I do not find that any
opposition was made by the principal persons of the minority in the
House of Commons, or that any is apprehended from them in the House of
Lords. The whole of the difficulty seems to lie with the principal men
in government, under whose protection this bill is supposed to be
brought in. This violent opposition and cordial support, coming from one
and the same quarter, appears to me something mysterious, and hinders me
from being able to make any clear judgment of the merit of the present
measure, as compared with the actual state of the country and the
general views of government, without which one can say nothing that may
not be very erroneous.
To look at the bill in the abstract, it is neither more nor less than a
renewed act of UNIVERSAL, UNMITIGATED, INDISPENSABLE, EXCEPTIONLESS
DISQUALIFICATION.
One would imagine that a bill inflicting such a multitude of
incapacities had followed on the heels of a conquest made by a very
fierce enemy, under the impression of recent animosity and resentment.
No man, on reading that bill, could imagine he was reading an act of
amnesty and indulgence, following a recital of the good behavior of
those who are the objects of it,--which recital stood at the head of the
bill, as it was first introduced, but, I suppose for its incongruity
with the body of the piece, was afterwards omitted.
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