anger of the times, as proved
by the late attempt on the King's life, and partly by the open avowal of
republican doctrines made at the meetings of different societies;
partly, also, on the temporary character of the measures, since in each
bill a period was fixed after which its operation should expire. And he
argued, farther, that, as many of the actions specified in these bills
as seditious or treasonable were by many lawyers considered capable of
being reached by statutes already existing, though not universally
understood, it was "humane, not cruel, to remove doubts, and to prevent
men from being ensnared by the ambiguity of old laws."

And in May, 1794, he brought in another bill, founded on the report of a
secret committee which, in compliance with a royal message, the House of
Commons had appointed to investigate the proceedings and objects of
certain societies which were known to exist in different parts of the
kingdom. In obedience to a Secretary of State's warrant, founded on
sworn informations, their books and papers had been seized, and, having
been sealed up, were now laid before the House, with the report of the
committee that they proved that several of the societies which they
named had, ever since the end of the year 1791, been uniformly pursuing
a settled design for the subversion of the constitution; one society, in
particular, having approved a plan for assembling a Convention, in
imitation of the French Assembly sitting under that title, in order to
overturn the established government, and to wrest from the Parliament
the power which the constitution placed in its hands.

To prevent the dissemination of such principles, and to defeat such
schemes, Pitt now asked leave to bring in a bill to empower his
Majesty--acting, of course, through the Secretary of State--to secure
and detain such persons as he should suspect of conspiring against the
King's person and government. He admitted that the power which he thus
proposed to confer amounted to a suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ Act
in every part of the United Kingdom; nor did he deny that it was an
unusually strong measure, but he contended that it was one justified by
absolute necessity, by the manifest danger of such a conspiracy as the
committee had affirmed to exist to the tranquillity of the nation and
the safety of the government.

Fox, it may almost be said as a matter of course, opposed the
introduction of any such measure; but his oppositio