Such were the arguments used for and against the Bill about smuggling. It is needless to point out to my readers how the same principles have ever in the history of similar struggles given rise to the same arguments, and the same actions. It is impossible not to ask, with a feeling of sorrow and almost of fear for our country, “Where were the great lawyers in the House of Peers when this last most unconstitutional law was allowed to pass? How was it that they, unlike their noble predecessors, sat silent while our liberties were thus being treacherously invaded? Had they no word for justice if not for mercy? and had they no power of discernment with regard to the future woes which such legislation entails?” There was an appeal once made in the House of Peers, whose echoes seem to have died away from the chamber of that assembly: I cannot conclude this chapter better than by quoting it. Echoes which have ceased to be heard inside that House may be revived perhaps less fruitlessly outside its walls. In a question which involved (like the Acts against which we contend) immoral as well as unconstitutional principles, it had been alleged that “it is justifiable to use every means that God and nature put into our hands.” To this Lord Chatham replied:[66]— “I am astonished! shocked! to hear such principles confessed—to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country, principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman and unchristian! My Lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled by every duty. My Lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as Christian men, to protest against such notions standing near the throne, polluting the ear of majesty. ‘Means that God and nature put into our hands!’ I know not what ideas that lord may entertain of God and nature; but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity.... These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church; I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn, upon the learned judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution! I call upon the honour of your Lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character! I invoke the genius of the constitution.... My Lords, this awful subject, so important to our honour, our condition, and our religion, demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry; and I