They not only decreed that privilege should prevent all civil suits from proceeding during the sitting of parliament, but likewise granted protection to the very servants of members. I shall say nothing on the wisdom of our ancestors; it might perhaps appear invidious, and is not necessary in the present case.

I shall only say, that the noble lords that flatter themselves with the weight of that reflection, should remember, that as circumstances alter, things themselves should alter. Formerly it was not so fashionable either for masters or servants to run in debt, as it is at present; nor formerly were merchants and manufacturers members of parliament, as at present. The case now is very different, both merchants and manufacturers are, with great propriety, elected members of the lower house. Commerce having thus got into the legislative body of the kingdom, privileges must be done away.

We all know that the very soul and essence of trade are regular payments; and sad experience teaches us, that there are men, who will not make their regular payments without the compressive power of the laws. The law, then, ought to be equally open to all; any exemption to particular men, or particular ranks of men, is, in a free and commercial country, a solecism of the grossest

nature.

But I will not trouble your lordships with arguments for that which is sufficiently evident without any. I shall only say a few words to some noble lords, who foresee much inconveniency from the person of their servants being liable to be arrested. One noble lord observes, that the coachman of a peer may be arrested while he is driving his master to the house, and consequently, he will not be able to attend his duty in parliament. If this was actually to happen, there are so many methods by which the member might still get to the house, I can hardly think the noble lord is serious in his objection, Another noble peer said, that by this bill they might lose their most valuable and honest servants. This I

hold to be a contradiction in terms; for he can neither be a valuable servant, nor an honest man, who gets into debt, which he is neither able nor willing to pay until compelled by law. If my servant, by unforeseen accidents, has got in debt, and I still wish to retain him, I certainly would pay the debt. But upon no principle of liberal legislation whatever, can my servant have a title to set his creditors at defiance, while for forty shillings only the honest tradesman may be torn from his family, and locked up in goal. It is monstrous injustice! I flatter myself, however, the determination of this day will entirely put an end to all such partial proceedings for the future, by passing into a law the bill now under your lordships' consideration.

I now come to speak upon what, indeed, I would have gladly avoided, had I not been particularly pointed at for the part I have taken in this bill. It has been said by a noble lord on my left hand, that I likewise am running the race of popularity. If the noble lord means by popularity, that applause bestowed by after-ages on good and virtuous actions, I have long been struggling in that race-to what purpose all-trying time can alone determine; but if that noble lord means that mushroom popularity which is raised without merit, and lost without a crime, he is much mistaken in his opinion. I defy the noble lord to point out a single action in my life where the popularity of the times ever had the smallest influence on my determinations. I thank God, I have a more permanent and steady rule for my conduct-the dictates of my own breast. Those that have foregone that pleasing adviser, and given up their mind to be the slave of every popu lar impulse, I sincerely pity: I pity them still more, if their vanity leads them to mistake the shouts of a mob for the trumpet of fame. Experience might inform them, that many who have been saluted with the huzzas of a croud one day, have received their execrations the next : and many who by the popularity of the times have been held up as spotless patriots, have, nevertheless, appear.

ed upon the historian's page, where truth has triumphed over delusion, the assassins of liberty. Why, then, the noble lord can think I am ambitious of present popularity, that echo of folly and shadow of renown, I am at a loss to determine? Besides, I do not know that the bill now before your lordships will be popular; it depends much upon the caprice of the day. It may not be popular to compel people to pay their debts; and in that case the present must be a very unpopular bill. It may not be popular, neither, to take away any of the privileges of parliament: for I very well remember, and many of your lordships may remember, that not long ago, the popular cry was for the extension of privileges; and so far did they carry it at that time, that it was said that privilege protected members even in criminal actions: nay, such was the power of popular prejudices over weak minds, that the very decisions of some of the courts were tinctured with this doctrine. It was undoubtedly an abominable doctrine: I thought so then, and think so still; but nevertheless, it was a popular doctrine, and came immediately from those who are called the friends of liberty-how deservedly, time will shew. True liberty, in my opinion, can only exist when justice is equally administered to all-to the king and to the beggar. Where is the justice, then, or where is the law that protects a member of parliament more than any other man from the punishment due to his crimes? The laws of this country allow of no place nor employment to be a sanctuary for crimes; and where I have the honour to sit as a judge, neither royal favour nor popular applause shall ever protect the guilty. I have now only to beg pardon for having employed so much of your lordships' time, and am sorry a bill fraught with so good consequences, has not met with an abler advocate; but I doubt not your lordships' determination will convince the world, that a bill calculated to contribute so much to the equal distribution of justice as the present, requires with your lordships but very little support. VOL. II.

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COLONEL BARRE.*

He was one of the most strenuous opposers of lord North's adminis tration. Junius says, “I would borrow a simile from Burke, or a sarcasm from Barre." There is a vein of shrewd irony, a lively, familiar, conversational pleasantry running through all his speeches. Garrit anile's ex re fabellas. His eloquence is certainly the most naïve, the most unpremeditated, the most gay and heedless, that can be imagined. He was really and naturally what Courteney (afterwards) only pretended to be.

On the Motion for an Address.

He argued against the motion, and said, let us fairly HE examine the conduct of ministers.-About the latter end of May, or the beginning of June, they were acquainted with the fate of Falkland Island. At that time they learned that the governor of Buenos

I am sorry that I can give no account of this celebrated cha racter. Indeed, I have to apologize to the reader for the frequent defects and chasms in the biographical part of the work. I have looked carefully into the dictionaries, but unless a man happens to have been a non-conformist divine in the last century, a chymist, or the maker of a new spelling and pronouncing dictionary, his name is hardly sure of obtaining a place in these learned compila tions. The writers seem, by a natural sympathy, more anxious to bring obscure merit into notice, than to gratify the idle curiosity of the public respecting characters on which a dazzling splendor has been shed, by the accidental circumstances of situation, by superficial accomplishments, and shewy talents. In giving the history of illustrious statesmen or politicians, they are very uncertain helps; but if any one had to make out a list of antiquarians, school-masters, or conjurors, he would find them complete for his purpose. The Barres, the Grenvilles, and the Townshends, are forgotten; while the Dyches, the Fennings, the Lillys, and the Laxtons, vie with the heroes and sages of antiquity, in these motley lists of fame, which like death, level all ranks, and confound all distinctions.

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Ayres had sent a frigate or two, to warn our troops to quit the island: that our commanding officer had threatened to fire upon them if they would not depart; that the Spaniards, in consequence, declared their resolution of employing force; and that there was no doubt they would put their threat into execution. Where their pride is concerned, the Spaniards are tenacious of their words; and it could not be supposed that the governor of Buenos Ayres would, in this case, belie the character of his nation. But who is the governor of Buenos Ayres, this mighty potentate, against whom the king of Great Britain is going to draw his sword? I will tell the house. When at Gibraltar in an inferior situation, I confess, I happened in an excursion to meet this governor, this Don Francisco de Buccarelli, whom our ministers consider as so great and formidable. For a Spaniard, he was not a bad companion; but I do not believe he had at that time the most distant hope of ever entering into a competition with the king of Great Britain. But our ministers were made for rendering absurdity fashionable. As they have for these two years degraded their royal master by a quarrel with a wretched libeller, so now they commit his dignity in a contest with a little Spanish officer. The terrible foes that rouse his vengeance are John Wilkes, and my old friend Bucca. relli. How much more honourable would it have been to have at once considered the king of Spain as the aggressor, as the delinquent! It is evident, from the coolness and deliberation with which Buccarelli acted, that he had acted under the authority, and by the express command of the king of Spain. If he had not, he would have, ere now, forfeited his head. Why, then, did not our ministers, upon the first intelligence, deem this act of hostility the most explicit and effectual declaration of war? Why did they not immediately arm the nation, and prepare for striking as decisive a blow as that which se cured us the superiority last war? This step would have brought into our ports their ships and sailors, and effec