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a bill to abolish the pillory (April 21)—which was rejected in the Lords at the instance of Lord Ellenborough-objected to heavy stamp duties proposed to be laid on law proceedings (May 22), favoured the removal of Catholic disabilities (May 30), emphasised that the intemperate conduct of a few members of the Catholic Board could not alter the claims of the whole body, and advocated the extension of trial by jury to civil cases in Scotland (April 12).

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It is a relief now to record the agreeable interlude, during the summer vacation, of a continental tour-including Switzerland, Italy, and France. His reflections throw, of course, as much light on himself as on the places visited. Of Geneva he says: "The society of Geneva, I own, a little disappointed me; they have a great deal of literature and of science, but still their conversation seems rather too much confined to the trifling topics which generally occupy the attention of a provincial town; and cards for the old, and dancing for the young, are the neverfailing substitutes for conversation." Elsewhere he complains that he cannot find a single bookseller-a complaint that will touch the hearts of all lovers of books: "The Valais did not appear to me, from the little I could learn and observe in rapidly passing through it, to be that seat of happiness and innocence which Rousseau and other writers have represented it. The Government is severe and tyrannical, and the people ignorant in the extreme. In the whole state there is not a single bookseller, not even at Sion, the capital." He is captivated by the natural attractions of Genoa, but does not forget its political situation: "I was enchanted with the beauty of Genoa. Its port, its lighthouse, its palaces and churches, and public edifices, the adjoining hills studded with villas, and the fine mountains of the Apennines behind them, form altogether a scene more striking and beautiful than any that I had ever before beheld. It is impossible, however, to see this magnificent city, filled as it is with the monuments of its ancient prosperity and renown, and to behold the fine race of inhabitants that crowd its streets, without feeling the most lively indignation against the base and unprincipled policy of England and the other great powers of Europe, who have lately taken on themselves to deliver over this whole state, with all its territory, into the hands of a narrowminded and bigoted prince, a stranger to them, disliked and despised by them, and who never had any pretensions to aspire 2 Ibid., p. 205.

1 Memoirs, vol. iii, pp. 203, 204.

to dominion over them." In Paris he met again many old friends, including Lafayette and La Rochefoucauld.

Back again in Westminster, his vigorous activity was resumed. He got leave once more (February 7, 1816) to bring in a bill to subject the freehold estates of deceased debtors to the payment of their simple contract debts, and showed the futility of the objections raised in the previous session in the Lords. Once more it was thrown out in the Upper House (June 19), and Lord Grey entered a protest drawn up by the promoter.2 (Romilly's project was, however, realised in a later parliament, 3 and 4 Will. IV, c. 104.)

On May 23 he ably and eloquently vindicated, in the House of Commons, the cause of the persecuted Protestants in the south of France. For his defence of religious liberty many attacks were made on him in the press; and the lampooners of the day could, apparently, do no better than make stupid reflections on his ancestry:

Pray, tell us why, without his fees,

He thus defends the refugees,

And lauds the outcasts of society?

Good man! he's moved by filial piety.3

Then he, along with Brougham, protested against the ill-treatment of slaves in Barbadoes (June 19). A week later he gave evidence before a committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the state of the metropolitan police, and confuted, by means of a number of incontrovertible facts, the fallacious statement that felonies had increased owing to the abolition of capital punishment for picking pockets. In the case of a bill making it a capital felony for persons riotously assembled to destroy machinery used in collieries, he observes: "The offence is already by a former statute a felony punishable with transportation. That this severity has not been sufficiently efficacious; that the crime is in any degree increasing; that any remarkable instance of it has of late occurred, was not stated by anyone. But, as if the life of man was of so little account with us, that anyone might at his pleasure add to the long list of capital crimes which disgrace our statute books, the bill passed through all its stages as matter of course, without a single statement or inquiry or remark being made by anyone." 5

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1 Memoirs, vol. iii, pp. 206, 207.

2 Ibid., p. 253.

Ibid., p. 260.

This was the brilliant effort of the Courier, May 29, 1816. "Memoirs, vol. iii, p. 259.

The following year (February 12, 1817) he moved for and obtained leave to introduce a bill to repeal an act (56 Geo. III, c. 130) imposing on poachers the excessive penalty of seven years' transportation; he pointed out that such extreme rigour for an offence of this kind was without example in any other country, and besides that the preamble and the enacting part of the act were inconsistent. ". . . I am by no means," he observed, "insensible to the sad effects of poaching, to the idle and profligate habits which it seldom fails to produce. The frequent acts of rapine and atrocity, which have been committed of late years by persons pursuing this lawless occupation, are notorious; but is it by means like these, by indiscriminate and unmeasured severity, that the evil will be repressed? No, such punishments tend only to defeat the object for which they are enacted, by rendering offenders more desperate, and by turning public opinion rather against the law than against the offence." 1

Next he opposed (February 27) the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill, which he regarded as the most important question discussed since he had a seat in parliament. He urged that the state of the country did not demand such an extraordinary measure, that the proposed remedy was not at all adapted to the existing evil, and that other means were available. He pointed out that when the act was suspended on previous occasions (e.g. 1794, 1798, 1801), the state of affairs was different, there were grounds for apprehension. "The country was in a state of actual war, or actual rebellion, or both. External danger was aggravated by internal co-operation. The fears of an invasion from France were heightened by the rage of disaffection in England, and of open rebellion in Ireland.” 2 "How," he went on to ask, "can this suspension be useful, unless, indeed, our Government shall follow the example of one which it has recently supported against the avowed wishes of the people, where not merely obnoxious individuals, but the inhabitants of whole villages and towns, have been thrown into dungeons?" The bill having become law, he supported a motion (which was lost) "for the purpose of reprobating the illegal and unconstitutional doctrine contended for by the attorney- and solicitor-general, that the Crown, by committing men to prison charged with treason, or on suspicion of treason, might prevent any magistrates having access to them; notwithstanding that, by the statute Speeches, vol. ii, p. 150. Ibid., p. 160. ' Ibid., p. 162.

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31 Geo. III [c. 46], magistrates are expressly authorised to visit gaols, for the purpose of detecting and reporting to the Sessions abuses which they may discover." What was the prohibition of the Secretary of State but dispensing with the laws of the land? To the astonishing contention of the attorney-general that, though the statute gave the magistrates a right to visit prisons, it did not allow any communication with the prisoners, the obvious reply was: "How could the magistrates perform the duty imposed on them by law-the duty of preventing all abuses of authority-but by seeing and communicating with the prisoners in their dungeons?" Again, he resisted, in the face of a large majority, the Seditious Meetings Bill (March 4). He reminded the House that the measure was contrary to the spirit of the constitution, that it would provoke and inflame the public mind rather than calm it, that the advantages of public expression of opinion on public men and public affairs were incalculable. "Restrain this privilege," said he, “and you at once weaken or destroy a source of that glorious freedom, of that high spirit, and of that just reverence for the laws and institutions of their country, which have ever been amongst the noblest characteristics of Englishmen." 3

Attacking the system of lotteries (March 18, 1817), he "endeavoured to make the moral and pious Chancellor of the Exchequer sensible of the wickedness of this measure of finance, which he annually with such complacency resorts to." Afterwards he supported a motion for a committee to inquire into the representation; he pointed out that the bankrupt laws, by their very severity, defeated themselves; he opposed the continuance of the rigorous Irish Insurrection Act, on the ground that such a severe measure was unjustifiable save for reasons of absolute necessity, and that more was required than the bare statement of the Irish Secretary to prove that necessity; he objected to the clause of a Copyright Bill, which compelled authors to give free copies of their works to certain public bodies, as "a most unjustifiable tax on literature"; he submitted motions (June 25) condemning the circular letter of Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary,

1 Memoirs, vol. iii, p. 299. Ibid., pp. 170, 171.

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Memoirs, vol. iii, p. 283. Lotteries were abolished in 1823, by the act 4 Geo. IV, c. 60; and later the advertising of foreign or other lotteries was declared illegal by 6 and 7 Will. IV, c. 66.

'Memoirs, vol. iii, pp. 300, 301.

on the ground that ministers ought not to declare the law to magistrates. The letter requested the lords lieutenant to communicate to the magistrates the opinion of the law officers of the Crown on the law of libels, and the direction of the Government as to their conduct in such cases. Romilly not only contested the law thus laid down (relating to the arrest of persons charged with libel), but urged that the ministerial interference with the execution of the law is contrary to the principles of the constitution, and is inconsistent with the pure administration of justice.1 "This unprecedented and unconstitutional recommendation," he went on to say, "is given with respect to a discretion which ought, even where it avowedly exists, to be exercised but very rarely and upon very extraordinary occasions. . . . Is this the way in which the law of the land is in doubtful cases to be expounded? Is the unsupported opinion of an attorney- and solicitor-general to sanction the exercise of so unusual and dangerous a power? If the Crown can by its officers do so, if it can thus declare what is law, the Crown is in itself equal to the whole legislature of King, Lords, and Commons. By the constitution of this country there are only two modes in which the law can, in doubtful matters, be established. The one is by a declaratory act of the legislature, the other is by the regular and solemn decisions of the judges."

Romilly concluded the session's work by getting through both Houses (July 9) a bill to continue the act 51 Geo. III, c. 124, preventing arrests on mesne process for debts less than £15.

On July 12, 1817, parliament was prorogued. Romilly suffered much disappointment through his abortive legislative efforts and fruitless resistance to harmful measures, as well as a great loss by the death of such valued colleagues as Horner and Whitbread. At one time he had hopes indeed that he might be appointed Lord Chancellor; but now he had given up all such ambition. A compensation, however, for vain endeavours and foiled expectations was found, invariably, in his happy domestic life; and a year before the death of his wife, he recalls-ominous prognostication!-how he first met her, and reflects, with contentment and joy, on their devoted attachment to each other. "The happiness of my present condition," he observes, “cannot be increased: it may be essentially impaired. I am at the present moment completely independent both of the favours and of the 1 Speeches, vol. ii, p. 230. Ibid., p. 235.

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