could have been in your contemplation; or, at least, that alone could not have been in your contemplation; because, though you talk about singling out, you also talk about gross and indecent attacks, which epithets could not possibly apply to bodily attacks; but must necessarily refer to attacks by the pen.

Your doctrine is, then, that it is

66 general attacks which were, "and which might be made, upon possible that there may be pro"the House in its collective capa-priety, in attacking the House in city; but if an individual were its collective capacity; but that, it "to be" singled out by a party, "with whom, in the fair discharge "of his duty, he came in contact, "he did not see how gentlemen "could be found fearlessly to dis

ແ "charge their public duty, more

"especially the most invidious "part of it."-In another part of the debate you made other observations: but to them I shall, perhaps, come by-and-by.

The Morning Chronicle has pretended, that, by attacks, allusion is here made to challenges to

fight duels; or to attacks of a real

is impossible for Members to discharge their public duty, if they are to be singled out by any one with whom they may come in contact. By coming in contact, you clearly mean, speaking of the character or conduct of individuals; for, you afterwards say, that this coming in contact is the most invidious part of their duty. The substance of the whole then is this, that it is contrary to the Privilege of Parliament, for me, for instance, to name you, for instance, at all, in print, and with

bodily character; but these never disapprobation of you, let you say

what you will of me in your place be proclaimed and established by in Parliament; for, to name you, force. I shall, therefore, not waste to say that you said this or that, to my time in reprobating this docprove that what you said was trine of yours; but shall endea erroneous or false, is to attack vour to show, the very great utility, you. Thus you are singled out as well as the justice, of acting and attacked; and this you con- upon principles, the contrary of tend is a breach of the Privilege those which you have laid down. of Parliament. It follows of If, in consequence of a miscourse, that Knatchbull was to statement or wilful calumny; or, say in his place in Parliament in consequence of any attack of that my character as well as conduct were reprobated by all honest men; and that I; if I made a publication, referring to this speech, and denying the truth of Knatchbull's statement respecting me, was to be deemed guilty of a breach of privilege, and was to

be imprisoned in a gaol, or otherwise dealt with at the discretion of the House.

any sort, upon me, I were to lay the blame upon the whole House, instead of laying it upon the person who had committed the offence against me; how injurious this would be to all the other members; as well as how unjust! What a confusion would there be of right and wrong; what absurdity in my manner of acting, and how comparatively impotent any attempt that I might make to defend myself! When Mr. Scarlett called me a contemptible scribbler; when you denominated mine the worst part of the press; when

Expositions and arguments are wholly useless in a case like this. The blood that does not boil at it is base beyond expression; and, as the New Times observed the other day, the law may say what it will; Sir James Mackintosh drew that but to this the people will never memorable contrast between me submit, until a complete despotism and his friend Mr. Perry, saying,

that the severe laws which were | home, and that the only question proposed were fit enough in the would be, whether they should

ride with their faces to the heads or the tails of the horses? Was I to laugh thus at the whole House, instead of laughing at my friend

former case but not in the latter; when Mr. Canning would drive at the whole herd rather than suffer the mischievous beast to escape him; when Mr. Wodehouse as- Mr. Calcraft? What an absurcribed to me the desire to inflame dity! Why, the whole House the people and spread disaffection laughed as well as I; and what is in Norfolk when these things more, you set them a laughing took place, what injustice should yourself, by calling my friend I have been guilty of, if, in my Mr. Calcraft the Great Kentish comments, I had driven at the Orator. So that, here would have been pretty confusion; the House laughing at my friend, and I laughing at the House and my friend both together, and all from the same cause.

whole House, and not singled out

my man? The thing is so absurd

as well as so unjust that it will

bear nothing in the shape of an

argument. When my able friend

There may be cases, indeed, where the House, by making itself a

party to the attack upon the individual out of doors, justifies an application of the censure to itself. This was the case when the witticism respecting the rupture of Ogden was sported; for

Mr. John Calcraft, late Clerk of the Ordnance, said, that, if he had been at the Kentish Meeting, he would have made a speech, to make me mount my horse, and ride off home as quickly as possible, was I to impute this to the whole House, and tell the whole House (as I told him), that, if the reporters told us that there they would call another Meeting, I would be bound to make them

mount their horses, and ride off

was a loud and general laugh! but this has, I must confess, been seldom the case. I am well in

formed, that, when Knatchbull | individuals, out of doors, may be was inveighing against my doc- wronged by speeches made in Partrine about the Debt, he was liament. Suppose a man were to loudly cheered, particularly by foresee that St. Paul's would tumthose who sat near him; but that, ble down, if certain digging and when he came to those person-grubbing and poking about at its alities, which, if uttered at all, base were persevered in by a ought to have been uttered at parcel of mole-like people; supMaidstone to my face, the House pose he were to foretel this; supdid not cheer; and that even those posing the mole-like architects to who sat round about him, dis-go on with their grubbings; supCovered evident signs of a feeling pose the building to begin to very different from that of satis- tumble about their ears; suppose faction and approbation. Would this matter to be mentioned in it not have been, then, great in- Parliament: suppose one of the justice in me to fix his conduct Members to say that he had foreupon the whole House; to impute seen the same thing, and another to you, for instance, a share of of them to say that it was imposthe calumny that he was uttering?sible to be foreseen by any human Yet, according to your doctrine, being! Now suppose all this, this is what I must have done, or would not the man, who had really sat in silence, while three hun- foreseen the calamity, who had dred newspapers were conveying foretold it repeatedly, and years about the world the speech of a Member of Parliament, repre ́senting my character as well as conduct to be such as to be reprobated by every honest man.

There are other ways, too, besides that of direct attack, in which

and years before it had taken place; who had been laughed at for his forebodings; and who well knew that the thing had been foretold by nobody else; would not

would he not have a right to make | done nothing; suppose four milhis representations upon the sub-lions of taxes have been taken off ject, even for his own sake; and during the Session; suppose that would it not be his duty to do it? two persons out of the House have Without such remonstrance how manifestly had a large share in would the public be to be guard-taking off these taxes; have not ed against the mole-like gentry those two persons a right to reand their abettors another time; monstrate with that Member? Not and how is such man to remon- very harshly, to be sure; but,

when my Lord Milton was, the other day, ascribing all the good deeds to you and Mr. Wyville, whose motions had produced no

strate with any propriety without naming, without singling out (for, <to single out is to name, and nothing more), how is such man to remonstrate with any effect, and thing; when he was omitting all in a manner to excite any interest, the exertions that had produced unless he address himself to the the taking off of four millions of particular parties by whom the taxes, including a very large part injustice has been done?

There are cases that do not

<come even so closely as this to an individual out of doors, and that yet justify him in making his commentary somewhat particular and personal. Suppose a Member to say, that nothing has been done, for any certain time past,

worthy of approbation, in the Parliament, except certain things that he names. Suppose those certain

things that he names have really

of that worst of all taxes, the salt tax; when he was doing this, and saying not one single word about the great exertions of those two persons out of doors to whom: I have just alluded; when he was doing all this, and taking no sort of notice of the Farmer's Friend, and the Farmer's Wife's Friend, who had split themselves up into more than fifty thousand pieces, and had been talking to the people in almost every parish of the king