five of them.  One prohibited military training without the sanction of the government; another empowered magistrates to search for arms which they had reason to believe were collected for illegal purposes; the third authorized the seizure of seditious and blasphemous libels; the fourth subjected publications below a certain size to the same stamp as that required for a newspaper; the fifth regulated the mode of proceeding in trials for misdemeanor of a political character.  But these enactments were regarded as little more than arrangements of detail or procedure involving no principles, and some of them were admitted even by the most steadfast opponents of the ministers to be necessary.  But the sixth, designed to restrain the practice of holding large open-air meetings—­not, indeed, forever, but for a certain period, fixed at five years—­was strongly resisted by the greater portion of the Whig party in both Houses, as a denial to the people of one of their most ancient and constitutional rights.[179]

Its principal clauses enacted that “no meeting exceeding the number of fifty persons (except a meeting of any county or division of any county, called by the Lord-lieutenant or sheriff of such county, etc., or by five or more acting justices of the peace for such county, or by the major part of the grand-jury; or any meeting of any city, borough, etc., called by the mayor or other head officer of such city, etc.) should be holden for the purpose or on the pretext of deliberating upon any public grievance, or upon any matter relating to any trade, manufacture, etc., or upon any matter of Church or State, or of considering, proposing, or agreeing to any petition, address, etc., etc., unless in the parish or township within which the persons calling any such meeting usually dwell;” and it required six days’ notice of the intention to hold such meetings, with their time, place, and object, to be given to a magistrate.  It empowered the magistrate to whom such notice was given to alter the time and place.  It forbade adjournments intended to evade these prohibitions.  It forbade any one to attend such meetings except freeholders of the county, or parishioners of the parish, or members of the corporation of the city or borough in which they were held, or members of the House of Commons for such places.  It empowered magistrates to proceed to the places where such meetings were being held, and, if they thought it necessary, to require the aid of constables.  It enacted that any meeting, the tendency of which should be “to incite or stir up the people to hatred and contempt of the person of his Majesty, his heirs and successors, or of the government or constitution of this country as by law established, should be deemed an unlawful assembly.”  It empowered one or more justices of the peace, in the event of any meeting being held contrary to the provisions of this act, to warn every one present, in the King’s name, to depart; and made those who did not depart in obedience to such warning liable to prosecution for felony, and, if convicted, to seven years’ transportation.  It forbade the display of flags, banners, or ensigns at any meeting, and the employment of any drum, or military or other music; but it excepted from its operation “any meeting or assembly which should be wholly holden in any room.”