hung down my head in council, and disapproved by my looks those steps which I knew my avowed opposition could not prevent. I will do so no longer, but openly and boldly speak my sentiments. I now proclaim to the world that I entirely coincide in the opinion expressed by my noble friend-whose presence again reanimates us-respecting this unconstitutional vote of the House of Commons. If, in giving my opinion as a judge, I were to pay any respect to that vote, I should look upon myself as a traitor to my trust, and an enemy to my country. By their violent and tyrannical conduct, ministers have alienated the minds of the people from his Majesty's government-I had almost said from his Majesty's person― insomuch, that if some measures are not devised to appease the clamors so universally prevalent, I know not, my Lords, whether the people, in despair, may not become their own avengers, and take the redress of grievances into their own hands." After such a speech, Lord Camden could not, of course, expect to hold office. He was instantly dismissed. It was a moment of extreme excitement. Lord Shelburne went so far as to say in the House, "After the dismission of the present worthy Lord Chancellor, the seals will go begging; but I hope there will not be found in this kingdom a wretch so base and mean-spirited as to accept them on the conditions on which they must be offered." This speech of Lord Chatham decided the fate of the Duke of Grafton. The moment a leader was found to unite the different sections of the Opposition, the attack was too severe for him to resist. The next speech will show the manner in which he was driven from power.

Lord Mansfield had a difficult part to act on this occasion. He could not but have known that the expulsion of Wilkes was illegal; and this is obvious from the fact that he did not attempt to defend it. He declared that, on this point, "he had never given his opinion, he would not now give it, and he did not know but he might carry it to the grave with him." All he contended was, that "if the Commons had passed an unjustifiable vote, it was a matter between God and their own consciences, and that nobody else had any thing to do with it." Lord Chatham rose a second time, and replied, "It plainly appears, from what the noble Lord has said, that he concurs in sentiment with the Opposition; for, if he had concurred with the ministry, he would no doubt have avowed his opinionthat it now equally behooves him to avow it in behalf of the people. He ought to do so as an honest man, an independent man, as a man of been more fully known, that the King dictated the measures against Wilkes. He entered with all the feelings of a personal enemy into the plan of expelling him from the House, and was at last beaten by the determination of his own subjects.