Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/137

 i82o.] Close of the War to the Death of George III. 123 Whigs were not absent, although they did not vote ; for in the debate Ponsonby and Brougham and Romilly all spoke against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. To have a full idea of what this abstention meant, we must see what the bill really was. Its objects were 1. To prevent public meetings, except those called by county or borough authorities or on requisition of seven householders in the latter case subject to stringent regu- lations. 2. To prevent the existence of debating societies, lecture- rooms, reading-rooms, etc., for admission to which money was received. 3. To declare unlawful all societies that had delegates or missionaries for the purpose of confirming others in the principles they professed. 4. To suppress a particular society calling themselves the Spenceans or Spencean Philanthropists. Every one of those instruments for political education which we now value so highly and use so constantly, every means by which sound opinion could be formed, as well as every method by which it could express itself to the legis- lature and the Government, were thus ruthlessly put down by a bill against the introduction of which only sixteen members could be induced to vote. Ministers were not content with the powers enormous as they were which Parliament con- ferred ; they assumed and delegated to the most irresponsible instruments of the executive still more "arbitrary authority. On the 2/th of March the Home Secretary, Lord Sid- mouth, addressed a circular letter to the lords-lieutenant of counties, in which he urged the importance of preventing the circulation of blasphemous and seditious publications ; and informed them that he had ascertained that the law officers of the Crown were of opinion that a justice of the peace might issue a warrant to apprehend any person charged on oath with the publication of a blasphemous or seditious libel, and compel him to give bail to answer the charge. The circular further declared that the vendors of pamphlets or