J: A: ^ ml-/- > Q f * •i" DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Treasure %oom Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Duke University Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/wordindefenseofbOObedd A WORD IN DEFENCE OP The RILL of RIGHTS; AGAINST <£aggut2 Mis* By THOMAS BEDDOES, M.D. Rara temporam felicitas, ubi fentire quae velis et quae fentias dicere licet. Tacitus. Stay, happy days ! while, free from bafe controul, The tongue may tell the dictates of the foul. Anon. 3Brfflftol: Printed and fold by N. BIGGS, St. Auguftine's; Sold alfo by Bulgin & Sheppard, Cottle, Reed,, and the other Bookfellcrs. PRICE TWO.PENCE, DEFENCE OF THE BILL of RIGHTS. -^=*£3SC5«sr- " IT is the Right of the Subject to petition the Kine, and all Commit* " ments and Profecutions forfuch petitioning are illegal." Bill of Rights, Art. 5. THE individual inhabitants of Great Britain have been diltinguifhed for a century paft by fuperior generality, opennefs, and energy of character ; the fociety at large by a degree of unexampled profperity. For {n long have we en- joyed in a fuperior degree the ufe of Reason and Speech, the two great faculties by which the Almighty has diftinguilhed Man from the brute creation. Other countries more favoured by nature, have languifhed in time of peace j and though far furpaffing us in numbers, have yielded in war to the courage which liberty infpired. To look minifters in the face, to ap- plaud without meannefs and cenfure without fear, has been our privilege and boaft. We have felt no dread of capricious miflxefTes, of fpies ripened by pocket-picking for perjury, or vindictive agents of government. We have it among the molt folemnly recorded and recognized of our rights to deliberate in common concerning grievances without minifterial contronl, and to petition with franknefs for redrefs. This inheritance we derived from our anceftors, by whom it was dearly bought, as by us it has been lecurely enjoyed. Two years ago was it fuppofed, that there exifted a tool of delpotifm fo abject as to dream of difpolfefling us ? But two weeks ago couldwe be ap- prehenlive of loling that, which more than being born in a cer- tain country, conltitutes us Engliihmen ? Ten thoufand fwords were called by the fancy of Mr. Burke from their fcabbards to avenge a look threatening infult to the beautiful and high- born Queen of France. What conceptions would have crowded in upon him at the idea of an infringement of Britifh freedom, more audacious than Pitt the elder ever imputed to Lord Bute, or Pitt the younger to Lord North ? Millions of indignant voices reprobating the facrilege, and millions of hands fign- ing petitions for an impeachment of its perpetrators, would have been forms of dil approbation too tame for his exalted imagination, 6&1W ( a ) imagination It remains to be feen whether the countrymen (and once the constituents) of Mr. Burke are fo aStonifhed at the magnitude of the outrage, or fo funk in fpirit as to refrain from an humble petition and remonlirance, ere yet a wall of brafs he interpofed between the people and their repre- sentatives. To go about to convince men of what they ought to know by feeling rather than reafon, is a disheartening talk. Nor can I repeat the triteft truths of hiitory without a fenfe of degra- dation. My own pride is hurt, I am concerned for the understanding of my reader, when I tell that the pofVelfors of power are ever on the watch to encroach ; that a nation which 1] umbers over its rights, will be fortunate if it awake not in fettep ; that the faireSt pretexts are ever thrown over the foulett designs ; that crafty Statesmen take advantage of the fineSt feelings of human nature, to plunge mankind into misery ; that to convey powers hoStile to humanity, in dark ambiguous terms, is a common fraud ; for there remains the expedient of explanatory acts to define and enforce ; and the people having been familiarized to the firfl evil, it is expected that there is hardly any aggravation at which they will revolt. Thefe maxims, founded on the fad experjenee of ages, apply to all attempts to lay the people at the mercy of admini- Jtration. They are the truths of all times and all countries. But there are immediate and certain evils to be apprehended by us from the destruction of the bill of rights; evils terrible in them- felves and more grievous to Englilhmen from their long habi- tude of freedom. Before I enumerate 'the principal of thefe evils, (for to deduce them in their whole extent, and paint them in all their horror, is a talk beyond the talents of the writer and the prelfure of the occalion,) I muft put it to my reader to deter- mine whether to alter be not to dcjlroy. To be debarred from allembling, except under the arbitrary authority of a magistrate, who may and in all important cafes will be dependent on administration. \\ hat is it but to be debar- red lYom ever carrying a petition adverfe to the will of the minister? What body of men ever fo refpeclablej ever fo friendly to order ; fo abhorrent to anarchy ; holding in view an object ever fo commendable, Shall meet without danger of being ignominioufly difperfed as vagabonds ; and even arretted as Seditious, or imprifonrd as felons, if human frailty mould allow one burSt of juSt indignation ? And this by a wretched hireling, difpol'ed to amufe himfelf with the capricious difplay of his authority, when he ib charged with no fecrct inftructirrs from his employers ; who, when he is not the puppet, will act ( 4 ) aft the petty tyrant, of the hour ; The more incapable, designing, or dangerous the minifter, the more certainly will he guard his follies or his villainies with the gorgon fhield of felony. No modification, therefore, I con- tend, of this grand effential prerogative, of freemen can be projected, which fhall not fubje6t its exercife to the indirect but entire controul of the minifter. And looking to the hiftory of our country for the laft twenty years, we may per- ceive how often it has been neceffary to controul minifters by the exercife of this right. By what but the exercife of this right was the American war arretted in its horrid progrefs ? By what elfe was another war prevented ? By what but the difapprobation of the people, in fome manner expretTed, can the prefent more ruinous and bloody conteft be terminated ? To furrender this right, then, would be deliberate political fuicide. And be affured, that neither national profperity nor the noble attributes of the Britifh character will loni? furvive the death of freedom. Our immediate anceftors harboured fufpicions of a fettled defign to ftifie that fpirit of freedom which is to the moral order of fociety what the vivifying fun himfelf is to the phyfical order of the univerfe. I have neither time to ftate, and who needs to be told, the dark defigns imputed to Lord North, to his predeccfibrs, and his iecret directors ? But was it ever prophefied that a minifter fhould dare to aim an open ftroke at liberty, ufing for his dagger the mifplaced confidence of the people ! ! That people making no legal effort to ward off the blow ; the laft of the Britons overwhelmed in fpeechlefs amazement ! 1. To abolifh the bill of rights under the pretext of altering it is to cut by one cruel ftroke the nerve of affection, by which each Englifhman feels for the welfare or adverfity of all — the nerve which connects us all with the fenforiurnof the State. An unlkilful minifter engaged in a pernicious war and trying like a defperate gamefter to retrieve his original rafhnefs. may go on flaking our property and lives, till the la ft guinea and the laft man, capable of bearing arms be facrificcd. If you complain in a manner not fubject to the propofed penalties, (to which imprisonment in the Baftile is a tender mercy) yet you will be anfwered by a brutal and unprincipled tool of adminiftration : " March, pay, and be d-mned. — What are ff public affairs to thofe, whofe only part is to furrer and obey." 2. Once violate that, which has not lefs emphatically than juftly been ftyled the Palladium of Engliih liberty — the free- dom of the Prefs, and the firft of our unprincipled minifters, if he have the leaft management, may infcribe upon the lips of every inhabitant of Great Eritain the terrible motto of defpotifm : De par le Premier. Slave, Jfeak not at all of State- affairs, or /peak but as I ivill. — Who needs to be informed how ealy it will be to alfert during fome moment of confidence or alarm, that the government of th£ country cannot polhbly go on, while the meafures of adminifiraiion may be canvafied j ( 5 ) and to bring in a fupplemental a& accordingly, declaring it felony to excite contempt againft adttriniftration ; as was actually intended by the mover of one Bill. The more pernicious the meafures, the more ftrenuous will the junto in power be in maintaining throughout the kingdom the m> urn- j'ul filence of defpair. Mifery will be obliged to flsfle its groan, and Virtue her fympathifing figb ; till at laft in a nation characterized by every manly and humane attribute, all the kindly feelings of the heart retire inwards and die 3. The injiutme of the Crvwn which the pre tent minifter gave the nation every reafon to believe he would ule all his efforts todiminilh, but which has grown during his administration to a far more tremendous magnitude than it had attained before, will have no check. Public fpirit will be extinct or dumb. And on this influence, againft which the Commons protected, and every man inveighed, in whole bofom one fpark of patriotifm g.owedj will no mortal thenceforward be able to " look and live." Then will that prophecy which Mr Pitt delivered in the ardour of his youthful integrity be fulfilled in all its extent of horrors: " The Houle of Commons," lie predicted, (May 7. 17b3.) " which according to the true " fpirit of the Con (Utution, (mould be the guardian of the people's " freedom, the check and controul over the executive power — " will through the ini luf.nce of the Crown degenerate info " a mere engine of tyranny and oppre/fion." 4. The day on which laws againft liberty fhall be enacted, will be a proud day for the enemies of our country, inafmuch as they will date from the deitruction of our national fpirit, the certain decay of our national greatnefs. This, though I have before remarked it, will bear repeating. But what is (till more terrible in apprehenfion, inafmuch as it comes home to every honeft bofom, is the revolution it will produce in the moral precedency <>f mankind. Every individual who afpirel after integrity, but is too timid to practice it in the face of reproach or danger, will feel that it is not the time to be honeft. Few people will be able to afford to keep a coiifcienee. The jubilee of villainy, the millenium of knaves will commence from that hour. And not only the honeft. but ev< n the rich will be under the domineering influence of thole, who at pre- fent walk about focietv with fome model! apprehenfion, of having their ears cropped, if they fliould be detected in their occupation of fmugglmg into courts of juftice folic oaths againft the lives of the innocent. The reader may imagine what a demand will take place for hunters of treafon, hunters of (edition, and every defcription of human blood-hounds, toge- ther with perfonages to act the graver part of the gagi magi/Irate, if ever a people, unreafonably difcontented at bope- lefswar and: grow ing .'carcity, fhould aflemble to frame a modeft petitionary ftatement of their grievances. If any one has fo little infight into the tranfactions of this world as to doubt refpetting the neoeilary afcendancy of the worthlefs. and the villainpus, in nations where liberty is in- fringed, ( 6 ) fringed, I am furethaton a moment's reflection, his heart and his underftanding will both affent to the melancholy but im- portant truth. An atheift will ever make the beft bigot. A man without honour or confcience will always feign the warm- eft attachment to any principles, provided his hypocrify promifes to give him importance and to promote his intereft. Hence the radii abandoned of wretches are always the mod for- ward to volunteer their vigilanee in a time of public alarm. They aflume the ftyle and title, the air and attitude, of friends of adminiftration. In a Republic they will carry on bloody perfecution under the pretence of c'rvifm; in a Monarch y under that of attachment and affecfion to the Monarch. Whatever work the minifier wants them to execute, that they will under- take. The tender-hearted and even the juft are affe&ed with deep melancholy at the execution of the greater! of criminals — of a convicted murderer, for example. When they aflift in for- warding juffice, it is with fighing and forrow for the fad lot of the criminal, and the degradation of that nature which they have in common with him. But when they fufpect that the punifhment exceeds the offence, and that the law proceeded from a fpirit of vengeance, or was furprized from the repre- fentatives of a people by the crafty contrivance of relentlefs roini Iters — at a time perhaps when, as Mr. Pitt faid of Lord North and bis coadjutors, <; They may themfelves begin to " dread left the indignation of a great fuffering people mould *' fall on their heads," ( 1/81) — when good men, I fay, dif- cover a fanguinary fpirit in the laws, they feel an anguifh which ftretches the heart to burfting ; and are at leaft never for- ward to afiift in putting them in force. The wealthy, again, will be too indolent and too high-fpirited for all the dirty and bloody bufinels of iuch an adminiftration : neither would they be trufted \ for whenever wicked men, inverted with autho- rity, have made havoc of their lpecies, hiftory fhews that it has been done by the afiiftance ofj>oor rogues. It is in character, too, if I may obferve it by the way, that they fhould aim at the nobleit deer of the foreft. The Ruliels and the Sydneys inuft ever be the victims of a James and a Jefferies. What I have faid is, I truft, fufficient to fhew how under a bad adminiftration villains will fnatch opportunity to exercife a half ufurped and half delegated defpotifm over men of pro- perty, as well as over men of virtue. I could enumerate a thoufand other ways by which the lofs of liberty degrades and deprefles nations. I think Britons will find it difficult to ac- commodate their fpirit to the Frocruftes' bed of fervitude. When the alternative is [peak or bs .enjlaved, the nation will exclaim with common confent of heart and voice in the com- prehenfive words of our popular national fong : Rule Britannia, rule the waves, For Britons never will be flaves. Affemble then my countrymen, and pronounce with C3lm and dignified firmnefs. Mr. Dundas himielf almoft called ( 7 ) upon you fur your fentiments, when he bid that (he impend- ing Bills ought not to pal's, if the people exprelled difapproba- tion. By your peaceful demeanour you will convict of calumny thole who ailert, you are not to be t rutted to aflemble. Let not even an indifcretion efcape you, which am lend a planlibic argument to tyranny. I remember the time when the indignation of the whole people was called forth by an attack only on the chartered rights of one company. "What you now ought to feel, when you are threatened with the loft of your great privilege, which is like- wile the fafeguard of all there.lt, I leave to your reflections. 1 know that a volume might be written to (hew how little to be regarded was th.it attempt upon the Eaft India Company, in companion with the prefent upon our molt highly valued and dearly bought rights. But if a volume might be written, that man who requires a page to convince him of the alarming difference, is already a Have in heart. Citizens of Brittol ! It feems uncertain whether your chief m