Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/71

Rh December, having been called much earlier than usual, Fox could only carry fifty votes with him, in opposing the address which virtually committed the country to war. The faithfulness of the few was severely tried in the course of the year. On the 21st of May, 1793, the Government issued a proclamation for preventing seditious meetings and writings. This proclamation was a direct attack upon the freedom of expression of public opinion, either in meetings or in the press. It warned the people against wicked and seditious writings, industriously dispersed amongst them, and commanded magistrates to discover the authors, printers, and promulgators of such writings, and sheriffs and others to prevent tumults and disorders. This was a direct incitement, or rather command, to the executive authorities throughout the country for the most part responsible to no one but the Sovereign to enter upon a system inquisitorial and arbitrary to the last degree. Yet when the House of Commons was asked to approve of the proclamation, the motion, although it was opposed by Fox, Grey, Whitbread, Russell, Hamilton, and others, was carried without a division.

Another measure of the growing weakness of the Whig party and the desertion of its members, is to be found in the proceedings having reference to religious liberty. In 1789 Mr. Beaufoy had brought in a bill to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, and secured 102 votes. In 1790 Fox made a similar attempt, and had 105 supporters; but when, on the 11th of May this year, he proposed a much less important concession to the Nonconformists, leaving the Test and Corporation Acts untouched, but repealing some old and very oppressive laws, only thirteen members of his old party would go with him. Even this number was soon further reduced. The proclamation against seditious writing and meetings formed one occasion for desertion; and the execution of Louis XVI., and the immediate declaration of war in the beginning of 1793, gave the final blow to the strength of a party to which no one could remain constant who was not either personally attached to the great leader, or so impressed