Lordships were called upon to range through such a mass of papers as the motion comprehended? The time included was from 1801 to 1810. He was aware that that was a period which took in the time in which so humble an indi vidual as himself had the honour of filling the situation of Attorney-General. Whether the noble Lord meant to refer to his conduct, he knew not; but as the noble Lord was silent with respect to it, and made no allusion to it, he did not think it necessary to defend what had not been attacked; at the same time he must say, in reference to those learned gentlemen who have succeeded him in that office, that he did feel that their discharge of their public duty, and their discretion in the discharge of it, ought not to be put to the question upon grounds lightly or captiously taken up. He did not see why persons in such stations ought to be made the objects of invidious investigation upon grounds of hazardous conjecture. (Hear! hear!) As for the infor mation sought for, what could the noble Lord learn from those documents which he did not know already? If there were any matter of special interest to which he was anxious to refer, every facility in his (Lord Ellenborough's) power should not be wanting to the noble Lord, to enable him to come at the required fact; but he was afraid that this was not the sort of facility that was either wished for or expected. He had reason to know that the facility with which inquiry in certain cases had been made, was painful to the parties making it. They might have their own reasons for wishing obstacles in the way of the information sought for; but with respect to one information required by the noble Lord, if he had as yet met any obstacle, that obstacle he (Lord Ellenborough) should cheerfully assist to remove; but it was not to be informed that the noble Lord had brought his present motion. The noble Lord had talked in a high tone of an obiter dictum of Lord Hale's. If Lord Hale had ever said so, which he (Lord E.) believed he never had, his judgment must have been as dormant as in such case he must have wished the law itself to have been but he never said so; it was not to be credited that a man so perfect in his knowledge of the laws and the Constitution as Lord Hale was, could possibly have said so. The law of informations, not the law of the land! What was law, if this was not? for it had been made law by the same authority that had made all the laws that held the Government together. It was as much law as that which gave the noble Lord the right of

speaking in that House-it was as much law as the law which put the Crown of this realm on the brow of the Sovereign, But he would recommend the noble Lord to trace back the law of informations. He could recommend him a book upon that subject, and would refer him to the case to be found in page 119 of "Shower's History of the Law of Informations." He would there find the law of informations to be as old as the common law. If the noble Lord questions the expediency of the law, why not propose that it be repealed? but while it is law, law undoubted and acknowledged, let him not question its legality-(Here Lord Holland intimated that he never had disputed its legality)-The authority of Mr. Dunning, unquestionably very high authority, and which had been so often cited by another noble Lord, had been here relied on against this law. He was certainly good autho rity, but not, perhaps, on the side at which he had been quoted, as he had himself taken an active part in libel prosecutions, and often pocketed the fees under this very law. (A laugh.)-But it seemed that it had been made more grievous by recent enactments. He had expected something from the noble Lord that night against the Indictment Bill. When the noble Lord formerly opposed that Bill, he did not expect that his opposition would then have concluded -nondum finitus Orestes. The Bill here alluded to was an Act made within the last four years, giving the Attorney General power to hold persons to bail, against whom informations ex officio had been filed. On receiving notice of the noble Lord's present motion, he was curious to know how often this Bill had been acted on. He inspected the neces sary documents accordingly. And now he would ask their Lordships how often did they think this Bill had been acted upon since its enactment? but once (Hear! hear!) in the whole four years; there was but one solitary instance of its being acted upon-and he would tell their Lordships in what case that was-the case of a man, one Gorman, who, after having been prosecuted for a libel, and after an infor mation had been filed against him, had the hardihood to publish it again. (Hear! hear!) And yet this was the mighty abuse of that Act-this, forsooth, was one of the ruinous stretches of power which threatened the Government with subversion, and put the subjects of George the Third on a par with those of Buonaparté! He knew nothing more to be deprecated in that House than violent and vague VOL. II.-1811. 2 E

declamations, resting upon no grounds. (Hear! hear! from Lord Holland). He was aware to what he subjected himself by what had fallen from him. The noble Lord might call all that he had said a mere tirade; but in all that he had said, did he not bottom himself on facts? (Hear! hear! from Lord Holland). The cries of the noble Lord could not convince him that he had not. He was used to tumults and alarms-they never yet could put him down. Were he to die the next moment, he never would yield for one moment to tumult. The noble Lord, if not towards him (Lord E.), might, at least in courtesy towards the House, adopt a different tone of exclamation. He repeated that he knew no thing more mischievous in its tendency than inoculating the public mind with groundless apprehensions of imaginary evils. Where there has appeared to him any instance of going beyond the limits of a wise discretion, it had never passed unbranded by him. His abhorrence of the licentiousness of the press was founded upon his love of liberty, which burned as strong in his breast as in that of the noble Lord. If there was one mode more efficacious than another to ruin the liberty of the country, it was by generating that groundless distrust in the great officers of justice, which such needless and vexatious jealousy was calculated to inspire.

Lord Holland threw himself on the indulgence of the House. (Hear! hear!) The learned and noble Lord had accused him of not founding his assertions on facts: the noble and learned Lord had himself directly departed from those facts. The noble and learned Lord talked of the courtesy of the House; he would appeal to their Lordships recollection whether that noble and learned Lord had not himself violated that courtesy by frequent and uncalled for interruptions during his speech. The learned Lord had stated that he (Lord H.) questioned the legality of infor mations ex officio. He had done no such thing. He was accustomed, however, to interruptions from. that quarter; and when the learned Lord alluded so much to the laws of courtesy by which that House was bound, he should have recollected that there was one most essential, and that was, not to interrupt a person speaking in explanation. As to the legality or illegality of the informations ex officio, it so happened that he quoted from the very same report to which the learned Lord had alluded, and that he said at the time

he was quoting it, that it was an obiter dictum of Lord Hale, and ought not to be attended to if it went against the constant stream of law. There was not one argument which the learned Lord used, which was not unfounded, nor one allegation which had not its origin in misapprehension.

Lord Ellenborough said, that what he had charged the noble Lord with was, his professing not to question the legality of informations when he did in fact do so; and he must say, that the noble Lord had confirmed the charge by his explanation.

Lord Stanhope, in justice to his noble friend, could not help stating, that in point of fact he certainly did not question the legality of informations ex officio. What he did question, he did not believe even the Chief Justice himself could contradict him in, and that was, that the mode of exercising the power of filing informations er officio might be such as to become illegal. What! when those informations, invented for the purposes of expedition, were suffered to hang protracted over the head of an individual, would any man say, that such an exercise of them did not become illegal? No man could say otherwise. Yet, this was all his noble friend asserted; and the misre presentation to which he had been subjected must of course have arisen from his being misunderstood. He had asserted, also, that the hanging those informations, suspended in terorem over the heads of individuals, an act so different from their original intention, could be done for no other earthly purpose than that of upholding influence. To this no answer whatever was given; and yet his noble friend was accused of uttering it lightly and factiously, ("captiously," across the table)-well, they were both the same. (A laugh). If he, for instance, made any attack on the Chief Justice, or attempted to give the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack a trimming, no doubt in the estimation of them both there would not be a more "factious" man in the kingdom than their humble servant. (A laugh). This was a very serious subject, and his noble friend had treated it as such: he had quoted the opinion of Mr. Dunning, the ablest lawyer that ever graced the English bar, that ex-officio informations, though coming within the letter, did not come within the spirit of the law, and ought to be done away, as they might in some instances become tyrannous. It was agreed on all hands that abuses might creep into the system, and those abuses could only be stop

ped by parliamentary vigilance. One abuse, for instance, was the delay which had been already alluded to. This could only be encouraged for the purpose of undue influence. Their Lordships ought to carefully distinguish between two species of libels. The one species was libels against individuals, and these it was their duty, as they regarded the prosperity, and honour, and character of the country, to discourage: If such libels were suffered, society could not exist. Truth was no justification. He would put a case :-Suppose a man was in the habit of getting continually drunk (a thing, by the by, which he never did himself,) and that a fellow in the street thought proper to follow him along the flags wherever he went, shouting it out all the road behind him :-now, here the charge might be very true; but still no one could say that the libeller was justifiable. The publication had a direct tendency to a breach of the peace; for every man could not be supposed to possess the politeness of Lord Chesterfield, concerning whom, as connected with this subject, he would relate to them an anecdote. His Lordship was walking along the flags, and an impudent fellow pushed him away, saying "I never give the wall to a scoundrel." Lord Chesterfield immediately took off his hat, and making a low bow, replied, "Sir, I always do." To the licentiousness of the press no man could be a greater enemy than himself; to its liberty no man could be a greater friend. All public ques tions ought to be open to the press; every subject connected with religion, philosophy, government, or the administration of justice. Any thing which could by possibility be supposed connected with the benefit of the nation ought to be duly and freely discussed. This was his idea; and he thought, also, that the licentiousness of the press was the deadliest enemy which its liberty had. He would give them an anecdote on this subject, and perhaps the best history of the country, was the history of its anecdotes. He had an old friend, an amiable, worthy, able man. friend and he were always differing, but still he did not like him the less, because he knew he spoke from conscience; and when a man does that, he is entitled, if not to respect, at least to tolerance. They differed, among other things, about the press-he was a friend to its liberty-his friend argued for its restraint. He (Lord S.) could not help, however, severely condemning some scandalous libels which were daily pouring forth against Lord Bute and the then

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