the passing of this act, in every case in which any verdict or judgment by default, shall be had against any person for composing, printing, or publishing," that the words "maliciously and advisedly," should be introduced before the word "composing." The words which he wished to insert, formed part of the act of the 36th of the King, which in all other parts of the present bill, was minutely and exactly followed.

MR. CANNING* could assure his honourable and learned friend, that as far as it applied to him, there had not been the slightest occasion for the apology which he had just offered to the committee. He never thought, and he was convinced the House never thought his speeches too long. There was no man to whom he listened with greater pleasure than he always did to his honourable and learned friend, because, even when he could not come to the same conclusion, he always heard much to delight and much to inform him. However much in general he concurred with him in matter of principle, and much as he in general approved of what fell from his honourable and learned friend -if there was any regret felt by him on this occasion, it was, that with that power of eloquence he so eminently possessed, he had taken a basis much too wide for the motion with which he concluded. And he could assure his honourable and learned friend that he would have come to the discussion with very different feelings, if he had not overlaid the motion by the earlier part of his speech, but had proposed the amendment without the general argument, which had added much to the amusement of his speech, and much to his delight, but nothing to his conviction, and much he owned to his alarm. The amendment proposed might or might not be harmless. But, in calling upon those who proposed the present bills to

state their reasons for them, in the alarming tone which his honourable and learned friend had used, he had imposed a task of awful magnitude upon those who differed from him in their political views. The alternative which his honourable and learned friend had proposed to their acceptance was this either that they should surrender their liberties to some unknown, undefined, and invisible power, or else that they should acknowledge the supremacy of the daily press. To the latter, he, for one, could never assent: in spite of the obloquy which might attend the declaration he was now going to make, he was determined conscientiously to discharge his duty; and if the choice was, whether he was to sacrifice himself and save the institutions of his country, or save himself and sacrifice those institutions, his mind was made up, his resolution was taken, and the sacrifice of himself should be willingly offered to the good of the nation. Whatever he might yield to the arguments of his honourable and learned friend, he would yield nothing to his threats.

Before he entered into a consideration of the definition of libel, which had just been offered to the committee, it would be well for them to consider of what nature the power was with which they were called upon to contend; they had heard that it resided amid clouds and darkness; and that from the midst of those clouds and that darkness, it hurled its vengeance with such unerring aim as never to fail in striking down its victim: they had heard this dreadful denunciation, and therefore it became them to consider whether the freedom of Parliament was to yield to the freedom of the press, and whether the freedom of the press ought not rather to be denominated its despotism? Despotism was not merely of one kind or description; it existed in various shapes, and arose

in various ways; but to no despotism, however created, or however formed, would he ever yield himself up a willing victim. He abhorred the despotism of one man, because it was calculated to destroy all the enjoyments of life, and to render existence scarcely worth supporting. He objected to the despotism of many, whether it appeared in the shape of aristocracy or democracy; to the former he objected, because it destroyed the spirit of competition, and checked the aspirations of ambition and hope; and to the latter, because it led by an ascertained course to military despotism. The despotism of the press, however, appeared to him to be more insupportable than all the rest; indeed, if they might credit the description which they had just heard of it, the imagination could conceive nothing more terrible. There was not only a power in it which, it seemed, it was impossible for any human ingenuity to resist, but there was also a power which acted with all the secrecy of a Venetian tribunal, and at the same time struck with all the certainty of the Holy Inquisition. This power, it was allowed, had grown up under the fostering care and attention of Parliament, and Parliament was now advised to win it over to its side, in order that it might not turn round and destroy the parent from which it sprung. To such a degradation he would never submit. To such an argument he would not yield a single inch; no, not even though his honourable and learned friend advised him to do so. His honourable and learned friend, in giving that advice, had endeavoured to tempt the House into a discussion into which he should not follow him. He had given a character of the daily press on which, for the most part, he did not differ from him.

With respect to the individual to whom his honourable and learned friend had more particularly alluded, he would say that from some circumstances he happened to be ac

quainted with, in his own mind he was convinced he deserved the character which had been given of him by his honourable and learned friend. He would say this of that individual,* that he believed him incapable of availing

Mr. Perry, for nearly forty years proprietor of the principal opposition newspaper-the Morning Chronicle. This gentleman was deservedly respected by all parties. Sir J. Mackintosh, in the course of this debate, paid the following eloquent tribute to his virtues and talents :

"He knew a gentleman who had been engaged during the whole of the last forty years, as the conductor of one of the most popular newspapers; and to his situation, and his conduct, as they had come very much within his own knowledge, he would wish to call the particular attention of the House, writing, as that gentleman generally did-in haste; writing too, under the impulse of generous feelings of party; easily excited when the liberty of his country, or the rights of humanity were invaded; acting as an invisible, unaccountable, and unassailable being; exercising a power almost despotic, over the minds of his readers; and yet with all these temptations to abuse-(and here he would suppose him secured always from greater temptations, by his well known integrity, and the incorruptibility of his character-he would suppose it impossible that he could be ever charged with venality, indecency, or improper motives of any description)—yet, notwithstanding all these considerations, he had never been even subject to an accusation for private slander, and had never been convicted for a public libel. The House might suppose that the individual in question had been favoured by the ruling power; but so far from this being the case, he had seen the men whom he had always supported, only three years in office. Still he had always adhered to the principles on which he had commenced his public life, in spite of the allurements of office, and the frowns of power. He would ask whether, during the same period, any man in Europe had acquitted himself with more credit in a public situation than the individual to whom he alluded, he meant the gentleman who

himself of the power in his hands to gratify any private soreness or private hostility. But while he admitted this, and trusted that the concession would qualify the severity of any farther remarks that he might make on the subject, he could not allow that the daily press was wholly free from blame in some of the particulars to which his honourable and learned friend had alluded. At no very distant day he had seen in some part of the political press, an extract from a pamphlet, recommending assassination as a means of obtaining political freedom. That extract was quoted, without being accompanied or followed by any observation, except that the assassination recommended was only conditional. Such a passage he had read, but he would never have thought of mentioning it but for the challenge thrown out by his honourable and learned friend, that it was impossible that this part of the press could be guilty of any possible aberration from rectitude or propriety --and he only adduced the circumstance as a qualification of his honourable and learned friend's general commendation, the danger of even a possible aberration. Yet, though he could not concur with his honourable and learned friend's panegyric in every particular, he very readily

was the conductor of the principal opposition print-Mr. Perry, the editor and proprietor of the Morning Chronicle. He had not described any person who was a supporter of the Government, because that would not have been so much to his purpose, but to an individual who, during thirty-seven years, had been one of its principal and most effective opponents. He had quoted him as an instance of high honour, unimpeachable integrity, and undeviating principles, in order to show that these qualifications were carefully cherished among those who were connected with the press, and in order to impress upon the committee the necessity of conciliating those who conducted that mighty and irresistible engine.