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 flitched, or any fingle Month to complete Sets. Stock Stock Ann. Ann. reduced confol. India (Sou. Sea. folds S. New S. S. 3 per C. 3 per C. 34 per C. 34 per C. 4 per C. 14 per C.in. Bond. 4 per C. Long. PRICES OF STOCKS, &c. in MAY 1771. Lottery 1756. 1758. confol. 1729 87 904 Prem. 47 Navy. Ann. Ticket 13 17 6 S. W. Fair N. E. Rain 27 152 N. E. Rain 28 Sunday S. S. E. Rain 291 13 17 301 153 228 854 87 급 95 N. E. Rain W. Rain 86 31 87 95 47 13 17 N. E. Rain 2 1534 228 85 86 88 90 13 16 6 N. E. Rain N. E. Rain E. Rain 952 50 13 15 E. Rain E. Warm 1534 225 85 86 88 1/10 91 95 $ 48 26 급 13 14 6 S. Rain N. E. Rain 10 1534 864 88 91 95 즐 48 13 14 S. by E. Rain S. W. Rain 224 N. E. Cloudy 50 13 14 6 NE. Rain N. E. Fair 13 85 35 225/ 85 86 88 91 95 50 264 13 15 6 S. S. W. Fair N. E Fair 49 1 26 13 14 N. E. Fair N. E. Fair S. E. Fair 18 Sunday 'S. Fair 19 S. Fair 20 26 1 13 13 6 S. W. Fair N. E. Fair 91 95 49 13 14 6 S. by W. Fair AVERAGE PRICES of GRAIN, by the Standard WINCHESTER Bufhel. Wheat. Rye. Barley. Oats. Beans. Wheat Rye. Barley. Oats. | Barley. Wheat Rye. | Barley. Oats. Beans. s. d. Counties Inland Counties on the Coast 6 s. d. 2 4 3 9 5 10 3 s. d. s. d. s. d. 6 2 53 9 3 4 2 2 3 7 s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. North Wales 6 I 4 6 39 I 9 4 9 Scotland 4 II 29 6 2 13 7 South Wales 5 8 4 6 1 THE 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. T HE difcretionary powers of prerogative and privilege, Mr. Prefident, were first granted by the people for purposes of public good, and become conftitutionally annihilated in the moment of their perverfion. To abufe, 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 legislature, 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 imprisoning at difcretion, all parliamentary privilege muft neceffarily be loft: But, in answer to this, give me leave to obferve, that the crown poffelles no power of this kind, and yet there is no fear of any diminution in May, 1771, 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 indefenfible 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 legif lature; now the crown poffeffes no power of difcretionary imprisonment, and this houfe, in exercifing an authority 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, I have attended with great patience to the arguments advanced in favour of the prefent motion for fending the Lord Mayor and Mr. Oliver to the Tower, but they have roufed my indignation, inftead of convincing my judgement; and I fancy, iffomething more perfuafive than words Hh 2 had had not been used, even to the friends The gentlemen who infift fo much upon the fanctity of precedents, fir, argue with a very bad grace in defence of prefcriptive ulage, when they themfelves have concurred in abolithing mány antient cuftoms, particularly parilamentar privilege in cafes of debt, in cafes of libels, and when they know that "Tis not the fex, Mr. Prefident, I object to, but the govern ment: were we well ruled, the ruler would be an object of little fignification. Common fenfe therefore points out an initant, and a total reformation of public abufes. 'Tis not the greatnefs of the criminal's rank, which fhould prevent you from punishing the criminality. But this is a period in which virtue alone is to undergo profcription; it is not a violation, but a defence of thelaws, which is to route the refentment of this affembly; 'tis not an attack upon the conftitution, but a folicitude for its fafety, which is to excite your indignation. If this was not apparently the cafe, Mr Prefident, your table would never have been di graced by the prefent motion: But remember, fir, the flame which the imprisonment of the feven bishops fpread thro' the nation in the reign of James the Second; recollect this, fir, and tremble for the confequences of imprisoning the city magiftrates, merely on a charge of having done their duty confcientiouily. The whole kingdom will inevitably confider them as martyrs in the great caufe of liberty, and believe me the kingdom is not fo dead to the fentiments of honour, as the panders of a corrupt adminiftration may be inclined to imagine. The British lion till maintains all his native courage, and whether defpotifm thews its head under a Brunfwick or a stuart, in a court of Star Chamber, or a Houfe of Commons, he will ftill confider it defpotifm; he will awake every true friend to the people with his roar, and never fuffer your privileges to fwallow up all the fundamentals of our freedom. The people will refift you, as they refifted the crown in Charles the Second's time, and in Queen Ann's, when royal proclamations were attempted to be made fuperior to pofitive acts of parliament, and make you fenfible, fatally sensible, that nothing but the law of the land can potfibly lay a claim to the obedience of a free born Englishman. To the foregoing fpeeches against the commitment of the city magiftrates, Flaminius Fabius (Mr. Atty. Gen. Th-e) replied: Mr. Prefident, Sir, It is not a little to be lamented, when gentleman take upon them to talk about the violation of our laws, or the perverfion of our conftitution, that they are fo very indifferently qualified to reafon upon the fubject, and fo apt to make the wantonnefs of their wishes the criterion of their conviction. Tho' this, fir, is the firft cafe of the kind that ever claimed the cognizance of the houfe, though it is the first time a magiftrate of any corporation ever prefumed to fet his municipal authority in oppofition to our orders, you hear a number of young gentlemen, wholly unacquainted with the laws, deciding peremptorily on the question, and with a very peculiar modefty, deciding individually on a point where they expreffly deny the power of decifiou in the whole reprefentation of the British people. For my own part, fir, I fuppofed this house, and I know my fuppofition is conftitutionally founded, to be. fuperior in power to all charter jurifditions, and to act upon principles common not only to itfelf, but to all other courts.-Every court, Mr. President, has its peculiar regulation, and the law of parliament is the rule of our proceedings. Thefe uninformed declaimers on the nature of our jurifprudence, fir, fhould recollect, that we have feveral laws in this country, befides common law. We have, for inftance, the admiralty, the civil and the ecclefiaftical law; we have, befides, the law of parliament, which is as much a part of the conftitution, as any other law, and would be acknowleged fuch, even by the learned ferjeant who lately fpoke, was he feated on any one of our benches. The upper houfe has a jurifdiction in common law, but all queftions muft come before it by appeal; it can agitate no judicial point originally, and on that account the judges attend to give their advice in matters of legal determination. The upper house has moreover its law of parliament, as well as this, but in that the judges never interfere. They leave it entirely to its only arbiters, and poflibly did they ever meddle, they would have a fpeedy reafon to repent of their temerity. Having thus proved the law of parliament to be as much a part of the conftitution as any other law of the land, I now come to fay, that Miller the printer was apprehended by this law, and that of confequence his commitment was perfectly legal; what could be more prepofterous, or more daring in the city magiftrates therefore, than to fay a legal commitment was illegal, and to difcharge by courfe of common law, a man apprehended by the courfe of parliamentary law? Lord Coke fays, that is not within the province even of the judges folemnly affembled in their judicial character upon the bench, to define the privileges of parliament. How then can it come within the province of an ignorant mayor, or a turbulent alderman?- Is the chief magiftrate of London to ufurp a power which the king himself does not afpire to, or are the charters of the citizens to be put in competition with the united majefty of the British people? I fhould be aftonished how we were able to reftrain our indignation, Mr. Prefident, if the folly of our reformers was not equal to their arrogance! Here, fir, it is allowed by the law, that we fhall be the only judges of our own privilege, yet a corporationjuftice is daring enough to limit the line of our authority, is daring enough to pronounce this to be no breach of pri vilege, |