f the city or borough in which they were held, or
members of the House of Commons for such places. It empowered
magistrates to proceed to the places where such meetings were being
held, and, if they thought it necessary, to require the aid of
constables. It enacted that any meeting, the tendency of which should be
"to incite or stir up the people to hatred and contempt of the person of
his Majesty, his heirs and successors, or of the government or
constitution of this country as by law established, should be deemed an
unlawful assembly." It empowered one or more justices of the peace, in
the event of any meeting being held contrary to the provisions of this
act, to warn every one present, in the King's name, to depart; and made
those who did not depart in obedience to such warning liable to
prosecution for felony, and, if convicted, to seven years'
transportation. It forbade the display of flags, banners, or ensigns at
any meeting, and the employment of any drum, or military or other music;
but it excepted from its operation "any meeting or assembly which should
be wholly holden in any room."

There was one peculiarity in the line taken by the opponents of the
bill, that they did not deny that the meetings which had induced the
ministers to propose it were an evil, dangerous to the general
tranquillity; but it was strongly urged by Lord Erskine and others that
the existing laws were quite strong enough to deal with them, so that a
new enactment was superfluous; and by others, in both Houses, that such
meetings were "an ancient and constitutional mode of discussing abuses
or petitioning Parliament," any interference with which was a greater
evil than the meetings themselves, as being a violation of the
constitution. Mr. Brougham in particular admitted, to the full extent of
the assertions of the ministers themselves, "the wickedness and folly of
many of the speeches" made at the recent meetings. He expressed with
great force his entire disapproval of the system on which these meetings
had been conducted, and admitted that the martial array which had been
exhibited, and the vastness of the numbers of those who had attended,
were of themselves calculated to excite alarm; but he declared that "he
could not on that account acquiesce in a total subversion of a popular
right." On the other hand, the ministers themselves did not deny "the
general right of the people to petition the Legislature, or to carry
their addresses to th