future. Under the act which was about to expire, only nine persons had been sent away; and, in these uine cases, the circumstances were such, as, if fully stated, would amply justify ministers for exerting the powers with which they were entrusted. It was further argued, especially by the solicitor-general, that the power of sending away foreigners was necessarily vested in the sovereign power of every state; that such was the doctrine laid down by Puffendorff, Vattel, and every writer on the law of nations; and that the power in question was part of the ancient, indisputable prerogatives of the crown, which had been exercised at various periods for two hundred years.

Sir James Mackintosh had been appealed to, in the course of the debate, by the solicitor-general, to whom he accordingly replied, with much learning and eloquence. It is impossible (said he) to conceive a supreme power, without the power of sending foreigners out of the country; nay, further, without the right of banishing its own subjects. Yet my learned friend has made all his parade of jurists to prove, that a supreme power must be supreme over foreigners in its dominions. He has selected two passages from Sir William Blackstone, the only passage in which absurdity and falsehood are to be found. He has also referred to Puffendorff, to a German jurist, for English law-to a despotic writer, for the constitutional law of England. This ridiculous authority is all he can add to the passages, brought forward, for the twentieth time, from Blackstone, and as often detected and exposed. But

it has been said, that the crown. has the power of sending a foreigner to his own country. Does my hon. and learned friend say so? Has any power in this country a right to protract its authority, to land the foreigner in a particular place, to throw the unfortunate victim into the jaws of destruction? He has spoken of the great authorities on this subject.. His authorities, in part at least, are so rotten a foundation, that the superstructure can be entitled to no great veneration. The proclamations of Elizabeth are now brought forward. These proclamations were dug out of the Paper-office for the first time in the year 1816, and for this bill. The bill had passed this House, before this authority was thought of. In the other House, the question had been argued with as much learning and eloquence, as had ever been displayed on any question; and, in the last debate in that House, were the two proclamations brought forward, which ordered out of the country all Scotchmen. The next time that the measure came under the consideration of this House, my learned friend produced this authority, and I gave him at the time such an answer as occurred to me.

Since that time, I have found a particular authority on this point-an authority that must be fatal to the argument, The 7th Henry VII. is a statute authorising the crown to send Scotchmen out of England, and exposing them to the forfeiture of all their goods. This statute allows 40 days after proclamation for leaving the kingdom. The statute of Henry VII., with all other statutes hostile to Scotchmen, was repealed on the accession of

James I. to the throne of England; but it was in full force in the reign of Elizabeth. It proves the very contrary of the object for which it was produced by my learned friend. Such a power as be claims for the crown was not dreamt of in the most despotic period of our history, or under the most despotic prince of the Tudors. It was not dreamt of under Henry VII., for he required a particular statute. The statute of Henry VII. gives 40 days to every foreigner to leave the country. What necessity can there be now for a summary removal,

which did not exist then? We are legislating more sternly, more severely, and more suspiciously than Henry VII., the Tiberius of our history, whose politics never made it necessary to have recourse to such summary proceedings. If the crown had a right in common law to send foreigners out of the kingdom, to refuse such an order was an indictable offence. Where, then, was the single case, in all the records of law and justice, of an indictment, or a conviction for such an offence? It was further argued, that the number of foreigners, now in the country, exceeded the general average for the last thirty years only by a thousand, and that the more numerous they were, the more should parliament hesitate, before it placed so large a body of fellow-creatures out of the protection of the law. Proofs of bad intention, and of wilful abuse, on the part of ministers, were, it was said, unnecessary; for the great mischief and malignity of the measure consisted in its being of such a nature, as made it liable to abuse from misinformation, and from

the malice of private enemies, and as put injury and oppression in the power of accident or private hostility, to inflict. To an assertion of Mr. Lambton, that the bill was one of the fruits of the Holy Alliance, lord Castlereagh replied, that the country was no party to that alliance in any diplomatic sense of the word, and that we had entered into no understanding with any foreign power to send obnoxious aliens out of the country.

The bill came on to be read a second time on the 7th of July, when it was opposed, fin a most nervous and eloquent speech, by Mr. J. W. Ward. It was a bill, he said, which might be most injurious to the interests of the country, but which must certainly be injurious to its character. He should be glad to know, whether it was intended for the protection of our own, or of other governments. When its continuation was proposed in 1816, they were told that Europe was overrun with French exiles, some of whom were Jacobins, some Napoleonists, but all of whom were most mischievous and dangerous persons. It was farther observed, that, but for the salutary operation of this bill, they would have made this country the scene of their plots, conspiracies, and machinations. The Netherlands, where they had taken refuge, was pointed out as the great workshop, where they carried on their pestilent plans, and from whence they issued their dangerous doctrines. But, immediately after all this had been stated, many of those individuals were suffered to return home to France, and the head of the Bourbon fa

mily (whom they wished officiously to assist) said to those refugees, "Come, let us forget and forgive." The consequence was, that the Netherlands were immediately cleared of those formidable persous. If machinations were to be practised against France, it was not in the Netherlands, it was not in this country, it was not under the protection of foreign powers, that they would be carried-no, it would be in France itself-in the electoral colleges, and even in the Chamber of Deputies. The bill was intended to prevent Jacobins from coming here-to keep away those who did not want to come here-to discourage the visits of persons, who could do their business much better in their own country; so that, if the bill operated at all, its penalties must fall on those, who ought to be protected-on merchants, traders, and all those who came here to transact business. He was no alarmist, but he saw much in the state of the country to create some degree of apprehension. What! did he, on that account, entertain a dread of foreign Jacobins? No such thing. That was the commodity we had the least reason to fear. He would as soon expect a competition in our cotton and hardware manufactures, as a competition in Jacobinism. Unfortunately, our own home-manufacture was in too flourishing a state-it wanted no assistance from abroad. Let a cargo of foreign Jacobins he imported, and they would be found to stand no chance with those, which our native soil produced. Those who were formed in this country, were more sturdy, more inveterate, more violent, than those who were

manufactured abroad. They had so much good old English stuff about them, that no foreign Jacobins could stand in competition with them. No country in the world had so strong a dislike to the interference of foreigners in its internal concerns, as England. This was exemplified by her history. Great changes had been made in the government of the country at different periods, but foreigners were not permitted to assist. When the English rebelled against their king, and murdered him, it was without the aid of foreigners; when they recalled his son, it was without the aid of foreigners; and when they dismissed his other son, still it was without the aid of foreigners. Our ancestors, indeed, displayed a sort of over-anxiety to get rid of foreigners, when their assistance was offered in aid of any political design. If he were cursed with a disposition to effect any great change in the constitution of this country, he would not accept of the assistance of foreigners. He would say to them" I know you wish to lend us your friendly aid to dethrone the king, to put down the clergy, and to root out the aristocracy; but such is the perverse disposition of the people of this country, that the very best designs will be rendered abortive, will be disgraced, and contaminated, by your participation in them." No gentleman, for the last few months, could go through the streets without hearing the point mooted, whether particular facts could be believed on foreign evidence. What ill-feeling existed in the country at present, existed unfortunately between the higher and the lower orders. In the

course of the last three months, we had seen the country torn by convulsions, and presenting an aspect little short of actual rebellion. Plots and conspiracies had been fomented; compared with the object of which, any change of government was trifling-compared with the object of which, any change of religion, any contest between the church of England and the dissenters, or between the church of England and the church of Rome, was trifling; for the object aimed at was the subversion of all government and all religion, and the means, by which that fearful revolution, was to be effected were, murder and assassination. But this did not prove the necessity of such a bill; for up to the present day, no foreign interference had been traced in any of these transactions. Ministers asked for the Alien-bill, as if the provisional government of Glasgow was composed of Spanish liberales; as if a number of German students had influenced the proceedings at Manchester; as if the Cato-street conspiracy had been carried on by so many Napoleonists. Such a measure was not resorted to in times, when more peril was expected from abroad, when not a foreigner came to this country, that might not be supposed to carry the Pretender's commission in his pocket. The bill was a paltry measure-paltry, because it was founded on false assumptions paltry, because it was contrary to the generous feelings of the country paltry, because it affected those who had not an opportunity of complaining.

The second reading of the bill

was carried by a majority of 113 to 63.

On the 10th of July, the House went into a committee on the bill, Sir James Mackintosh then moved, that certain instructions should be given to the committee. The first of these entitled the alien to have from the privy council a specification of the charges against him, to examine witnesses on oath in his behalf, and to employ counsel. The second, exempted from the operation of the bill all aliens, who had been settled in this country before the 1st of January, 1814. These two clauses had been proposed at the passing of former bills of the same kind, and had always been rejected. They now met with the same fate. The third instruction was of a more novel kind. It purported to exempt from the operation of the act, all alien witnesses, either for or against the bill of pains and penalties, then pending against the queen-not, as Sir James Mackintosh professed, that he believed ministers capable of abusing any of the powers conferred on them to so gross a violation of justice; but because it was requisite, that the minds of the witnesses should be freed from all apprehensions, and from the bias which might be created by the mere knowledge, that her majesty's prosecutors possessed an uncontrolled power over them. The debate on this third amendment was extremely keen. The ministers maintained, that parliament could not be justified in throwing the slur implied in such a provision on men, in whose hands it thought proper to leave the government of the country. The other party asserted, that no

imputation was thrown upon ministers, by the refusal to grant them large discretionary powers of doing mischief. The third instruction, like the other two, was negatived without a division.

On the third reading of the bill,

it was opposed by Mr. Hobhouse, in a very elaborate speech, but was carried by 69 votes against 23. It passed through the Lords without exciting much discussion. The division there, on the second reading of it, was 17 to 7.