iniquitous purpose, they should increase their own strength and importance. What was the consequence? They exchanged the constitutional authority of Peers, for the titular vanity of Grandees. They were no longer a part of a Parliament, for that they had destroyed; and when they pretended to have an opinion as Grandees, he told them he did not understand it; and naturally enough, when they had surrendered their authority, treated their advice with contempt. The consequences did not stop here. He made use of the people whom he had enslaved to enslave others, and employed the strength of the Castilians to destroy the rights of their free neighbours of Arragon.

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My Lords, let this example be a lesson to us all. Let us be cautious how we admit an idea, that our rights stand on a footing different from those of the people. Let us be cautious how we invade the liberties of our fellow-subjects, however mean, however remote; for be assured, my Lords, that in whatever part of the empire you suffer slavery to be established, whether it be in America or in Ireland, or here at home, you will find it a disease which spreads by contact, and soon reaches from the extremities to the heart. The man who has lost his own freedom, becomes from that moment an instrument in the hands of an ambitious prince, to destroy the freedom of others. These

reflections, my Lords, are but too applicable to our present situation. The liberty of the subject is invaded, not only in provinces, but here at home. The English people are loud in their complaints: they proclaim with one voice the injuries they have received: they demand redress, and depend upon it, my Lords, that one way or other, they will have redress. They will never return to a state of tranquillity until they are redressed; nor ought they; for in my judgment, my Lords, and I speak it boldly, it were better for them to perish in a glorious contention for their rights, than to purchase a slavish tranquillity at the expence of a single iota of the Constitution. Let me entreat your Lordships, then, in the name of all the duties you owe to your Sovereign, to your country, and to yourselves, to perform that office to which you are called by the Constitution; by informing his Majesty truly of the condition of his subjects, and of the real cause of their dissatisfaction. I have considered the matter with most serious attention; and as I have not in my own breast the smallest doubt that the present universal discontent of the nation arises from the proceedings of the House of Commons upon the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes, I think that we ought, in our address, to state that matter to the King. I have drawn up an amendment to the address, which I beg leave to submit to the consideration of the House:

"And for these great and essential purposes, we will with all convenient speed take into our most serious consideration, the causes of the discontents which prevail in so many parts of your Majesty's dominions, and particularly the late proceedings of the House of Commons, touching the incapacity of John Wilkes, Esq. (expelled by that House) to be elected a member to serve in this present Parliament, thereby refusing (by a resolution of one branch of the Legislature only) to the subject his common right, and depriving the electors of Middlesex of their free choice of a representative."

The cautious and guarded terms in which this amendment is drawn up, will, I hope, reconcile every noble Lord who hears me to my opinion; and as I think no man can dispute the truth of the facts, so I am persuaded no man can dispute the propriety and necessity of laying those facts before his Majesty.'

Lord Mansfield*. He began with affirming, that he had never delivered any opinion upon the legality of the proceedings of the House of Commons on the Middlesex election, nor should he

* This noble Lord's answer (taken also from the same Gentleman's notes) it is necessary to insert, on account of Lord Chatham's reply, which follows it.

now, notwithstanding any thing that might be expected from him. That he had locked it up in his own breast, and it should die with him: that he wished to avoid speaking on the subject; but that the motion made by the noble Lord, was of a nature too extraordinary and too alarming, to suffer him to be silent. He acknowledged the unhappy distracted state of the nation; but he was happy enough to affirm, with a safe conscience, that he had no ways contributed to it. That, in his own opinion, declarations of the law made by either House of Parliament were always attended with bad effects: he had constantly opposed them whenever he had an opportunity, and in his judicial capacity thought himself bound never to pay the least regard to them. That although thoroughly convinced of the illegality of general warrants, which, indeed, naming no persons, were no warrants at all, he was sorry to see the House of Commons by their vote declare them to be illegal. That it looked like a legislative act, which yet had no force nor effect as a law: for supposing the House had declared them to be legal, the Courts in Westminster would nevertheless, have been bound to declare the contrary; and consequently to throw a disrespect upon the vote of the House: but he made a wide distinction between the general declarations of law, and the particular decision which might be made by either House, in their ju

dicial capacity, upon a case coming regularly before them, and properly the subject of their jurisdiction. That here they did not act as Legislators, pronouncing abstractly and generally what the law was, and for the directions of others; but as Judges, drawing the law from the several sources from which it ought to be drawn, for their own guidance in deciding the particular question before them, and applying it strictly to the decision of that question. That, for his own part, wherever the Statute law was silent, he knew not where to look for the law of Parliament, or for a definition of the privileges of either House, except in the proceedings and decisions of each House respectively. That he knew of no parliamentary code to judge of questions depending upon the judicial authority of Parliament, but the practice of each House, moderated or extended according to the wisdom of the House, and accommodated to the cases before them. That a question touching the seat of a Member in the Lower House, could only be determined by that House; there was no other Court where it could be tried, nor to which there could be an appeal from their decision. That wherever a Court of Justice is supreme, and their sentence final (which he apprehended no man would dispute was the case in the House of Commons, in matters touching elections), the determination of that Court must be received and sub