I shall in this chapter give some portion of a debate which took place in the House of Lords in the year 1736, on the occasion of an attempt made by Parliament to introduce a Bill against smugglers, so curiously similar in many points to the Acts under discussion, that I feel it not needful to apologize for introducing it in the present Essay, but call the reader's attention very markedly to the whole matter, inasmuch as many arguments which have been advanced, on one side or the other, in the discussion in which we are now engaged, were also advanced there, as the reader can himself see.

The case in point was a Bill to prevent smuggling, which enacted that upon information being given upon oath before any one justice of the peace, that any persons, to the number of three or more, were assembled to assist in smuggling, the justice might commit them without bail.

The great similarity, even of the very wording of this to the Acts which we oppose, will be evident to the reader; but I must point out that this bill against smugglers was infinitely less grievous than these Acts, inasmuch as the action of the justice of the peace here extended only to unbailable imprisonment before trial, which was followed in time by the regular course of jury trial.