this House." With this dreadful catastrophe, we, at the present day, are quite familiar. Another Member of Parliament, Mr. Winnington, declaimed, amidst great applause, against what he termed "the scandalous practice of printing our proceedings. Unless a speedy stop is put to it, what will be the consequence? Why, sir, you will have every word that is spoken here by gentlemen, misrepresented by fellows who thrust themselves into the gallery. You will have the speeches of this House every day printed, even during your session. And we shall be looked upon," said the indignant Member-forgetting how his argument recoiled upon those whom he addressed-" as the most contemptible assembly on the face of the earth." "To print or publish the

speeches of gentlemen in this House," said another very eminent Member of Parliament, Mr. Pulteney, "even though they be not misrepresented, looks very like making them accountable without doors for what they say within." Such was the then fashionable notion of Parliamentary responsibility. Not many years later, however, in 1777, upon a debate on the same subject, Mr. Fox frankly declared that "in fact the public had a right to know what passed in Parliament." This was after the great and final contest between Parliament and the printers, which took place in 1771, was conducted with great violence, and led to very serious consequences. That arch mischief-maker and sworn foe of the House of Commons, John Wilkes, then an Alderman of London, is said to have been at the bottom of the scheme. His design was to embroil the House with the City of London, where he knew its authority would be resisted. He pushed on the printers to hazard all lengths both in abuse and in publishing the debates with the names of the several speakers—a liberty then deemed by Parliament a high breach of privilege. Col. Onslow, a member, took up the cause of the House, and threatened to bring a couple of printers every day before its bar.

A saucy paper attacked him with scurrility, and the printers were ordered to attend. They treated the House with con

tempt, and refused to appear.

An order was made that they should be taken into custody. The Lords took up the same quarrel, sent some printers to the Tower, and fined Woodfall, one of them, £100.

After long and factious discussion, the Ministers in the Commons were glad to let off the printers, after reprimanding them on their knees. The next day one Miller, printer of the London Evening Post, being taken into custody by a Messenger of the House, sent for a constable, and gave in charge the Messenger for assaulting him in his own house. The Serjeant-at-Arms demanded the Messenger to be deli vered up. The Lord Mayor, who was a fast friend and adherent of Wilkes, asserted that the House had no power to seize a citizen of London, within the precincts of his authority, without warrant from a magistrate. He set Miller the printer at liberty, and told the Messenger he must give bail or go to prison. The Serjeant-at-Arms then gave bail for him. The House, incensed, as well they might be, at this defiance of their authority, ordered the Lord Mayor to appear before them, but he being at that time too ill to attend, they sent Alderman Oliver, one of their own Members, who had acted as his coadjutor in the business, to the Tower. On a subsequent day the Lord Mayor came down to Westminster, accompanied by a prodigious concourse of people, who insulted both Lords and Commons, assaulted Lord North the Minister, endeavoured to pull him out of his chariot, and tore his hat to pieces. They were very nearly hanging the Deputy-Serjeant-at-Arms to a signpost, and the poor man, in an agony of terror, heard them debating about his execution, but happily they were diverted from their purpose. The Lord Mayor was sent to join his brother Alderman in the Tower, where, however, they were treated as martyrs to the cause of

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liberty, and received visits of condolence from many of the leading Peers and members of the opposition party. The Parliamentary leaders who had taken an active part in opposition to the City and to the printers, were burnt in effigy by the mob. The prisoners applied to the Courts of Law for their release by habeas corpus, but the judges refused to release them, as having been committed by Parliament in the exercise of its lawful authority. They were set free at last by the termination of the session, when they were conducted in triumph to their homes, amidst great illuminations and rejoicing. The history of this affair is upon the whole not very creditable to either party. The city authorities were actuated much less by the sentiment of patriotism than by a spirit of arrogance and mischief, and their claim to be exempt from the jurisdiction of Parliament was void of all foundation in law. The House of Commons was substantially in the right, but its counsels were divided, its dignity lowered, and its measures enfeebled by its internal factions. The House prudently abstained from renewing the controversy, and since that period, happily, it has been engaged in no contests worthy of notice with the representatives of the press. Though it still asserts its privilege of excluding reporters, and indeed all strangers, from debate, it no longer practically resists the publication of its proceedings. False or garbled accounts of the speeches of Members are indeed still deemed liable to censure, but no impediment is offered so long as they are correctly and faithfully reported on the contrary, galleries have been constructed, and other conveniences devised, expressly for the better accommodation of reporters. The publicity of all that passes within the walls of Parliament is now rightly regarded as one of the greatest benefits which our system affords; and for the marvellous perfection with which that object is attained we are chiefly indebted to the rapid improvement of an art, humble in itself, but an instrument of no small social and

political importance. What printing has done for literature, steam for locomotion, gunpowder for war, the compass for navigation, the art of writing shorthand has done for the diffusion of political information, and the establishment of Parliamentary responsibility.

I have now finished my too long and yet hasty sketch of the leading features in the history of the House of Commons. I conclude by requesting your kind indulgence for the unusual time which I have occupied, in consideration of the wide extent of the field over which I have had to travel. I venture also to ask your concurrence with me, after the survey which has now been taken, in a feeling of satisfaction and thankfulness at the result which has been educed, by the blessing of Providence, from so many conflicts, so many perils, during a struggle waged for centuries between power and freedom, between feudal institutions and popular privileges, between the traditions of an ancient monarchy and the democratic tendencies of a more advanced era of the world. We have seen the Parliament prostrate at the foot of the Throne. We have seen the ancient liberties of our Saxon ancestors trembling in the balance. We have seen the Commons engaged in keen contention for their dearest privileges with almost every power in the State. We have seen that House striving in its turn to encroach upon and absorb into itself those other powers-aiming at undivided supremacy, and fain to become the oppressor of the people, whom it was created to represent and to defend. These contests have subsided, and we now behold it firm in its independence, yet justly limited in its power-owning respect, but without subserviency, to the Crown, responsibility to the people, submission, except in cases of Parliamentary jurisdiction, to the law. That it is even yet a perfect institution, exempt from all abuses and defects, I should be the last to assert. But this I will venture to

maintain in its behalf, which the voice of history surely testifies that it stands the first of all senates, all popular. assemblies, ancient or modern, for the eloquence and genius which have adorned its debates, for the spirit of freedom and justice which have, for the most part, actuated its councils, for the vast influence which it has exercised even to the remotest corners of the earth-in a word, for the grand part which it has performed (and long may it continue to perform the same), in carrying into effect the purposes of Providence, in instructing, emancipating, and civilising mankind.