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of your government, to our fellow subjects of America, and the news will, I fear, ere long reach your colonies. I am not master of language sufficient in energy to give the due comment to such an expression: but, sir, should it be here uttered in sobriety, and calmly listened to, might you not be apt to imagine yourselves seated midst the deputies of the Indian tribes, near the enterior lakes of that continent, and sacrificing to the demon of revenge, rather than with the deputies of the free, polished natives of the British isles, in their imperial seat of legislation?

I can indeed, easily conceive that the gentleman alluded to (Mr. Van) was rather more forward, rather more ingenious than the chieftains of his cause will thank him for they hardly could mean that the final catastrophe of this their tragic plot should be discovered just at the opening of the very first act.

It was a noble sentiment of Fenelon (archbishop of Cambray) that "he loved his friend equal to himself; his country far better than his friend and himself; mankind in general beyond all put together."

What that amiable prelate makes Mentor say, on revealing a celestial form to the son of Ulysses (who had just attained to years of manhood) may afford an allegory to assist the British legislature at some future period, in the safest and sagest conduct towards her colonists. "I have guided you through rocks and quicksands, through the ensanguined battle, and the various calamities incident to the human species: I have taught you, through forcible experience, the good and the bad maxims by which government may be carried on. 'Tis now time that you be fully emancipated. Love your fellow creatures. Endeavour to renew the golden age. Avoid effeminacy, profuseness, and ostentation. Let simplicity be your best ornaments. On virtue and your own just actions rest your chief security. Pure liberty, peace, delightful abundance, and unsullied glory, ever attend you." I am sensible, sir, that I have too long withheld the attention of the house from persons of far

more weight, and superior abilities: I shall therefore at a future day hope for the same indulgence that has been now shewn me, while I urge, that to compel the Americans by a military force to acknowledge the paramount and unbounded authority of parliament in the taxation of their property, property created by their intellects and industry, is neither just, politic, nor practicable; a measure totally repugnant to the liberal notions of rectitude which have ever characterized the happy natives of England, and irreconcileable with the spirit of those very rules and institutes by which the three estates of this realm hold existence.

MR. WILKES,

(The Lord Mayor.)

This celebrated man was born in 1728. In 1761, he was elected' member for Aylesbury, about which time he excited the indignation of ministry by publishing a periodical paper, called the North Briton, for the forty-fifth number of which he was apprehended by a general warrant. He was however liberated, and became the patriot of the day. He was soon after expelled the house for his Essay on Woman. He was repeatedly returned for Middlesex after this, but the election was always declared void, till 1774, when he took his seat without opposition. The following speech in his own defence contains the clearest, most logical, and best ar gued case, that has been made out on that side of the question. He takes the same ground, and often uses the same words as Junius, but I think he establishes his point more satisfactorily. He was a clear, correct, able, and eloquent speaker. His conversational talents were very brilliant. He was a very ugly and a very debauched man, but a great favourite with the women, whom he ac cordingly satirized without mercy. He died 1797.

THE motion which I shall have the honour of submitting to the house, affects, in my opinion, the very vitals of this constitution, the great primary sources of the power of the people, whom we represent, and by whose authority only, delegated to us for a time, we are a part of the legislative body of this kingdom. The proceedings of the last parliament in the business of the Mid

dlesex elections, gave a just alarm to almost every elector in the nation. The fatal precedents then attempted to be established was considered as a direct attack on the inalienable rights of the people. The most respectable bodies in this kingdom expressed their abhorrence of the measure they proceeded so far as to petition the crown for the dissolution of that parliament, as having been guilty of a flagrant abuse of their trust. Above 60,000 of our fellow subjects carried their complaints to the foot of the throne; a number surely deserving the highest regard from a minister, if his whole attention had not been engrossed by the small number of the 6000 who return the majority of members to this house. The people, sir, were in a ferment, which has not yet subsided. They made my cause their own, for they saw the powers of government exerted against the constitution, which was wounded through my sides; and the envenomed shafts of a wicked administration pointed at our laws and liberties, no less than at a hated individual. The plan was carried on for some years with a spirit of malevolence and rancour which would have disgraced the very worst, but with a perseverance which would have done honour to the best cause. I do not mean, sir, to go through the variety of persecutions and injuries which that person suffered, I hope, with a becoming fortitude. I have forgiven them. All the great powers of the state at one time appeared combined to pour their vengeance on me. Even imperial Jove pointed his thunder-bolts, red with uncommon wrath, at my devoted head. I was scorched, but not consumed. The broad shield of the law protected me. A generous public, and my noble friends, the freeholders of Middlesex, the ever steady friends of liberty and their country, poured balm into my wounds; they are healed. Scarcely a scar remains: but I feel, I deeply feel the wounds given to the constitution; they are still bleeding; this house only can heal them: they only can restore the constitution to its former state of purity, health, and vi

gour. May I be permitted to point out the mode of the cure, and the salutary methods I think you ought to apply before I proceed to the remedy, I shall beg the indulgence of the house to state the case; and I hope they will forgive a dry but candid narrative of facts, because I mean to argue from them: I will give them as briefly as possible, and with all the impartiality of a bye. stander.

Mr. Wilkes was first elected for the county of Middlesex on the 28th of March, 1768. He was expelled the 3d of February, 1769, and the second time chosen, without opposition, the 16th day of the same month. On the day following, the election was vacated, and he was declared by a majority of the house incapable of being elected into that parliament. Notwithstanding this resolution of the house, he was a third time, on the 16th of March, elected without opposition; for I suppose the ridiculous attempt of a Mr. Dingley, who had not a single freeholder to propose or vote for him, can hardly be called an opposition. That election, however, was declared void the next day. On the 13th of April, Mr. Wilkes was a fourth time elected, by a majority of 1143 votes, against Mr. Luttrell, who had only 296. The same day, the house voted, "That Mr. Luttrell ought to have been returned." On the 29th of April, a petition was presented to the house, from the freeholders of Middlesex, by a worthy baronet, (Sir George Savile,) who is not only an honour to this house, but to human nature; notwithstanding which, the house, on the 8th of May, resolved, "That Henry Lawes Luttrell, Esq. is duly elected a knight of the shire, to serve in this present parliament, for the county of Middlesex."

These are the leading facts. I will not trouble the clerk, sir, to read all the resolutions to which I have alluded; they are most of them fresh in the memories of gentlemen; I only call for that of Feb. 17, 1769, respecting incapacity as the certain consequence of expulsion.

VOL. II.

(The clerk read the resolution.)

16

Now, sir, I think it fair to state to the house the whole of what I intend to move in consequence of the facts I have stated, and the resolution just read. The first motion I intend is, that the resolution of this house of the 17th of February, 1769, "That John Wilkes, Esq. having been, in this session of parliament, expelled this house, was and is incapable of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament," be expunged from the journals of this house, as being subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors in this kingdom. This I hold of necessity to restore the constitution, which that resolution tears up by the roots; I shall then, if I succeed, if justice and reverence for the constitution prevail in this parliament, proceed to the other motion, "That all the declarations, orders, and resolutions of this house respecting the election of John Wilkes, Esq. for the county of Middlesex as a void elec tion; the due and legal election of Henry Lawes Lut trel, Esq. into the last parliamolat, for the county of Middlesex; and the incapacity of John Wilkes, Esq. to be elected a member to serve in the said parliament, be expunged from the journals of this house, as being subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom."

The words of the resolution of the 17th of February, 1769, which I mean particularly, are, "was and is incapable," and the explanation of them the same day in the order for a new writ, "in the room of John Wilkes, Esq. who is adjudged incapable of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament." In the first formation of this government, in the original settlement of our constitution, the people expressly reserved to themselves a very considerable part of the legislative power, which they consented to share jointly with a king and house of lords. From the great population of our island, this power could not be exercised personally, and therefore the many were compelled to delegate that power to a few; who thus became their deputies and

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