Introduction
In December 1795, the Seditious Assemblies Act was passed in Westminster. Aimed at snuffing out sympathy for the French Revolution, the Act banned critics of the King, the Constitution or even Government policy from airing their views in public without prior permission. William Belsham recorded that crusading lawyer Thomas Erskine, MP for Portsmouth, had reacted angrily at this travesty of English liberties.
ON the second reading of the Sedition Bill, Mr Erskine distinguished himself by some very animated remarks against it. An act of this description, he said, was never thought of in the reign of king Charles II after all the horrors and confusion of the former reign.* It was never attempted in the reign of king William, when the government was newly established during a disputed succession,* or in either of the two subsequent reigns, when rebellions raged in the heart of the kingdom.
He defied the whole profession of the law to prove that the bill then before the house was consonant to the principles of the constitution. The constitution was abrogated and annulled by it. Our ancestors were content to wait till some overt act appeared which was the subject of punishment: but, under this bill, the determination of a magistrate was to interfere between the people and the assertion of their rights, or the complaint of their grievances. How easy would it be for the spy of a corrupt magistrate, by going to a meeting and uttering a few seditious words, whether apposite to the subject or not, to afford a pretence for dissolving the meeting.
Précis
William Belsham recorded the heartfelt arguments of lawyer Thomas Erskine in 1795, when debating the Seditious Meetings bill in the Commons. Never in 130 years, said Erskine, had any monarch, however sorely tried, sought to rob the public so completely of the right to air their grievances, or made it so easy to find excuses to shut down debate.
(59 / 60 words)
William Belsham recorded the heartfelt arguments of lawyer Thomas Erskine in 1795, when debating the Seditious Meetings bill in the Commons. Never in 130 years, said Erskine, had any monarch, however sorely tried, sought to rob the public so completely of the right to air their grievances, or made it so easy to find excuses to shut down debate.
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