PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

Friends

TO THE

LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.

PERHAPS no period in the history of our country ever gave rise to a more distinct division of opinion. as to the true policy of her state and government, than was occasioned by the phenomenon of the French revolution in its earlier stages, when the following Declaration of the Friends of the Liberty of the Press was delivered and published. By many honest and enlightened persons, independently of the extensive influence of power and patronage, the late Mr. Pitt was considered as the pilot who had weathered its storm; who, by raising a just and critical alarm against French principles, had, in a manner, enlisted the whole people of Great Britain in defence of her established constitution, and who, by a timely and vigorous domestic policy, had disarmed republican sedition through the terrors of criminal justice. By `others not less enlightened, this severe system of domestic discipline, and, above all, the enactment of

new and unprecedented laws to enforce it, was condemned, as not only unnecessary, but destructive of the object sought to be attained by it. They considered the supposed alarming fascination of French principles to have been employed only as a pretext for beating down, by force and terror, the efforts of those who sought only a constitutional reform in the representation of the House of Commons, and who sought it, as the safest antidote to republican principles, and the surest deliverance from the crisis of a revolution. They foretold that this unprincipled attempt (as they at least considered it) to subdue the human mind in a free country, by penal proceedings, beyond the temper and spirit of our ancient laws; above all, when such a course was directed against the Press, and pursued under the sanction of the very House of Commons, the desired reformation of which was the grand feature of all the state indictments against the people, would only bring round the evil (if an evil it was) in a more formidable and unmanageable shape, until the House of Commons, for the support of its own dignity, and the safety of its authority, of itself reformed the very abuses which many were punished for intemperately pointing out as fit subjects of reformation. Which of these two opposite opinions was the soundest and best, the Editor disclaims altogether the province of deciding; and he, therefore, refers the Reader to the exordium of the Speech for Mr. John Horne Tooke, from page 1, to page 10, in the present volume and also to the following extract from the

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work of Mr. Erskine on the Causes and Consequences of the War with France, which he published in 1797, in which will be found, from page 11, to page 17, his opinion of the causes for issuing the King's Procla mation of the 21st of May 1792, and of the real state of the public mind at that momentous period. Whether he was justified in those opinions, or in his consequent conduct, every Reader, as throughout the whole of this Publication, is left wholly at liberty to judge for himself.

Extract from a Pamphlet entitled, A View of the Causes and Consequences of the War with France.

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"For this purpose of alarm, the honest but irregular zeal of some societies, instituted for the reform of Parliament, furnished a seasonable, but a contemptible pretext; they had sent congratulations to the French government when it had ceased to be monarchical: in their correspondences through the country, on the abuses and corruptions of the British Constitution, they had unfortunately mixed many ill-timed and extravagant encomiums upon the revolution of France, whilst its practice, for the time, had broke loose from the principles which deserved them; and, in their just indignation towards the confederacies then forming in Europe, they wrote many severe strictures against their monarchical establishments, from which the mixed principles of our own governament were not distinctly or prudently separated.

They wrote besides, as an incitement to the reform of Parliament, many bitter observations upon the defective constitution, and the consequent corruptions of the House of Commons; some of which, according to the just theory of the law, were unquestionably libels.

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These irregularities and excesses were, for a considerable length of time, wholly overlooked by Government. Mr. Paine's works had been extensively and industriously circulated throughout England and Scotland; the correspondences, which above a year afterwards became the subject of the state trials, had been printed in every newspaper, and sold without question or interruption in every shop in the kingdom; when a circumstance took place, not calculated, one would imagine, to have occasioned any additional alarm to, the country, but which (mixed with the effects on the public from Mr. Burke's first celebrated publication on the French Revolution) seems to have given rise to the King's Proclamation, the first act of Government regarding France and her affairs.

"A few gentlemen, not above fifty in number, and consisting principally of persons of rank, talents, and character, formed themselves into a society, under the name of the Friends of the People, They had observed with concern, as they professed in the published motives of their association, the grossly unequal representation of the people in the House of Commons; its effects upon the measures

of Government; but, above all, its apparent; tendency to lower the dignity of Parliament, and to dee prive it of the opinion of the people. Their avowed object was, therefore, to bring the very cause, which Mr. Pitt had so recently taken the lead in, fairly and respectfully before the House of Commons; in hopes, as they declared, to tranquillize the agitated part of the public, to restore affection and respect for the legislature, so necessary to secure submission to its authority; and, by concentrating the views of all reformers to the, preservation of our invaluable constitution, to prevent that fermentation of political opinion, which the French Revolution had undoubt edly given rise toj from taking a republican direction/ in Great Britain. These were not only the professed objects of this association, but the truth and good faith of them received afterwards the sanction of judicial authority, when their proceedings were brought forward by Government in the course of the state trials,

Nevertheless, on the very day that Mr. Grey at the desire of this small society, gave notice of his intended motion in the House of Commons, there was an instantaneous movement amongst Ministers, as if a great national conspiracy had been discovered. No act of Government appeared to have been in agitation before that period, although the corre

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I declare, upon my honour, these were my reasons for be coming a member of that society.

Now Earl Grey.