formed to the Protestant religion before her marriage. A fhort time after the ceremony, her husband faid to her, "My dear, we are not married, but I fhall love you the better for it." The lady replied, "How? not married! indeed we are: we were married in fuch a place, and at fuch a time." This the husband granted, but obferved, "our marriage is rendered null by this act of parliament," at the fame time fhewing her the clanfe. On this the lady produced the. certificate of her having conformed to the Proteftant religion before they were married, and added, " as we are legally married, I hope you will not love me the lefs." His Lordship then went into the progress of the marriagebill through parliament, and faid, it was thought fo monftrous, and fo abfurd, that no body dreamt of its palling into a law. The Attorney-General at that time was fo well aware of this, that when the question for the fecond reading came to be put, the Speaker gave it in favour of the Noes, and it was full ten minutes before the Attorney-General ventured to say the Ayes had it. Yet his Lordship said, that, much to his astonish-, ment, the minister walked out, and the majority followed him. Upon which, after the divifion, he pulled Mr Pelham by the fleeve, and expreffed his furprife at his dividing in favour of the bill, when he had before affured him his opinion was ftrongly againft it. Mr Pelham anfwered, his opinion was ftill the fame, but he thought it a respect due to the high authority (Lord Hardwicke, who made the bill for his own daughter) from which it came, to let it go, at least, to a fecond reading. After this, his Lordfhip faid, that party, which fpoils many good things, mix ed in the business, and the bill, contrary to general expectation, got through both Houfes. Mr Fox then moved for leave to bring in a bill to explain and amend the marriage-act; which was agreed to without oppofition.

On the fecond reading, June 15. Mr Ambler faid, the marriage-act was of the utmost utility to the public, inafmuch as it put an end to the infamous fcenes that ufed to be exhibited in the metropolis, when figns were hung out in the streets, informing the pu plic, that marriages were performed there. The facility of having marriages fo celebrated, was productive of confequences that made the interference of the legislature abfolutely neceflary: for, prior to the mar riage-act, the courts of Weftminfter would not fuffer the registers kept by the Fleet parfons to be produced in court as evidence of marriage. This neceffarily produced confufion in families and property; and nothing but the legislature could remedy it. Previous to the paffing of the marriage-act, there had been feveral legal obftructions to improper marriages; among others, the

parfon who celebrated them without licence, or publication of banns, was fubject to a penalty of 1001. but as the parfons who officiated on such occafions were already in prifon, the penalty was of no avail: it was therefore found neceffary to make it felony in any clergyman to marry any couple, except after a licence obtained, or publication of banns; and this felony was made punifhable with transportation. To this penalty was fuperadded a declaration of nullity, in cafe the parties fhould not conform to the rules laid down in the act; and this was to operate as a preventive. If these penalties were to be removed, then all the ill confequences that the law was made to prevent would enfue. Lord North oppofed the bill.

Mr Courtnay fupported the bill with some ludicrous ftrokes of irony, pointing out many confequences likely to refult from a repeal of the marriage-act, which, he said, would be extremely pernicious; particularly, the poor rates would be increased by the growth of population, while children would be feen lying about on the dung-hills, as they did in Ireland, like blanched almonds in a tanfy pudding. Many jaunts to Scotland would alfo be prevented, by which the duties on poft-horfes would be diminished, and the revenue of courfe fuffer; befides that, many people would lofe the advantage of feeing a country which, but for matrimonial bufinefs, they never would vifit. He begged the Houfe would particularly confider a few beneficial effects refulting from the law now in being, which would inevitably be loft by its repeal. In the first place, he obferved, that as people now come together without paflion, they expect no happinets in marriage, and of course are never difappointed: that a great deal of love is often generated by tying two indifferent objects toge ther; as two fticks, be they never fo cold, will take fire by rubbing them conftantly up on each other. Another good confequence was, that by this law noble blood was kept uncontaminated by a perpetual chain of intermarriages in the fame family. Now as the nobler virtues are all hereditary, as well as the bodily qualities, the benefit de rived from this was aftonishing. Some noble families, who had long preserved this valuable pre-eminence, might even be known by their faces to be of an illuftrious race, juft the fame as, to the eye of a skiliul phyfiognomift, the twelve tribes of Ifrael had each fome characteristic in the counte nance. He begged the Houfe would alfo recollect, that the prefent plan was very favourable to divorces; and thefe were highly beneficial to the public; for as the parties frequently married again, two matches were cut out of one. But a confideration as material as any was this, that farmers daughters

in the country, wanting to marry, frequently at the age of feventeen or thereabouts, and the father very often refusing his con fent, they generally, in that cafe, take their fweethearts without troubling the church, and truft to a promise for future fidelity. Now the girl being got with child, the young fellow very often grows tired of her; the of courfe is difgraced, comes up to town, gets rid of her burden, and becomes a valuable acquifition to the public; and by a liberal diftribution of her charms, fhe, in her turn, prevents our giddy unthinking youth from ruining themselves, and bringing difgrace on their families, by marrying prematurely. In all civilized nations this clafs of females has been protected, and no inftitution, ancient or modern, has raised fo many recruits in this way as the marriage-act. In the virtuous times of our ancestors, a particular diftrict was appropriated for the refidence of these liberal females, and as the clergy then claimed an exclufive right on all nice and delicate points, in which confcience and pleasure were concerned, the care, patronage, and protection of these females were committed to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It had been urged, that by the ftrict letter of the marriage-bill, a number of the clergy, and even fome bishops, were liable to tranfportation; or, instead of that, might be fent to the Juftitia at Woolwich. But he begged the House would seriously confider whether (fuppofing this actually to take place) many beneficial effects might not refult from it. The convicts would be reformed by the morality, piety, and fobriety of their godly converfation, and many fouls would be faved There would be no farther neceffity for paying a chaplain, (a great and unneceffary expence, which fome gentlemen had complained of in the beginning of the feffion); and the Noble Lord in the blue ribbon could then have no apology for still infulting and burdening the public with this national grievance, and increafing the civil-lift establishment.

Mr Fox painted the marriage-act in the moft odious colours, as a direct violation of the laws of God and nature, as an act of defpotifm to which the powers of parliament could not conftitutionally extend, as a fource of private depopulation and vicc, inefficatious as to the felfish contraded benefit meant to be derived from it, but ruinous to the happiness of thofe who were the ftrength of every country, and whom every legiflature fhould protect, the lower order of the community. It was founded on the moft fordid miftaken principles of a few noble families, who, to gratify their avarice, pride, or ambition, formed reftrictions oppreflive to the whole people: they had been difappointed; for whoever could pay the expence of a poft-chaife to Scotland, laughed at the provisions of the mar

riage-act; while the poor, unable to avail themselves of that evafion, were either inhumanly croffed in their inclinations, or plunged into the abyfs of vice. He reprobated the idea of establishing an unnatural authority in the parent, because his reafon and experience were greater than those he was to govern; for this was the univerfal plea of defpotifm, public as well as private; thus was every fyftem of tyranny defended, by urging, that it was better for the ignorant to be governed by the wife, than admit them to govern themselves. But the position was falfe and abfurd! The most inexperienced and illiterate were more competent to know what conftituted their own happiness, than any other mortal could poffibly be; and where the paffions were concerned, the heart of youth was wifer than the hoary head of age. Here he most pathetically defcribed the different fituations of youth, checked in the wishes of their hearts, and indulging them contrary to prudence. In the latter cafe, he fhewed marriage to be the source of industry, and the firft error very frequently retrieved: in the former, he very naturally traced paffion turning backwards into chan nels of vice; every finer feeling of the heart eradicated; and intemperance, the refuge of a difappointed lover, leading into the laft ftage of depravity. He quoted a very beautiful paffage from Swift's maxims, which turned upon this principle, that there are two paffions in the human heart, defigned by nature to be ftronger than reafon, viz. the love of life, and the mutual defire fubfifting between the fexes. That thefe should not be circumfcribed by prudence, he contended, was abfolutely necessary for the prefervation of our fpecies; confequently to restrain them by human laws, was counteracting and repealing the law of Heaven itfelf. Population never proceeded from reason, but from paffion; for was a computation to be always made by prudence, of the profit and lofs redounding from marriage, as the rule of our choice, few marriages would ever be made : but it was the triumph of paflion to subdue every prudential feeling; and, in confequence, we often find the wifeft men, in the affair of marriage, fet reafon out of the question. He then divided his objections against this act into two parts; one relative to the age limited therein as years of difcretion, which he thought far too late in life; and the o ther refpecting the penalty annexed to informal marriages, that of declaring them null; a principle againft which he principally contended, as the moft inhuman that had ever been conceived. After a variety of cogent arguments, urged with great earnestnefs, he concluded by declaring, that, if foiled in this attempt, he would, neverthe lefs, embrace every occafion of combating an 3 T2

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act to which he was a most inflexible enemy, confidering it as unfpeakably pernicious and difgraceful to this country.

Lord Nugent then offered a few words on the fame fide, fhewing himself as warm an enemy to the marriage-act as Mr Fox, but profeffing his apprehenfions that it was too late in the feflion to carry through a bill of this importance, confidering that the Lords would probably avail themselves of every pretence for rejecting it.

The queftion being then put, there appeared for the bill, 90, against it, 27.

It was read a third time and paffed, June 20. By this bill the legal age is eighteen for men, and fixteen for women. If they marry under thofe years without the confent of parents or guardians, the penalties remain as in the former act, except that the clergyman is not liable to transportation; and no marriage fhall be declared null after the parties have cohabited together as man and wife for one year.

In the House of Lords, July 12. Lord Abingdon faid, "Although I rife to give my countenance and support to this bill, it is not because it is fuch a bill as either meets my approbation, or obtains my wifhes; and, my Lords, for this reafon : That when any meafure is in itself wrong, no modification of that measure can make it right: it is the removal of the measure itself only that can cure the evil. Upon this principle then, my Lords, and inasmuch as this bill is intended to make that which is very bad a little better; fo upon this principle, this bill cannot meet either my approbation or wishes. Inftead of a modification of the marriage-act, if it had been a bill of repeal in toto; in that cafe, my approbation and wishes, like the meafure itself, had been complete: but as this is not the cafe, we must take the good and leave the bad; we must look to the light, and fhut our eyes against the dark parts of this bill; and if a man and a woman, though called upon by nature, that is, if habiles ad matrimonium, cannot propagate their fpecies (because forbidden by a pofitive law) at fourteen or twelve years of age, 'tis better that they do fo at eighteen and fixteen, than be prevented from coming together till they are twenty-one. It is in this light I look upon the bill; and it is upon this ground, my Lords, that I fupport it. But now, my Lords, having faid this, I know I am calling down the ariftocratic indignation of fome in this Houfe upon me. But this, my Lords, is by no means any matter of difmay to me. As a rule of legiflation, it is laid down, "that there are two interefts; the interest of the whole, aud the intereft of the particular; that the interest of the former is great and noble, but that the intereft of the latter is mean and fcandalous." It is by this legiflative rule that my legislative conduct will, I trust, ever be guided. It is by this

rule that it is guided upon the present occa fion; and perhaps there is no occasion that can occur which more peremptorily calls for the exercife of this rule than the prefent. The act which this bill means to modify, the marriage-act as it is called, was (as my Lords the Bifhops know) like Dr Graham's celeftial bed, made for the few, and not for the many; fer | us, my Lords, and not for the benefit of the nation; and therefore, as a legislator, whereever I meet with this principle, although numbered among the few myself, my preference will always be given to the many : for the intereft of the whole is great and noble, while the intereft of the particular is mean and fcandalous.

And now, my Lords, with refpect to the doctrine upon the act itself, to which this bill alludes, although of no very long date, its demerits have been fo often difcuffed, as well on its own account as on the account of its illbegotten child the royal marriage-act, and are fo pointedly marked out by your Lordfhips protefts on the journals of the Houfe, as renders any obfervations of mine now and to this end useless and unneceffary. That the act is contrary to the laws of nature, that it is contrary to religion, that it is contrary to the policy of all governments whatsoever, are fuch felf-evident propofitions as require no argument to prove them. To say that when the fruit is ripe it shall not drop, is vainly to kick against the pricks. Nature will be obeyed, and not even a Spanish padlock can counteract her dictates. Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen ufque recurret. That it is contrary to religion, I appeal to the Right Reverend Prelates upon the bench, and infomuch can have no doubt of their giving their support to this bill. St Paul tells us, "it is better to marry than to burn." If therefore a woman, by the laws of nature, burn at fixteen years of age, and an act of parliament fays the fhall not marry till the is twenty-one, what is the confequence? She either breaks a commandment, and fins; or, perhaps, by waiting, burns out the oil of her lanp, and fo dies without fulfilling the end of her creation. Under thefe circumstances, then, it is impoffible not to suppose but that the Right Reverend Prelates will lend their affiftance to a bill which is intended, in conformity with their duty, "Concubitu probibere sugo," inftead of fupporting an act which manifeftly encourages and promotes fornication and whoredom in the state.

That this act is contrary to the policy of all governments whatsoever, the proofs are endlefs and without number. The wealth and strength of a nation are its numbers; to obtain those numbers is not by loose and intemperate pleasures, but by the chafte and more rational medium of the marriage-bed; to which the fexes are to be invited by privi leges and exemptions, and not deterred by

the

the difabilities and penalties of laws. That it is contrary to the policy of this country in particular, is above all others true: A country where freedom is faid to refide, where population is to fupply the want of territory, and where trade and commerce, the creatures of the other two, form the only bafis of its political greatnefs; where, inftead of an act like this, an act compelling Englishmen to fly to Scotland to comply with the laws of nature, (the only neceffity that could induce an Englishman to fly to Scotland), the laws of nature should expect to find their fureft refuge and best support; where, instead of prohibitions, encouragements to population, and incitements to marriage, fhould be the first objects of its laws; where, instead of fuch an act as this is, one should rather hope to fee a law which, whilft it imposes the payment of triple taxes upon the man who beyond a certain age (fuppofe the age of thirty) lives a fingle and unmarried life, to the man who is married holds out the Roman privilege, the Roman right, the jus trium liberorum, in exemption from the payment of all taxes whatever. But to do this, my Lords, we must have what is difficult to procure, we must have a statesman and a politician; and not, as the Earl of Chatham once faid of his brother-in-law Mr Grenville, "a thumber of law-books, and a retailer of words;" we must have an Earl of Chatham, if an Earl of Chatham can be found; and if not, we must take the man who has wisdom enough to let the example of that great man be the object of his imitation. But, my Lords, I am running into obfervations which I have already faid were unneceffary for me to make; and therefore I will only trouble your Lord fhips with a fingle remark more, that is rather incidental to this subject from what I have laft faid, than a topic of argument in it; and it is this: That impolitic and unwife as this act is, I mean the marriage-act, (for this I prefume no one will venture to deny, efpecially after the recent inftances that have been afforded your Lordships of its want both of policy and wifdom), it is yet the legitimate offspring of the first and greatest lawyer this kingdom ever had to boast of; a reflection, my Lords, that would be disgraceful to human nature, if another reflection, fupported not on ly by the authority of the Earl of Chatham, but by reafon and experience, did not confirm the truth of it; and which is this: that of all defcriptions of men, (except the clergy, who think of nothing but of their own power), the lawyers (I mean mere lawyers by profeffion) are the leaft qualified for statesmen and politicians. Your Lordships will think this a bold affertion; but it is not therefore lefs founded on reafon and experience: Upon reafon, for this arifes out of the very nature of their proteflion, a profeffion that forces their abilities,

however great, into all the little, low, nar row, confined perfonalities of perfons and minutia of things; and, in order to manage this with dexterity and fuccefs, into that poor left-handed wifdom, called artifice and cunning, into thofe quirks and quibbles, which, inftead of expanding, leffen and contract the human mind: Upon experience, for in the biographical history of all our eminent lawyers (except Bacon and Somers) fhew me a lawyer that deferves the name of a statesman upon experience; for look to the prefent reign, a reign, which for the whole of it has had the eminent misfortune of being under the guidance of an eminent lawyer; a lawyer who carried us across the Rubicon, who told us to draw our fwords, and throw away our fcabbards; who bid us kill the Americans, or the Americans would kill us; who has made us believe that every common foldier in England, for the purposes of fuppreffing riots, is a juftice of the peace.

My Lords, upon the event of these counfels, and upon the policy of these measures, let your Lordships experience determine. My Lords, I have done, except to add my refolution to support this bill, and to fay, from the counsel of fuch lawyers, if his Majesty won't, may the Lord deliver us! One thing more it may be neceffary for me to fay, and that is, that I have no apology to make for what I have faid. To fpeak the truth is the privilege of an Englishman; and to do fo roundly and plainly, is his first, and beft, and greatest glory.

The Lord Chancellor faid, the motion their Lordships had juft heard, though in form for the fecond reading of the bill, was in effect and in substance an addreis to their Lordships, intreating them to go on with the bill just as it was. Had the House been invited to take the bill into their confideration in a committee, and in that form of the Houfe to amend fuch of the claufes as might be objectionable, he fhould in that cafe have treated the business in a different way from that which he fhould now adopt. At prefent he muft fay, he was perfectly convinced, at the advanced period of the feffion, it would be utterly impoffible to procure an affembly full, wife, and comprehenfive enough to go through fuch a confideration of the fubject as the importance of it called for, and rendered indifpenfably neceffary. From what the Noble Lord had just faid, it was evident, that the bill now brought in was, in that Noble Lord's opinion, liable to much objection. Indeed, no one Noble Lord had taken upon him to say, that in its prefent form it ought to pass, or that the law of the land, as it now stood, ought to be annulled by a bill drawn in fo extremely loose and careless a manner as the prefent bill was. The Noble Lord had fuggefted various objections against the marriage-act: for his part, he was not prepared