To modern ears it sounds somewhat strange, that the owner of a public reading-room should not only incur extravagant fines, but should also be punished as the keeper of a disorderly house; and that all this should happen to him, simply because he opened his shop without asking permission from the local magistrates. Strange, however, as this appears, it was, at all events, consistent, since it formed part of a regular plan for bringing, not only the actions of men, but even their opinions, under the direct control of the executive government. Thus it was that the laws, now for the first time passed, against newspapers, were so stringent, and the prosecution of authors so unrelenting, that there was an evident intention to ruin every public writer who expressed independent sentiments. 358 These measures, and others of a similar character, which will hereafter be noticed, excited such alarm, that, in the opinion of some of the ablest observers, the state of public affairs was becoming desperate, perhaps irretrievable. The extreme despondency with which, late in the eighteenth century, the best friends of liberty looked to the future, is very observable, and forms a striking feature in their private correspondence.359 And although comparatively few men

to which any person shall be admitted by payment of money (if not regularly licensed by the authorities), "shall be deemed a disorderly house;" and the person opening it shall "be otherwise punished as the law directs in case of disorderly houses." 39 George III. c. 79, § 15. The germ of this law may be found in 36 George III. c. 8, §§ 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. No where are the weakest parts of the human mind more clearly seen than in the history of legislation.

388 See the particulars in Hunt's Hist. of Newspapers, vol. i. pp. 281-4. Mr. Hunt says, p. 284: "In addition to all these laws, directed solely towards the press, other statutes were made to bear upon it, for the purpose of repressing the free expression of popular opinion." In 1793, Dr. Currie writes: "The prosecutions that are commenced by government all over England against printers, publishers, &c. would astonish you; and most of these are for offences committed many months ago. The printer of the Manchester Herald has had seven different indictments preferred against him for paragraphs in his paper; and six different indictments for selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine,-all previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent, supposed worth 20,000l.; but these different actions will ruin him, as they were intended to do." Currie's Life, vol. i. pp. 185, 186. See also a letter from Roscoe to Lord Lansdowne, in Life of Roscoe, vol. i. p. 124; and Mem. of Holcroft, vol. ii. pp. 151, 152: "Printers and booksellers all over the kingdom were hunted out for prosecution." See further, Life of Cartwright, vol. i. pp. 199, 200; Adolphus's Hist. of George III. vol. v. pp. 525, 526; Mem. of Wakefield, vol. ii.p. 69.

389 In 1793, Dr. Currie, after mentioning the attempts made by government to destroy the liberty of the press, adds: "For my part, I foresee troubles, and conceive the nation was never in such a dangerous crisis." Currie's Mem. vol. i. p. 186. In 1795, Fox writes (Russell's Mem. of Fox, vol. iii. pp. 124, 125): "There appears to me to be no choice at present, but between an absolute surrender of the liberties of the people and a vigorous exertion, attended, I admit, with considerable hazard, at a time like the present. My view of things is, I own, very gloomy; and I am convineed that, in a very few years, this government will become completely absolute, or that confusion will arise of a nature almost as much to be deprecated as despotism itself." In the same year, Dr. Raine writes (Parr's Works, vol. vii. p. 533): "The mischiev ous conduct of men in power has long made this country an uneasy dwelling for the moderate and peaceful man; their present proceedings render our situation alarm

ventured to express such sentiments in public, Fox, whose fearless temper made him heedless of risk, openly stated what would have checked the government, if any thing could have done so. For this eminent statesman, who had been minister more than once, and was afterwards minister again, did not hesitate to say, from his place in parliament, in 1795, that if these, and other shameful laws which were proposed, should be actually passed, forcible resistance to the government would be merely a question of prudence; and that the people, if they felt themselves equal to the conflict, would be justified in withstanding the arbitrary measures by which their rulers sought to extinguish their liberties, 390

391

Nothing, however, could stop the government in its headlong career. The ministers, secure of a majority in both houses of parliament, were able to carry their measures in defiance of the people, who opposed them by every mode short of actual violence. And as the object of these new laws was, to check the spirit of inquiry, and prevent reforms, which the progress of society rendered indispensable, there were also brought into play other means subservient to the same end. It is no exaggeration to say, that for some years England was ruled by a system of ing, and our prospects dreadful." See also p. 530. In 1796, the Bishop of Llandaff writes (Life of Watson, vol. ii. pp. 36, 37): "The malady which attacks the constitution (influence of the crown) is without remedy; violent applications might be used; their success would be doubtful, and I, for one, never wish to see them tried." Compare vol. i. p. 222. And, in 1799, Priestley dreaded a revolution; but, at the same time, thought there was "no longer any hope of a peaceable and gradual reform." Mem. of Priestley, vol. i. pp. 198, 199.

390 In this memorable declaration, Fox said, that "he had a right to hope and expect that these bills, which positively repealed the Bill of Rights, and cut up the whole of the constitution by the roots, by changing our limited monarchy into an absolute despotism, would not be enacted by parliament against the declared sense of a great majority of the people. If, however, ministers were determined, by means of the corrupt influence they possessed in the two houses of parliament, to pass the bills in direct opposition to the declared sense of a great majority of the nation, and they should be put in force with all their rigorous provisions, if his opinion were asked by the people as to their obedience, he should tell them, that it was no longer a question of moral obligation and duty, but of prudence. It would, indeed, be a case of extremity alone which could justify resistance; and the only question would be, whether that resistance was prudent." Parl. Hist. vol. xxxii. p. 383. On this, Windham remarked, and Fox did not deny, that "the meaning obviously was, that the right hon. gentleman would advise the people, whenever they were strong enough, to resist the execution of the law;" and to this both Sheridan and Grey immediately assented. pp. 385-387.

301 "Never had there appeared, in the memory of the oldest man, so firm and decided a plurality of adversaries to the ministerial measures, as on this occasion (i, e. in 1795); the interest of the public seemed so deeply at stake, that individuals, not only of the decent, but of the most vulgar professions, gave up a considerable portion of their time and occupation in attending the numerous meetings that were called in every part of the kingdom, to the professed intent of counteracting this attempt of the ministry." Note in Parl. History, vol. xxxii. p. 381. It was at this period that Fox made the declaration which I have quoted in the previous note.

VOL. I.-23

absolute terror.392 The ministers of the day, turning a struggle of party into a war of proscription, filled the prisons with their political opponents, and allowed them, when in confinement, to be treated with shameful severity.393 If a man was known to be a reformer, he was constantly in danger of being arrested; and if he escaped that, he was watched at every turn, and his private letters were opened as they passed through the post-office.394 In such cases, no scruples were allowed. Even the confidence of domestic life was violated. No opponent of government was safe under his own roof, against the tales of eaves-droppers and the gossip of servants. Discord was introduced into the bosom of families, and schisms caused between parents and their children. 395 Not only were the most strenuous attempts made to silence the press, but the booksellers were so constantly prosecuted, that they did not dare to publish a work if its author were obnoxious to the court.396 Indeed, whoever opposed the government was proclaimed an enemy to his country.397 Political associations and public meetings were strictly forbidden. Every popular leader was in personal danger; and every popular as

392 It was called at the time the "Reign of Terror;" and so indeed it was for every opponent of government. See Campbell's Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 441; Mem. of Wakefield, vol. ii. p. 67; and Trotter's Mem. of Fox, p. 10.

The iniquitous system of secret imprisonment, under which Pitt and Dundas had now filled all the gaols with parliamentary reformers; men who were cast into dungeons without any public accusation, and from whom the habeas-corpus suspension act had taken every hope of redress." Cooke's Hist. of Party, vol. iii. p. 447. On the cruelty with which these political opponents of government were treated when in prison, see Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vol. ii. pp. 121, 125, 423; Parl. Hist. vol. xxxiv. pp. 112, 113, 126, 129, 170, 515, vol. xxxv. pp. 742, 743; Clon curry's Recollections, pp. 46, 86, 87, 140, 225.

3 Life of Currie, vol. ii. p. 160; Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vol. ii. pp. 118, 119. 396 In 1793, Roscoe writes: "Every man is called on to be a spy upon his brother." Life of Roscoe, vol. i. p. 127. Compare Fox's statement (Parl. Hist. vol. xxx. p. 21), that what government had done was, to erect every man, not merely into an inquisitor, but into a judge, a spy, an informer,—to set father against father, brother against brother; and in this way you expect to maintain the tranquillity of the country!" See also vol. xxx. p. 1529; and a remarkable passage, in Coleridge's Biog. Lit. (vol. i. p. 192), on the extent of "secret defamation," in and after 1793. For further evidence of this horrible state of society, see Mem. of Holcroft, vol. ii. pp. 150, 151; Stephens's Mem. of Horne Tooke, vol. ii. pp. 115, 116.

396 There was even considerable difficulty in finding a printer for Tooke's great philological work, The Diversions of Purley. See Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vol. ii. pp. 345-348. In 1798, Fox wrote to Cartwright (Life of Cartwright, vol. i. p. 248); The decision against Wakefield's publisher appears to me decisive against the lib erty of the press; and indeed, after it, one can hardly conceive how any prudent tradesman can venture to publish any thing that can, in any way, be disagreeable to the ministers."

397 Those who opposed the slave-trade were called jacobins, and "enemies to the ministers;" and the celebrated Dr. Currie was pronounced to be a jacobin, and an 'enemy to his country," because he remonstrated against the shameful manner in which the English government, in 1800, allowed the French prisoners to be treated. Life of Currie, vol. i. pp. 330, 332; Life of Wilberforce, vol. i. pp. 342-344, vol. ii. pp. 18, 133; Parl. Hist. vol. xxx. p. 654, vol. xxxi. p. 467, vol. xxxiii. p. 1387, vol xxxiv. pp. 1119, 1485.

semblage was dispersed, either by threats or by military execution. That hateful machinery, familiar to the worst days of the seventeenth century, was put into motion. Spies were paid; witnesses were suborned; juries were packed.398 The coffeehouses, the inns, and the clubs, were filled with emissaries of the government, who reported the most hasty expressions of common conversation.399 If, by these means, no sort of evidence could be collected, there was another resource, which was unsparingly used. For, the habeas-corpus act being constantly suspended, the crown had the power of imprisoning without inquiry, and without limitation, any person offensive to the ministry, but of whose crime no proof was attempted to be brought.

400

Such was the way in which, at the end of the eighteenth century, the rulers of England, under pretence of protecting the institutions of the country, oppressed the people, for whose benefit alone those institutions ought to exist. Nor was even this the whole of the injury they actually inflicted. Their attempts to stop the progress of opinions were intimately connected with that monstrous system of foreign policy, by which there has been entailed upon us a debt of unexampled magnitude. To pay the interest of this, and to meet the current expenses of a profuse and reckless administration, taxes were laid upon nearly every product of industry and of nature. In the vast majority of cases, these taxes fell upon the great body of the people,1

401 who

S98 Life of Cartwright, vol. i. p. 209; Hunt's Hist. of Newspapers, vol. ii. p. 104; Belsham's Hist. vol. ix. p. 227; Adolphus's Hist. vol. vi. p. 264; Annual Register for 1795, pp. 156, 160; Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vol. ii. p. 118; Life of Currie, vol. i. p. 172; Campbell's Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 316, vol. vii. p. 316; Life of Wilberforce, vol. iv. pp. 369, 377; Parl. Hist. vol. xxxi. pp. 543, 667, 668, 1067, vol. xxxii. pp. 296, 302, 366, 367, 374, 664, vol. xxxv. pp. 1538, 1540; Holcroft's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 190.

399 In addition to the passages referred to in the preceding note, compare Hutton's Life of Himself, p. 209, with Campbell's Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 441, vol. vii. p. 104, and Adolphus's Hist. of George III. vol. vi. p. 45. In 1798, Caldwell wrote to Sir James Smith (Correspondence of Sir J. E. Smith, vol. ii. p. 143); "The power of the crown is become irresistible. The new scheme of inquisition into every man's private circumstances is beyond any attempt I have ever heard of under Louis XIV." 400 In 1794, Fox said, in his speech on the habeas-corpus suspension bill: "Every man who talked freely, every man who detested, as he did from his heart, this war, might be, and would be, in the hands and at the mercy of ministers. Living under such a government, and being subject to insurrection, comparing the two evils, he confessed, he thought the evil they were pretending to remedy, was less than the one they were going to inflict by the remedy itself." Parl. Hist. vol. xxxi. p. 509. In 1800, Lord Holland stated, in the House of Lords, that, "of the seven years of the war, the habeas-corpus act had been suspended five; and, of the multitudes who had been imprisoned in virtue of that suspension, few had been brought to trial, and only one convicted." vol. xxxiv. p. 1486. See also vol. xxxv. pp. 609, 610. On the effect of the suspension of the habeas-corpus act upon literature, see Life of Currie, vol. i. p. 506.

401 See decisive evidence of this, in Porter's Progress of the Nation, vol. ii. pp. 283-285; and, on the enormous increase of expense and taxation, see Pellew's Life of Sidmouth, vol. i. p. 358, vol. ii. p. 47.

were thus placed in a position of singular hardship. For the upper classes not only refused to the rest of the nation the reforms which were urgently required, but compelled the country to pay for the precautions which, in consequence of the refusal, it was thought necessary to take. Thus it was, that the gov ernment diminished the liberties of the people, and wasted the fruit of their industry, in order to protect that very people against opinions which the growth of their knowledge had irresistibly forced upon them.

It is not surprising that, in the face of these circumstances, some of the ablest observers should have despaired of the liberties of England, and should have believed that, in the course of a few years, a despotic government would be firmly established. Even we, who, looking at these things half a century after they occurred, are able to take a calmer view, and who moreover possess the advantages of a larger knowledge, and a riper experience, must nevertheless allow that, so far as political events were concerned, the danger was more imminent than at any moment since the reign of Charles I. But what was forgotten then, and what is too often forgotten now, is, that political events form only one of the many parts which compose the history of a great country. In the period we have been considering, the political movement was, no doubt, more threatening than it had been for several generations. On the other hand, the intellectual movement was, as we have seen, highly favourable, and its influence was rapidly spreading. Hence it was that, while the government of the country tended in one direction, the knowledge of the country tended in another; and while political events kept us back, intellectual events urged us forward. In this way, the despotic principles that were enforced were, in some degree, neutralized; and although it was impossible to prevent them from causing great suffering, still the effect of that suffering was to increase the determination of the people to reform a system under which such evils could be inflicted. For while they felt the evils, the knowledge which they had obtained made them see the remedy. They saw that the men who were at the head of affairs were despotic; but they saw, too, that the system must be wrong, which could secure to such men such authority. This confirmed their dissatisfaction, and justified their resolution to effect some fresh arrangement, which should allow their voices to be heard in the councils of the state. 102 And that resolution,

402 A careful observer of what was going on late in the eighteenth century, expresses what, early in the nineteenth century, was becoming the conviction of most men of plain, sound understanding, who had no interest in the existing corruption: "Immoderate taxation, the result of the unnecessary wars of the reign of George III, is the cause of our embarrassments; and that immoderate taxation has been occa.