124 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1815- tracts were within the Hawkers and Pedlars Acts, and should be dealt with accordingly if found selling such things without a licence. That the conduct of the Government in issuing this circular was unconstitutional was clearly proved. The case was plainly put by Romilly when he brought the subject before the House of Commons on the 25th of June. " By the constitution of this country," he said, "there are only two modes in which the law in matters of doubt can be declared one is by the whole legislature by a declaratory statute ; the other by the decisions of the judges upon points which have come judicially before them. It has at all times been thought of the utmost importance to prevent the law from being in any other way declared, and particularly to guard against the Crown presuming to declare it. Yet, he went on to say, "the circular resting on the opinion of the law officers had declared the law on a point which was before doubtful, and the Secretary of State, assisted by such advice as he could command, had thus assumed the functions of legislation." Under these exceptional laws, and in the spirit which dictated Sidmouth's circular, the summer and autumn of 1817 were marked by a systematic course of oppression and coercion, rarely, if ever, equalled in this country. Political writers were harried by constant prosecutions ; the distressed artisans were goaded, and in many cases absolutely tempted by Government spies, into acts of violence, which, although they were never really dangerous, formed the excuse for further repression. The march of the Blanketeers and the so-called risings at Derby and Nottingham tended to increase the terror from which the Government agents profited, and were used as arguments against any concessions to popular demands. The people were indeed in a painful position. All regular and constitutional agitation was proscribed, and every effort to resist the oppression was magnified in its proportions and punished with a terrible severity. Yet it was under this reign of terror that the feeling in favour of Parliamentary reform was strengthened and extended, promoted by the sense that there were no other means by which the wants of
