The bill however, did not pass without opposition and severe animadversion. It was said, that it armed ministers with an unconstitutional and dangerous power. A mere pretended suspicion or foolish credulity in a mercenary tool of a ministerial magistrate, might render the inhabitants of above half the empire liable to imprisonment without bail or mainprise. It did not require an oath, nor that the parties should be heard in their own justification, nor confronted with the witnesses, nor that two witnesses should be deemed necessary for the colourable ground of a commitment. The few who opposed it, contended that no lawful or obvious reason subsisted for investing the crown with so unusual a power. Such an extraordinary measure could only be tolerated in cases of great domestic danger, when the realm or constitution were immediately threatened; but neither of these could be pleaded in the present instance. After a long debate, the bill passed by a majority of 195 to 43. The oppostion would have been stronger, but the seceding party would not afford their assistance. “Before this act, every man putting his foot on English ground, every stranger, even a negro slave, became as free as every other man who breathed the same air with him. As things now stand, every man in the West-Indies, every inhabitant or these unoffending provinces on the American continent, every person coming from the East-Indies, every gentleman who has travelled for his health or education, every mariner who has navigated the seas, is, for no other offence, under a temporary proscription.”[46] The two bills received the royal assent on the third of March. Toward the close of the last year, and in the beginning of the present, much confusion, apprehension and suspicion, was excited by the machinery of a wretched enthusiast and incendiary, since well known by the appellation of _John the Painter_, but whose real name was James Aitkin, born at Edinburgh, and bred a painter——a most profligate and abandoned villain.