f or illustration.

We live, indeed, in an age of paradoxes, and have heard several notions
seriously defended, of which some would, not many years ago, have
condemned their abetter to a prison or a madhouse, and would have been
heard by the wisest of our ancestors with laughter or detestation; but I
did not expect that the most hardy innovator would have shocked my
understanding with a position like this, or have asserted that a law may
operate before it is made, or before it is projected.

That where there is no law there is no transgression, is a maxim not
only established by universal consent, but in itself evident and
undeniable; and it is, sir, surely no less certain, that where there is
no transgression there can be no punishment.

If a man may be punished, sir, by a law made after the fact, how can any
man conclude himself secure from the jail or the gibbet? A man may
easily find means of being certain that he has offended no law in being,
but that will afford no great satisfaction to a mind naturally timorous;
since a law hereafter to be made, may, if this motion be supposed
reasonable, take cognizance of his actions, and how he can know whether
he has been equally scrupulous to observe the future statutes of future
senates, he will find it very difficult to determine.

Mr. PELHAM rose, and spoke thus:--Sir, notwithstanding the absurdity
which the honourable gentleman imagines himself to have discovered in
this proposal, and which he must be confessed to have placed in a very
strong light, I am of opinion, that it may, with very little
consideration, be reconciled to reason and to justice, and that the wit
and satire that have been so liberally employed, will appear to have
been lost in the air, without use and without injury.

The operation of the law may, very properly, commence from the day on
which the embargo was laid by his majesty's proclamation, which surely
was not issued to no purpose, and which ought not to be disobeyed
without punishment.

Sir John BARNARD spoke next, to this effect:--Sir, I cannot but be
somewhat surprised, that a gentleman so long conversant in national
affairs, should not yet have heard or known the difference between a
proclamation and a penal law.

By a proclamation, his majesty may prevent, in some cases, what he
cannot punish; he may hinder the exportation of our corn by ordering
ships to be stationed at the entrance of our harbours; but if any should
escape with proh