essary to prevent those acts of cruelty, violence, and rapine, would
be incompatible with the liberty of British subjects; a notion that
confounds all distinctions between liberty and brutal licentiousness, as
if that freedom was desirable, in the enjoyment of which people find no
security for their lives or effects. The peculiar depravity of the
times was visible even in the conduct of those who preyed upon the
commonwealth. Thieves and robbers were now become more desperate and
savage than ever they had appeared since mankind was civilized. In the
exercise of their rapine, they wounded, maimed, and even murdered the
unhappy sufferers, through a wantonness of barbarity. They circulated
letters demanding sums of money from certain individuals, on pain of
reducing their houses to ashes, and their families to ruin; and even
set fire to the house of a rich merchant in Bristol, who had refused to
comply with their demand. The same species of villany was practised in
different parts of the kingdom; so that the government was obliged to
interpose, and offer a considerable reward for discovering the ruffians
concerned in such execrable designs.

BILL AGAINST PENSIONERS SITTING AS MEMBERS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

In the speech with which the king opened the session of parliament on
the twenty-first day of January, he told them that the present critical
conjuncture seemed in a very particular manner to deserve their
attention; that as the transactions then depending in the several courts
of Europe were upon the point of being determined, the great event of
peace or war might be very much affected by their first resolutions,
which were expected by different powers with great impatience. He said,
the continuance of that zeal and vigour with which they had hitherto
supported him and his engagements, must at this time be of the greatest
weight and importance, both with regard to his allies, and to those
who might be disposed before the season of action to prevent, by an
accommodation, the fatal consequences of a general rupture. The former
scene was repeated. Both houses, in their addresses, promised to support
his majesty in all his engagements; yet the members of the opposition
demonstrated the absurdity of promising to fulfil engagements before
they could possibly know whether or not they were for the service of
Great Britain. Another bill was brought into the house of commons, to
prevent pensioners from sitting as members