On the 24th, this subject was introduced by Mr. Flood; but, overpowered by a great majority, he soon after resumed it, and moved that the commons should resolve," that the practice of attachments, for contempt of court, stands on the same ground of law in both kingdoms, and ought not to be extended further in Ireland than in England."

The propriety of this resolution be eloquently enforced. "I moved yesterday," said he, "that the officer of the court of king's bench should attend on this day, with the rule book of the court, on the crown side, for the years 1761, 1762, and 1763. I conceived that it contained most useful and necessary information. I will not say, that for that reason it was denied; but it was denied. I moved that the grand committee of courts of justice should sit this day, to receive the subject: that too was refused; though certainly the most parliamentary mode of proceeding. I shall, however, go on; for every thing that passed in that committee the night before the last, makes it more necessary to enter into the present discussion.

"I do not mean to arraign the king's bench, much less the committee of this house; but there are moments, and there are cases wherein a prejudice seizes on the minds of great and wise bodies, and induces them to decide in a manner less suited to their wisdom and to their greatness, than one would have expected. The derided aggregate meeting; the dreaded reform of parliament; the inhabitants as well as freeholders,

being invited by Mr. Sheriff Reilly's notice; the question of catholic franchise; the words representation and congress strangely tortured; and the reprobated resolution of that meeting, pledg ing their lives and fortunes to the unknown and unformed decision of that congress, and of those representatives; all these circumstances, heightened by eloquence and prejudice, seem originally to have run away with the discretion of the king's bench, and to have had the same effect on the committee of this house, the night before the last.... It becomes necessary, therefore, to bring before you now, the constitutional question, as to the principle of attachment, without reference to any particular court of justice, or to any particular and specific case.

"The very power of parliament has been questioned, as if we would be competent to enquire into his judgments, which ought to be our ground for doing either; or as if we could be competent to make laws, and yet have no knowledge or judgment as to the laws that are in being. But the constitution and the law say

otherwise.

"A short view of the Norman æra, will shew that the present doctrine of attachment, has no foundation but in the star-chamber. William the Conqueror overturned the whole constitution; by an arbitrary fiction, he assumed to be the proprietor of the whole soil, and divided it into 60,000 knights-fees, that he might have, in effect, an army of 60,000 knights bound to him by all the chains of the tyrannous Norman feod,

which he introduced. As to national assemblies, such as the Saxon, he held none; as to parliaments, such as we know, he held none. If he held any public councils, they were councils of barons only, and those partially and arbitrarily summoned, a fault in which he was imitated by most of his immediate successors.

"As to the judicial power, which is our object, he cancelled, in effect, the Saxon constitution, and the county courts, and substituted a Norman court, called the Aula Regis, in the place of them, and compelled the people to quit their native judicature, and their native language, and to plead in the Norman language, and in this Norman judicature, before an ecclesiastic, whom he brought from Normandy to preside in that court, in the character, and with the title, of Capitalis justiciarius; and here the enemies of liberty take their stand.

They point to the ruins of the constitution, and from them they pretend to delineate its fabric, and to establish its principles on its subversion. But the right honourable member [the Attorney General] might as well tell me, that the curfeu, or that the Conquest was a part of the constitution, as that the Aula Regis was so.

"This court, and this justiciary, established by a tyrant to support his tyranny, soon became a tyrant, in the reigns of his successors, both to the prince and to the people, and rose to such enormity in the reign of Henry III. when Bracton wrote, whom the right honourable gentleman [the Attorney General] has quoted, that the son

of that Henry III. namely Edward I. overthrew that court, and established on its ruins, the four great courts of judicature which we now possess, and has been thence justly styled, the Justinian of England.

"The tumultuary reigns, that were infested by the wars of York and Lancaster, are not times of precedent; if in that period any had been produced, which yet there have not. What follows? We are brought to the reign of Henry VII. and then a statute was found necessary to support the court of star-chamber. And why? Because the practices of that court could not be supported by the common law of the land. Attachments, in full extent, then began indeed. But they began in the star-chamber, and under that statute. By example, it is true, they crept into other courts; which are apt enough to favour increase of jurisdiction; but as they rose (in their culpable extent) with that statute, which was made to support the star-chamber, so also, they must be considered, as falling with that statute. What follows? That attachment is not a part of the general law of the land, but merely a law of privilege for the protection of the courts; founded on, and tolerated only by necessity, and not to be endured beyond it. It can, therefore, only extend to persons guilty of contempt to the courts, in their presence; to the officers and servants of the court; to persons abusing or resisting the process of the court; and to the sheriffs or magistrates, when they become, in effect, servants of the court pro tempore; by being pro

tempore actually, not constructively engaged in the service of the court.

"Now to apply this to the case of any of those sheriffs, who have favoured county meetings for promoting a reform, except Mr. Reilly, whose case I will keep entirely out of the present question, has any sheriff a power or authority by his office, to command such meetings? Certainly not. Has any sheriff pretended to command such meetings? Certainly not. Have they summoned the county by their bailiffs? No. Have they attempted to punish any man for absence? No. Did they compel the power of the county, that is, the county armed, to assemble? No. On the face of their advertisement, was it not declared, that the meeting was desired, not commanded, at the request of others, and not by the official power of the sheriff? Certain gentlemen of the county desire the presence of the sheriff, as the first conservator of the peace. Is not this an overt act of peace, not of sedition? They desire the convenience of his county court, probably the longest and the most central room in the county; and by his notice he signifies a compliance with their desires. What is there in this, that can be tortured into a crime? Are voluntary meetings, in a free country, prima facie, and in themselves illegal? Certainly not. Is deliberating on a reform illegal? Certainly not. But choosing delegates to represent them in congress, it is said, is illegal. In the first place, these expressions were used in very few counties; but even where they were, I ask, is the word "con