A curious POCKET TABLE for ready Calculations, and a PLAN of PORTSOKEN Ward. LONDON: Printed for R. BALDWIN, at No. 47. in Pater-nofter Row; Of whom may be had complete Sets, from the Year 1732, to the prefent Time; ready bound or stitched, or any fingle Month to complete Sets. PRICES of STOCKS, &c. in MAY 1771 Bank Stock India Sou. Sea. folds S. New S. S. 3 per C. | 3 per C. 31 per C. 13 Stock Stock Ann. Алп. confol. reduced 1756. per C.14 per C. 14 per C.in. Bond. 4 per C. | Long. Navy. 1758. confol. Lottery Wind Weather Prem. Ann. Ticket 13 17 6 S. W. Fair N. E. Rain Sunday N. E. Rain AVERAGE PRICES of GRAIN, by the Standard WINCHESTER Bushel. LONDON MAGAZINE: For MAY, 1771. DEBATES OF A POLITICAL CLUB. Mr. Serjeant G's Speech on the Commitment of the City Magiftrates to the Tower, concluded from our laft. HE difcretionary powers of prerogative and privilege, Mr. Prefident, were firft granted by the people for purposes of public good, and become constitutionally annihilated in the moment of their perverfion. To abuse, is to deftroy them, and nothing but neceffity could make the punishment of contempts, even in courts of law, warrantable; contempts in court ftrike the immediate existence of juftice: Hence the courts of law are invefted with a power of punishing them with inftant feverity, though making the offended party judge and executioner was manifeftly repugnant to the fpirit of our conftitution: but the neceffity which operates for an authority of this kind in the law courts, does not operate for lodging it with us. Our existence is not endangered by a contempt, nor the administration of justice rendered precarious by a delay of the punishment: no, fir, the punishment gains weight by the delay; the laws become doubly tremendous when appealed to by a branch of the legiflature, and we become doubly refpectable in the eyes of our conftituents, when our refentments are regulated by the acknowledged principles of legality. It is urged with great plaufibility, Mr. Prefident, that without the power of imprifoning at difcretion, all parliamentary privilege muft neceffarily be loft: But, in anfwer to this, give me leave to obferve, that the crown poffefles no power of this kind, and yet there is no fear of any diminution in May, 1774. the royal perogative; the greatest corporations in the kingdom claim no fuch jurifdiction, and yet their authority is never impeached: whenever they have a reasonable caufe of complaint, the laws of their country are open to grant redrefs, and few are weak enough, or wicked enough, to expofe themfelves voluntarily to judicial profecutions. I am fenfible, Mr. Prefident, that great weight is laid upon the power of a House of Commons, because it is the grand inqueft of the kingdom, yet here, fir, the cafuifts for parliamentary omnipotence are as indefensible as in any other arguments; for the bufinefs of an inqueft is to prefent not to punish; to complain, not to decide; and we ceafe to be an inqueft the moment we claim a right of judicial determination. Upon the whole, fir, if the prerogative of the crown is not equal to the privileges of parliament, there is an end of our conftitution, which makes it the head of the legiflature; now the crown poffeffes no power of difcretionary imprifonment, and this houfe, in exerciting an au thority fuperior to the royal, deftroys that equality of the three eftates upon which our ancestors have founded the liberties of England. Mr. Serjeant G- having ended here- Lucillus Lena, (alderman T--d) expreffed himself in the following manner. Mr. Prefident, Sir, |