But I am incapable of treating this city with difrefpećt. Very fortunately, at this minute (if my bad eyefight does not deceive me) * the worthy gentleman deputed on this business ftands directly before me. To him I appeal, whether I did not, though it militated with my oldest and my most recent public opinions, deliver the petition with a strong, and more than ufual recommendation to the confideration of the House, on account of the character and confequence of those who figned it. I believe the worthy gentleman will tell you, that the very day I received it, I applied to the Solicitor, now the Attorney General, to give it an immediate confideration; and he most obligingly and inftantly confented to employ a great deal of his very valuable time, to write an explanation of the bill. I attended the Committee with all poffible care and diligence, in order that every objection of yours might meet with a folution; or produce an alteration. I entreated your learned Recorder (always ready in bufinefs in which you take a concern) to attend. But what will you fay to those who blame me for fupporting Lord Beauchamp's bill, as a disrespectful treatment of your petition, when you hear, that out of refpect to you, I myself was the cause of the lofs of that very bill? for the noble Lord who brought it in, and who, I muft fay, has much merit for this and fome other measures, at my request consented to put it off for a week, which the Speaker's illness lengthened to a fortnight; and then the frantic tumult about Popery, Mr. Williams.

drove

drove that and every rational business from the House. So that if I chose to make a defence of myself, on the little principles of a culprit pleading in his exculpation, I might not only fecure my acquittal, but make merit with the oppofers of the bill. But I fhall do no fuch thing. The truth is, that I did occafion the lofs of the bill, and by a delay caused by my respect to you. But fuch an event was never in my contemplation. And I am fo far from taking credit for the defeat of that measure, that I cannot fufficiently lament my misfortune, if but one man, who ought to be at large, has paffed a year in prifon by my means. debtor to the debtors. I confefs judgment. I owe, what, if ever it be in my power, I fhall most certainly pay,-ample atonement, and ufurious amends to liberty and humanity for my unhappy lapfe. For, Gentlemen, Lord Beauchamp's bill was a law of juftice and policy, as far as it went; I fay as far as it went, for its fault was its being, in the remedial part, miferably defective,

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There are two capital faults in our law with relation to civil debts. One is, that every man is prefumed folvent. A presumption, in innumerable cafes, directly against truth. Therefore the debtor is ordered, on a fuppofition of ability and fraud, to be coerced his liberty until he makes payment. By this means, in all cafes of civil infolvency, without a pardon from his creditor, he is to be imprifoned for life and thus a

miferable mistaken invention of artificial fcience, operates to change a civil into a criminal judg ment, and to fcourge misfortune or indifcretion with a punishment which the law does not inflict on the greatest crimes.

The next fault is, that the inflicting of that punishment is not on the opinion of an equal and public judge; but is referred to the arbitrary discretion of a private, nay interested, and irritated, individual. He, who formally is, and fubftantially ought to be, the judge, is in reality no more than minifterial, a mere executive inftrument of a private man, who is at once judge and party. Every idea of judicial order is fubverted by this procedure. If the infolvency be no crime, why is it punished with arbitrary imprisonment? If it be a crime, why is it delivered into private hands to pardon without dif cretion, or to punish without mercy and without measure ?

To these faults, grofs and cruel faults in our law, the excellent principle of Lord Beauchamp's bill applied fome fort of remedy, I know that credit must be preserved; but equity must be preserved too; and it is impoffible, that any thing fhould be neceffary to commerce, which is inconfiftent with juftice. The principle of credit was not weakened by that bill. God forbid! The enforcement of that credit was only put into the fame public judicial hands on which we depend for our lives, and all that makes life dear to us. But, indeed, this business was taken

up

up too warmly both here and elsewhere. The bill was extremely mistaken. It was fuppofed to enact what it never enacted; and complaints were made of claufes in it as novelties, which existed before the noble Lord that brought in the bill was born. There was a fallacy that run through the whole of the objections. The gentlemen who oppofed the bill, always argued, as if the option lay between that bill and the antient law. But this is a grand mistake. For practically, the option is between, not that bill and the old law, but between that bill and thofe occafional laws called acts of grace. For the operation of the old law is fo favage, and so inconvenient to fociety, that for a long time past, once in every parliament, and lately twice, the legislature has been obliged to make a general arbitrary jail-delivery, and at once to set open, by its fovereign authority, all the prisons in England.

Gentlemen, I never relished acts of grace; nor ever fubmitted to them but from despair of better. They are a dishonourable invention, by which, not from humanity, not from policy, but merely because we have not room enough to hold these victims of the abfurdity of our laws, we turn loose upon the public three or four thousand naked wretches, corrupted by the habits, debased by the ignominy of a prifon. If the creditor had a right to thofe carcafes as a natural fecurity for his property, I am fure we have no right to deprive him of that fecurity. C 4

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But if the few pounds of flesh were not neceffary to his fecurity, we had not a right to detain the unfortunate debtor, without any benefit at all to the perfon who confined him.-Take it as you will, we commit injuftice. Now Lord Beauchamp's bill intended to do deliberately, and with great caution and circumfpection, upon each several cafe, and with all attention to the juft claimant, what acts of grace do in a much greater measure, and with very little care, caution, or deliberation.

I fufpect that here too, if we contrive to oppose this bill, we fhall be found in a struggle against the nature of things. For as we grow enlightened, the public will not bear, for any length of time, to pay for the maintenance of whole armies of prisoners; nor, at their own expence, fubmit to keep jails as a fort of garrifons, merely to fortify the abfurd principle of making men judges in their own caufe. For credit has little or no concern in this cruelty. I fpeak in a commercial affembly. You know, that credit is given, because capital must be employed; that men calculate the chances of infolvency; and they either withhold the credit, or make the debtor pay the rifque in the price. The counting-house has no alliance with the jail. Holland understands trade as well as we, and fhe has done much more than this obnoxious bill intended to do. There was not, when Mr. Howard vifited Holland, more than one prifoner for debt in the great city of Rotterdam. Although

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