"They had an inalienable right to complain by petition, and to remonstrate to either House of Parliament, or to the King; and to make two magistrates, who might be strong partisans, irresponsible judges whether anything said or done at a meeting had a tendency to encourage sedition, was to say that a free constitution was no longer suitable to us." Pitt justified these measures, partly on the ground of the special and unprecedented danger of the times, as proved by the late attempt on the King's life, and partly by the open avowal of republican doctrines made at the meetings of different societies; partly, also, on the temporary character of the measures, since in each bill a period was fixed after which its operation should expire.

And he argued, farther, that, as many of the actions specified in these bills as seditious or treasonable were by many lawyers considered capable of being reached by statutes already existing, though not universally understood, it was "humane, not cruel, to remove doubts, and to prevent men from being ensnared by the ambiguity of old laws." And in May, 1794, he brought in another bill, founded on the report of a secret committee which, in compliance with a royal message, the House of Commons had appointed to investigate the proceedings and objects of certain societies which were known to exist in different parts of the kingdom.

In obedience to a Secretary of State's warrant, founded on sworn informations, their books and papers had been seized, and, having been sealed up, were now laid before the House, with the report of the committee that they proved that several of the societies which they named had, ever since the end of the year 1791, been uniformly pursuing a settled design for the subversion of the constitution; one society, in particular, having approved a plan for assembling a Convention, in imitation of the French Assembly sitting under that title, in order to overturn the established government, and to wrest from the Parliament the power which the constitution placed in its hands.
To prevent the dissemination of such principles, and to defeat such schemes, Pitt now asked leave to bring in a bill to empower his Majesty--acting, of course, through the Secretary of State--to secure and detain such persons as he should suspect of conspiring against the King's person and government.

He admitted that the power which he thus proposed to confer amounted to a suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ Act in every part of the United Kingdom; nor did he deny that it was an unusually strong measure, but he contended that it was one justified by absolute necessity, by the manifest danger of such a conspiracy as the committee had affirmed to exist to the tranquillity of the nation and the safety of the government.
Fox, it may almost be said as a matter of course, opposed the introduction of any such measure; but his opposition was hardly marked by his usual force of argument.

He was hampered by the impossibility of denying either the existence of the societies which the committee and the minister had mentioned, or the dangerous character of some of their designs; but he objected to the measures of repression which were proposed, partly on the absence of all attempts at concealment on the part of the promoters of these societies, partly on the contemptible character of the Convention which it was designed to summon, and the impossibility that such an assembly should have the slightest influence.
He even made their avowed hostility to the constitution a plea for a panegyric on that constitution, and on the loyal attachment to it evinced by the vast majority of the people; and from that he proceeded to found a fresh argument against the proposed measure, contending that it made a fatal inroad on that very constitution which was so highly valued by the whole nation.