ibited cargoes, he can inflict no penalties upon them at
their return.

To enforce this prohibition by the sanction of punishments is the
intention of the present bill, but a proclamation can make nothing
criminal, and it is unjust and absurd to punish an action which was
legal when it was done.

The law ought, sir, in my opinion, not to commence till time is allowed
for dispersing it to the utmost limits of this island; for as it is
unreasonable to punish without law, it is not more equitable to punish
by a law, of which, they who have unhappily broken it, could have no
intelligence.

A future day was agreed to.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, DEC. 2, 1740.

DEBATE RELATING TO A SEDITIOUS PAPER OF THE SAME KIND WITH THE
CONSIDERATIONS ON THE EMBARGO ON PROVISIONS.

Lord THOMSON took notice of a paper which he had in his hand, and said
he received it at the door, where it was given to the members as they
came in, and, complaining of it as an indignity offered to the house,
desired that it might be read. Which being done, he rose up, and spoke
in substance as follows:

Sir, the crime of exasperating the people against their governours, of
raising discontent, and exciting murmurs in a time of general danger,
and of attempting to represent wise and salutary measures, which have
received the approbation of the whole legislature, as mean artifices,
contrived only to raise the fortunes of some favourites of the minister,
and aggrandize the officers of state, by the miseries of the people, is
a crime too enormous to require or admit any aggravation from rhetorick,
and too dangerous to hope for any excuse from candour and lenity.

To read or hear this paper is sufficient for a full conviction of its
pernicious tendency, and of the malice of its author; a charge not fixed
upon particular expressions capable of a doubtful meaning, and which
heat or inadvertency might casually have produced, but supported by the
general design of the whole paper, and the continued tenour of the
argument, which is evidently intended to show, that an act of
government, which cannot but appear necessary and seasonable in the
present state of our affairs, an act ratified by the concurrence of all
the powers of the legislature, is nothing but a scheme of avarice to
grow rich by oppression.

Nor is this scandalous libel written with more confidence and insolence
than it is dispersed. Not content, sir, with vilifying the proceedings
of the state,