iminary step, the lord chancellor introduced a bill for the purpose
of taking away from such as should be tried for seditious practices the
right of traversing; allowing the court, however, to postpone the trial,
on his showing reason for delay. Against this measure as well as others
in preparation, Earl Grey entered his protest; they being calculated, he
said, to bring misery, if not ruin on the country. On the second reading
of the bill it was opposed by Lords Erskine and Liverpool: and Lord
Holland urged on ministers the necessity of legislating on both sides of
the question, so as to prevent the delays which occurred in prosecutions
on _ex-officio_ informations, as well as in those of indictment. In
compliance with this suggestion, the lord chancellor, on the third
reading, proposed an additional clause, compelling the attorney-general
to bring a defendant to trial within a year, or to enter into a
_noli-prosequi_, and the bill thus amended passed without further
opposition. The additional measures introduced in the upper house
by Lord Sidmouth, and in the commons by Lord Castlereagh were to the
following effect:--"An act to render the publication of a blasphemous or
seditious libel punishable, on a second conviction, at the discretion of
the court, by fine, imprisonment, banishment, or transportation; and to
give power, in cases of a second conviction, to seize the copies of the
libel in possession of the publisher: a stamp duty, equal to that
paid by newspapers, on all publications of less than a given number of
sheets, with an obligation on all publishers of such pieces to enter
into recognizances for the payment of such penalties as might be in
future inflicted on them." The press being thus restrained, seditious
meetings were to be controlled by the following provisions:--"That a
requisition for holding of any meeting other than those regularly called
by a sheriff, boroughreeve, or other magistrate, should be signed by
seven householders: and that it should be illegal for any persons not
inhabitants of the place in which such meeting was held to attend it:
also, that magistrates should be empowered, within certain limitations,
to appoint the time and place of meeting." To repel danger from the
muster of an illegal force, it was proposed to prohibit military
training, except under the authority of a magistrate or lieutenant of
the county; and in the disturbed districts, to give to magistrates a
power of seizing ar