principle in their contemplation, save the securing a continuance of their places by making themselves subservient creatures of the palace. To leave such guides, and such associates, may be very painful, from old habits and connexions; but, surely, it may become absolutely necessary to all who would not join them in leaving their former principles. My Lords, I grieve to have so long detained you at so unseasonable an hour; and I only now recommend these resolutions to your immediate adoption. * * It was stated, both by Lord Howden in the House of Lords, and Sir W. Follett in the Commons, that Lord Grey took the same view of the conduct of the Government on the bedchamber question. EXTRACT SPEECH ON IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT. HOUSE OF LORDS-DECEMBER 5, 1837. BUT, my Lords, there is one alteration in this measure, this just, humane, and in my conscience I believe, most politic measure, which the Noble Lord has announced, that I confess fills me with astonishment and dismay. I mean that provision which he is to introduce for the purpose of drawing a line of distinction and protection around both Houses of Parliament, and screening their members, iniquitously, invidiously, and, to the community at large, insultingly, screening ourselves-from the operation of the law, and proclaiming that against us alone of all the people it shall be powerless. Are we indeed prepared to clothe ourselves with the proud prerogative of being law-makers and, therefore, lawbreakers of having the power to frame the law, and, by the possession of that power, contriving an enactment by which we retain in our own hands the other power of violating it with impunity-arming ourselves alone of all our fellow-subjects, with the privilege which both my Noble and Learned Friends have so justly described as the privilege not to do what every man ought to do, and what every honest man does? What, I ask my Noble Friend on the woolsack, is the avowed object of the compulsory clauses in his Bill? He has already answered me he has said that their object is to compel all to do what all honest men do already without compulsion. See then in what an odious position he is I about to plant you-and that too by way of saving your privileges, of exalting you in the eyes of men, of enabling you to command the respect and win the affections of the people! You of all mankind are not to do, at least are not to be required to do, what those who propose this ill-advised alteration, in the same breath tell you every honest man does, and requires no compulsion to make him do. My Lords, this appears to me ominous of the fate of the measure. think I see its destruction in this most inauspicious change which the Government have resolved to make upon its frame. So much upon its utter repugnance to the grounds of the Bill as stated by the authors of the proposed change. But what shall I say when, reminding your Lordships of the general principles of the whole measure, as I have already sketched them out, and as I presented them ten years ago to the Commons,* I recall to your recollection that upon those principles the address was presented to the Crown, and the Commission was issued, of which the first and most precious fruit was this measure? well, I beseech you, the leading position which formed the ground-work of all those proceedings. It was the distinction drawn and persisted in throughout, between misfortune and crime-between honest poverty and fraud- between contumacious resistance of a just demand, and innocent, because unavoidable, inability to satisfy it-between the want of power and the want of will to do what my Noble and Learned Friend says, every honest man does freely of his own accord. That was the view which presided over this amendment of the Law-that, the origin of the Commission-that, the object of the Report-that, the basis of this whole measure, which is built upon that principle, that impregnable position alone. If that be not its foundation, Mark * February, 1828. This Bill was introduced on the Report of the Commission appointed in answer to the address then moved by Mr. Brougham. |