The Aliens Act 1793 (33 Geo. III c. 4) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain regulating immigration into the country. The Act, inspired by a sharp increase in refugees from the French Revolution seeking asylum in Great Britain, required that aliens be recorded upon arrival and to register with the local justice of the peace.[1] It further held that violators of the act could be held without bail or mainprise, either to be deported or as punishment, a provision that caused critics to decry it as a suspension of habeas corpus; indeed, its sponsor in Parliament had earlier called it "a bill for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, as far as it should relate to the persons of foreigners."[2]