Chapter III (2)

Even had these peers and such practices been censured with the very greatest severity, the censures could have had but a very limited effect. But it was on measures of a wider scope, embracing what began to be called a Reform of Parliament, that the more zealous members of the Opposition placed their chief reliance. As far as our records of the debates can be trusted, Lord Chatham, ten years before, had given the first hint of the desirableness of some alteration of the existing system. On one occasion he denounced the small boroughs as "the rotten part of the constitution," thus originating the epithet by which they in time came to be generally described; but more usually he disavowed all idea of disfranchising them, propounding rather a scheme for diminishing their importance by a large addition to the county members. However, he never took any steps to carry out his views, thinking, perhaps, that it was not in the Upper House that such a subject should be first broached. But he had not been long in the grave, when a formal motion for a reform of a different kind was brought forward by one of the members for the City of London, Alderman Sawbridge,[59] who, in May, 1780, applied for leave to bring in "a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments." His own preference he avowed to be for annual Parliaments; but his suspicion that the House would think such a measure too sweeping had induced him to resolve to content himself with aiming at triennial Parliaments. As leave was refused, the bill proposed to be introduced may, perhaps, be thought disentitled to mention here, were it not that the circumstance that proposals for shortening the duration of Parliaments are still occasionally brought forward seems to warrant an account of a few of the arguments by which those who took the leading parts in the debate which ensued resisted it. The minister, Lord North, declared that the Alderman had misunderstood the views of our ancestors on the subject; as their desire had been, not that Parliament should be elected annually, but that it should sit every year, an end which had now been attained. Fox, on the other hand, while avowing that hitherto he had always opposed similar motions, declared his wish now to see not only triennial but annual Parliaments, as the sole means of lessening the influence of the crown. "If any of his constituents were to ask him to what our present misfortunes were ascribable, he should say the first cause was the influence of the crown; the second, the influence of the crown; and the third, the influence of the crown." But it was replied by Burke, who usually exhausted every question he took in hand, that such a bill would rather tend to augment that influence, since "the crown, by its constant stated power, influence, and revenue, would be able to wear out all opposition at elections; that it would not abate the interest or inclination of ministers to apply that interest to the electors; on the contrary, it would render it more necessary to them, if they desired to have a majority in Parliament, to increase the means of that influence, to redouble their diligence, and to sharpen dexterity in the application. The whole effect of the bill would, therefore, be to remove the application of some part of that influence from the elected to the electors, and farther to strengthen and extend a court interest already great and powerful in boroughs. It must greatly increase the cost of a seat in Parliament; and, if contests were frequent, to many they would become a matter of expense totally ruinous, which no fortunes could bear. The expense of the last general election was estimated at £1,500,000; and he remembered well that several agents for boroughs said to candidates, 'Sir, your election will cost you £3000 if you are independent; but, if the ministry supports you, it may be done for £2000, and even less.'" And he adduced the case of Ireland, where formerly, when "a Parliament sat for the King's life, the ordinary charge for a seat was £1500; but now, when it sat for eight years, four sessions, the charge was £2500 and upward." Such a change as was proposed would cause "triennial corruption, triennial drunkenness, triennial idleness, etc., and invigorate personal hatreds that would never be allowed to soften. It would even make the member himself more corrupt, by increasing his dependence on those who could best support him at elections. It would wreck the fortunes of those who stood on their own private means. It would make the electors more venal, and injure the whole body of the people who, whether they have votes or not, are concerned in elections." Finally, it would greatly impair the proper authority of the House itself. "It would deprive it of all power and dignity; and a House of Commons without power and without dignity, either in itself or its members, is no House of Commons for this constitution."

The applicability of some of his arguments--those founded on the disorders at times of election--has been greatly diminished, if not destroyed, at the present day, by the limitation of the polling to a single day. The disfranchisement of the smaller boroughs has neutralized others; but the expense of a general election is not believed to have diminished, and that alone seems a strong objection to a system which would render them more frequent than they are at present. Mr. Sawbridge could not obtain the support of a third of his hearers.[60] But his notions had partisans in the other House who were not discouraged by such a division; and three weeks later the Duke of Richmond brought forward a Reform Bill on so large a scale that, as the "Parliamentary History" records, "it took him an hour and a half to read it," and which contained provisions for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage. But he met with even less favor than the Alderman, and his bill was rejected without a division.

Still the subject was not allowed to rest. Even after Lord North had been replaced by Lord Rockingham, the demand for Parliamentary Reform was continued; the young Mr. Pitt making himself the mouth-piece of the Reformers, and founding a motion which he made in May, 1782, on "the corrupt influence of the crown; an influence which has been pointed at in every period as the fertile source of all our miseries; an influence which has been substituted in the room of wisdom, of activity, of exertion, and of success; an influence which has grown up with our growth and strengthened with our strength, but which, unhappily, has not diminished with our diminution, nor decayed with our decay." He brought forward no specific plan, but denounced the close boroughs, and asked emphatically whether it were "representation" for "some decayed villages, almost destitute of population, to send members to Parliament under the control of the Treasury, or at the bidding of some great lord or commoner." He, however, was defeated, though by the small majority of twenty. And it is remarkable that when, the next year, he revived the subject, developing a more precise scheme--akin to that which his father had suggested, of increasing the number of county members, and including provisions for the disfranchisement of boroughs which had been convicted of systematic corruption--he was beaten by a far larger majority,[61] the distinctness of his plan only serving to increase the numbers of his adversaries. A kinsman of Pitt's, Lord Mahon, made an equally futile attempt to diminish the expenses of elections, partly by inflicting very heavy penalties on parties guilty of either giving or receiving bribes,[62] and partly by prohibiting candidates from providing conveyances for electors; and more than one bill for disfranchising revenue-officers, as being specially liable to pressure from the government, and to prevent contractors from sitting in Parliament, was brought forward, but was lost, the smallness of the divisions in their favor being not the least remarkable circumstance in the early history of Reform. It was made still more evident that as yet the zeal for Reform was confined to a few, when, two years afterward, Pitt, though now invested with all the power of a Prime-minister, was as unable as when in opposition to carry a Reform Bill, which in more than one point foreshadowed the measure of 1832; proposing, as it did, the disfranchisement of thirty-six small boroughs, which were to be purchased of their proprietors nearly on the principle adopted in the Irish Union Act, and on the other hand the enfranchisement of copyholders; but it differed from Lord Grey's act in that it distributed all the seats thus to be obtained among the counties, with the exception of a small addition to the representatives of London and Westminster. However, his supporters very little exceeded the number who had divided with him in 1783, and Lord North, who led the Opposition in a speech denouncing any change, had a majority of seventy-four. After this second defeat, Pitt abandoned the question, at all events for the time; being convinced, to quote Earl Stanhope's description of his opinion on the subject, "that nothing but the pressure of the strongest popular feeling, such as did not then exist, could induce many members to vote against their own tenure of Parliament, or in fact against themselves."[63] What, perhaps, weighed with him more, on deciding to acquiesce in this vote as final, was the perception that as yet the question excited no strong interest out-of-doors; and when, a few years later, some who sought to become leaders of the people endeavored to raise an agitation on the subject, their teachings were too deeply infected with the contagion of the French Revolution to allow a wise ruler to think it consistent with his duty to meet them with anything but the most resolute discouragement.

But, concurrently with the first of these motions for Parliamentary Reform, two more direct attacks on the royal influence, and on what was alleged to be the undue exertion of it, were made in the session of 1780. The first was made by Burke, who brought forward a measure of economical reform, demonstrating, in a speech of extraordinary power, a vast mass of abuses, arising from corrupt waste in almost every department of the state, and in every department of the royal household, without exception, and proposing a most extensive plan of reform, which dealt with royal dignities, such as the Duchy of Lancaster and the other principalities annexed to the crown; with the crown-lands, a great portion of which he proposed to sell; with the offices of the royal household, a sufficient specimen of the abuses on which was furnished by the statement, that the turnspit in the King's kitchen was a member of Parliament; and with many departments of state, such as the Board of Works and the Pay-office, etc. He was studiously cautious in his language, urging, indeed, that his scheme of reform would "extinguish secret corruption almost to the possibility of its existence, and would destroy direct and visible influence equal to the offices of at least fifty members of Parliament," but carefully guarding against any expressions imputing this secret corruption, this influence which it was so desirable to destroy, to the crown. But his supporters were less moderate; and Mr. Thomas Townsend declared that facts which he mentioned "contained the most unquestionable presumptive evidence of the influence of the crown; he meant the diverting of its revenues to purposes which dared not be avowed, in corrupting and influencing the members of both Houses of Parliament;" and he asserted that "the principle and objects of the bill were the reduction of the influence of the crown." The bill was not opposed by the ministers on its principle; but Lord North, even while consenting to its introduction, "did not pledge himself not to oppose it in some or other of its subsequent stages;" and, in fact, his supporters resisted it in almost every detail, some of them utterly denying the right of the House to interfere at all with the expenditure of the civil list; others contesting the propriety of alienating the crown-lands; and a still greater number objecting to the abolition of some of the offices which it was proposed to sweep away, such as that of the "third Secretary of State, or Secretary for the Colonies," that of "Treasurer of the Chamber," and others of a similar character. And, as the minister succeeded in defeating him on several, though by no means all, of these points, Burke at last gave up the bill, Fox warning the House at the same time that it should be renewed session after session, and boasting that even the scanty success which it had met with had been worth the struggle.

The other direct attack was made by Mr. Dunning, who, perhaps, did not then foresee that he himself was destined soon to fill one of the offices which had come under the lash of Burke's sarcasm, and who a few days afterward, in moving that it was necessary to declare "that the influence of the crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished" rested no small portion of his argument on the treatment that Burke's bill had received. He affirmed that, though Lord North had declared that "the influence of the crown was not too great," the divisions on that bill, and on many other measures which had been under discussion, were irrefragable proofs of the contrary. He quoted Hume and Judge Blackstone as testifying to the existence and steady increase of that influence, and "could affirm of his own knowledge, and pledge his honor to the truth of the assertion, that he knew upward of fifty members in that House who always voted in the train of the noble lord in the blue ribbon,[64] but who reprobated and condemned, out of the House, the measures they had supported and voted for in it." Mr. T. Pitt even instanced "the present possession of office by Lord North as an indubitable proof of the enormous influence of the crown."

It was not strange that Lord North opposed a resolution supported by such arguments with all the power of the government, basing his own opposition chiefly on the wisdom "of maintaining the rule long since established by Parliament, never to vote abstract propositions." But he presently saw that he was in a minority, and was forced to be content with adopting and carrying an amendment of Mr. Dundas, one of the members for Edinburgh, who flattered himself that by the insertion of _now_ he converted a general assertion into a temporary declaration, which might at a future time be disavowed as no longer applicable. A majority of eighteen[65] affirmed the resolution; and when the mover followed it up by a second, declaring that "it is competent to this House to examine into and to correct abuses in the expenditure of the civil list revenues, as well as in every other branch of the public revenue, whenever it shall seem expedient to the wisdom of this House to do so," though the minister, with what was almost an appeal _ad misericordiam_, "implored the House not to proceed," he did not venture to take a division, and that resolution also, with one or two others designed to give instant effect to them, were adopted and reported by the committee to the House in a single evening.[66] The first resolution did, in fact, embody a complaint, or at least an assertion, which the Rockingham party had constantly made ever since the close of the Marquis's first administration. In a speech which he had made only a few weeks before,[67] Lord Rockingham himself had declared that "it was early in the present reign promulgated as a court axiom that the power and influence of the crown alone was sufficient to support any set of men his Majesty might think proper to call to his councils." And Burke, in his "short account" of his administration of 1765, had not only imputed both its formation and its dismissal to the "express request" and "express command of their royal master," but in the sentence, "they discountenanced and, it is to be hoped, forever abolished, the dangerous and unconstitutional practice of removing military officers for their votes in Parliament," condemned with unmistakable plainness some acts of the preceding ministry which were universally understood to have been forced upon it by the King himself. General Conway had been deprived of the colonelcy of his regiment; Lord Rockingham himself, with several other peers, had been dismissed from Lord-lieutenancies, as a punishment for voting against the ministry; such dismissals being a flagrant attempt to put down all freedom of debate in Parliament, which of all its privileges is the one most essential to its usefulness, if not to its very existence. But, as Burke said, the practice had been abandoned, and the first resolution, therefore, as Lord North said, involved no practical result. It is the second resolution that confers a constitutional character and importance on this debate. And it is not too much to say that no vote of greater value had been come to for many years. It might have been considered almost as the assertion of a truism included in the power of granting supplies, to declare that the Parliament has the right and authority to examine into and correct abuses in the expenditure, if it had not been denied by more than one speaker on the ministerial side, though not by the Prime-minister himself. But that denial made the assertion of the right an imperative duty; for certainly the exclusive right of authorizing a levy of money would lose half its value, if unaccompanied by the other right of preventing the waste of the revenue thus raised.

It may likewise be said that another principle of the parliamentary constitution is, by implication, contained in Mr. Dunning's second resolution, and that the words, "it is competent to this House to examine into and to correct abuses in the expenditure," were meant to imply a denial of the competency of the other House to institute, or even to share in, such an examination. Even if that were the object of its framer, it only coincided with the view of the peers themselves, a very considerable majority[68] of whom had, a few weeks before, rejected a motion made by Lord Shelburne for the appointment of "a committee of members of both Houses to examine without delay into the public expenditure," principally on the ground urged by the Secretary of State, Lord Stormont, and by several other peers, that "to inquire into, reform, and control the public expenditure" would be an improper interference with the privileges of the Commons; the Chief-justice, Lord Mansfield, even going the length of warning his brother peers that such interference might probably lead the Commons "to dispute in their turn the power of judicature in the last resort exercised by the peers." Lord Camden, on the contrary, affirmed, as a proposition which "no noble lord present would deny, that that House had a right to inquire so far as the disposal of public moneys came under their cognizance as a deliberative body." And in the Lower House itself, Burke, in his speech in favor of his Bill for Economical Reform, went even farther than Lord Camden, and blamed the House of Lords for rejecting Lord Shelburne's motion on such a ground. "They had gone," he said, "farther in self-denial than the utmost jealousy of the Commons could have required. A power of examining accounts, of censuring, correcting, and punishing the Commons had never, that he knew of, thought of denying to the Lords. It was something more than a century ago that the Commons had voted the Lords a useless body. They had now voted themselves so." And it would seem that the Lords themselves, to a certain extent, retracted this, their self-denying vote, when, before the end of the same session, they discussed Burke's Bill for Economical Reform, and passed it, though it was a money-bill, "containing extraneous enactments," and as such contravened one of their own standing orders which had been passed in the beginning of Queen Anne's reign, when the system of "tacking," as it was called, had excited great discontent, which was not confined to themselves. The propriety of rejecting the bill on that ground was vigorously urged by the only two lawyers who took part in the debate, the Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, and Lord Loughborough, whose object was avowedly thus to give a practical proof that the Lords "had not voted themselves useless." But even those who disregarded their advice fully asserted the right of the peers "to exercise their discretion as legislators." We have noticed this matter on a previous occasion. The privilege claimed by the Commons, both as to its origin and its principle, has been carefully examined by Hallam, who has pointed out that in its full exclusiveness it is not older than Charles II., since the Convention Parliament of 1660 "made several alterations in undoubted money-bills, to which the Commons did not object."[69] And, though his attachment to Whig principles might have inclined him to take their part in any dispute on the subject, he nevertheless thinks that they have strained both "precedent and constitutional analogy" in their assertion of this privilege, which is "an anomaly that can hardly rest on any other ground of defence than such a series of precedents as establish a constitutional usage." The usage which for two centuries was established in this case by the good-sense of both parties clearly was, that the Lords could never originate a money-bill, nor insert any clause in one increasing or even altering the burden laid by one on the people, but that they were within their right in absolutely rejecting one. But such a right has a tendency to lapse through defect of exercise; and we shall hereafter see that "the disposition to make encroachments," which in this matter Hallam imputes to the Commons, has led them in the present reign to carry their pretensions to a height which at a former period had been practically ignored by the one House, and formally disclaimed by the other.

It may be remarked that Mr. Dunning's success in carrying his first resolution did in itself, to a certain extent, disprove the truth of that resolution, since, if the influence of the crown had been such as he represented it, it must have been sufficient to insure its rejection. But that resolution, and a new statute, of which in a previous session he had been one of the principal promoters, are reckoned by Lord Stanhope as among the chief causes of the disgraceful riots of 1780. In the summer of 1778 he had seconded and supported with great eloquence the repeal of some of the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics which had been passed in the reign of William III. It was the first blow at that system of religious intolerance which for nearly a century had been one of the leading principles, as it had been also the chief disgrace, of the constitution; and it was passed with scarcely any opposition by both Houses. As, however, the statute which it repealed had been enacted before the Scotch Union, the repeal did not extend to Scotland, and it was necessary, therefore, to bring in a separate measure for that kingdom. But the intelligence that such a proceeding was in contemplation excited great wrath among the Scotch Presbyterians, who, in the hope of defeating it, established a Protestant Association for the defence of what they called the Protestant interest, and elected as its president Lord George Gordon, a young nobleman whose acts on more than one occasion gave reason to doubt the soundness of his intellect. Against any relaxation whatever of the restrictions on the Roman Catholics the Association sent up petitions to the House and to the King, couched in language the wildness of which was hardly consistent with the respect due to Parliament or to the sovereign. Apparently in the hope of mitigating its opposition, the Houses the next year passed an act, similar in principle, to relax some of the restrictions still imposed on Protestant dissenting ministers by some of the subscriptions which were required of them. But, as in the reign of Charles II., the Presbyterian hatred of the Roman Catholics was too uncompromising to be appeased in such a manner. And when Lord George found the House of Commons itself acknowledging the danger with which the constitution was threatened by the influence of the crown, he saw in their vote a justification for all his alarms, since he had adopted as one of his most settled opinions the belief that George III. was himself a Papist at heart; and, under the influence of this strange idea, he drew up a petition to Parliament which he invited all the members of the Association to accompany him to present. His summons was received with enthusiasm by his followers. The number who, in obedience to it, mustered in St. George's Fields, which he had appointed as the place of rendezvous, was not reckoned by any one at less than fifty thousand, and some calculations even doubled that estimate. Whatever the number may originally have been, it was speedily swelled by the junction of large bands of the worst characters in the metropolis, who soon began to display their strength by every kind of outrage. They commenced by attacking some of the Roman Catholic chapels, which they burnt; and, their audacity increasing at the sight of their exploits, they proceeded to assault the houses of different members of Parliament who had voted for the measures which had offended them. Because the Chief-justice, Lord Mansfield, had lately presided at a trial where a Roman Catholic had been acquitted, they sacked and burnt his house, and tried to murder himself. The magistrates, afraid of exposing themselves to the fury of such a mob, kept for the most part out of the way; and though the troops had been put under arms, and several regiments from the rural districts had been brought up to London in haste, the military officers were afraid to act without orders. Left to work their pleasure almost without resistance, the rioters attacked the different prisons, burnt Newgate and released all the prisoners, and made more than one attack on the Bank of England, where, however, fortunately the guard was strong enough to repel them. But still no active measures were taken to crush the riot. The belief was general that the soldiers might not act at all, or, at all events, not fire on rioters, till an hour after the Riot Act had been read and the mob had been warned to disperse; and no magistrate could be found to brave its fury by reading it. There seemed no obstacle to prevent the rioters from making themselves masters of the whole capital, had it not been for the firmness of the King himself, who, when all the proper authorities failed, showed himself in fact as well as in name the Chief Magistrate of the kingdom.[70] He summoned a Privy Council, and urged the members to adopt instant measures of repression; and, when some of the ministers seemed to waver, he put the question himself to the Attorney-general whether the interpretation put on the Riot Act, which seemed to him inconsistent with common-sense, were justified by the law. Wedderburn unhesitatingly replied that it was not; that "if a mob were committing a felony, as by burning dwelling-houses, and could not be prevented by other means, the military, according to the law of England, might and ought to be immediately ordered to fire upon them, the reading of the Riot Act being wholly unnecessary under such circumstances."[71] The King insisted on this opinion being instantly acted on; a proclamation was issued, and orders were sent from the Adjutant-general's office that the soldiers were to act at once without waiting for directions from the civil magistrates. A few hours now sufficed to restore tranquillity. The Chief-justice, in his place in the House of Lords, subsequently declared Wedderburn's opinion, and the orders given in reliance upon it, to be in strict conformity with the common law, laying down, as the principle on which such an interpretation of the law rested, the doctrine that in such a case the military were acting, "not as soldiers, but as citizens; no matter whether their coats were red or brown, they were legally employed in preserving the laws and the constitution;"[72] and Wedderburn, who before the end of the year became Chief-justice of the Common Pleas, repeated the doctrine more elaborately in a charge from the Bench. It was a lesson of value to the whole community. It was quite true that the constitution placed the army in a state of dependence on the civil power. But, when that doctrine was so misunderstood as to be supposed to give temporary immunity to outrage, it was most important that such a misconstruction should be corrected, and that it should be universally known that military discipline does not require the soldier to abstain from the performance of the duty incumbent on every citizen, the prevention of crime.

Notes:

[Footnote 33: It is worth while to preserve the amount, if for no other reason, for the contrast that the expenditure and resources of the kingdom a hundred years ago present to those of the present day. The supply required in 1764 was in round numbers £7,712,000; in 1755, before the war broke out, £4,073,000, and even that included a million for the augmentation of the army and navy. In 1761, when the war was at its height, the sum voted was £19,616,000.]

[Footnote 34: The report in the "Parliamentary History," xvi., 37, says: "This act (the Stamp Act) passed the Commons almost without debate; two or three members spoke against it, but without force or apparent interest, except a vehement harangue from Colonel Barré (date, March 6, 1765)."]

[Footnote 35: Lord Stanhope ("History of England," v., 131) quotes a letter of Dr. Franklin to one of his friends in America, in which, after deploring the impossibility of preventing the act from being passed, he expresses a hope that "frugality and industry will go a great way toward indemnifying us." And he complied with Mr. Grenville's request to select a person to act as Distributor of Stamps in Pennsylvania whom he thought likely to be generally acceptable.]

[Footnote 36: These statements and arguments of Franklin are taken from different parts of his examination before the House of Commons, as preserved in the "Parliamentary History," xvi., 137-160.]

[Footnote 37: In the Assembly of Virginia, one of the members--Patrick Henry--after declaiming with bitterness against the supposed arbitrary measures of the present reign, exclaimed, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I. his Oliver Cromwell, and George III.--" A cry of "Treason!" was uttered. The Speaker called Mr. Henry to order, and declared he would quit the chair unless he were supported by the House in restraining such intemperate speeches.--Adolphus, _History of England_, i., 188.]

[Footnote 38: On this point the law has been affirmed by a judge of high reputation to be still what Lord Rockingham and his colleagues asserted. In 1868, on the trial of Governor Eyre for an indictment arising out of disturbances in Jamaica, Judge Blackburne laid it down "that, although the general rule is that the Legislative Assembly has the sole right of imposing taxes in the colony, yet, when the Imperial Legislature chooses to impose taxes, according to the rule of English law they have a _right_ to do it."]

[Footnote 39: See his speech on American taxation in April, 1774.]

[Footnote 40: The chief divisions were: in the Commons, 275 to 167; in the Lords, 105 to 71.]

[Footnote 41: "History of England," vol. v., c. xlv., p. 218, ed. 1862.]

[Footnote 42: "Lives of the Chancellors," c. cxliii., life of Lord Camden.]

[Footnote 43: Every political student will recollect Burke's description of it as "a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified mosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement--here a bit of black stone, there a bit of white--patriots and courtiers, King's friends and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies," etc.--_Speech on American Taxation_.]

[Footnote 44: In a debate in the year 1776, on some measures adopted for the conduct of the war, the Duke of Grafton said: "In that year (1767), when the extraordinary expenses incurred on account of America were laid before the House of Commons, the House rose as one man and insisted that that country should contribute to the burdens brought on by the military establishment there, and a motion was made for bringing in a bill for that purpose. I strenuously opposed the measure, as big with the consequences it has since, unfortunately, produced. I spoke to my friends upon the occasion, but they all united in the opinion that the tide was too strong to expect either to stem or turn it, so as to prevent whatever might be offered in that shape from passing into a law. Finding that all my efforts would be vain, I was compelled to submit, but was resolved, as far as lay in my power, to prevent the effect; and, while I gave way, to do it in such a manner as would cause the least harm. I accordingly proposed the tea-duty as the most palatable; because, though it answered the main purpose of those with whom taxation was a favorite measure, it was doing America an immediate benefit, for I procured the shilling a pound duty to be taken off, and threepence to be laid on in lieu thereof; so that, in fact, it was ninepence a pound saved to America. However, the attempt was received in America as I expected it would be--it immediately caused disturbances and universal dissatisfaction."--_Parliamentary History_, xviii., 134.]

[Footnote 45: This unpopularity had been aggravated by another measure which was among the last acts of Mr. Grenville's ministry. The Mutiny Act in the Colonies was renewed for two years at a time, and, at its renewal in the spring of 1765, a clause was added which required the Colonists to furnish the troops with "fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, utensils for cooking, and liquors, such as beer, cider, and rum." The Assemblies of several States passed resolutions strongly condemning this new imposition; but, as the dissatisfaction did not lead to any overt acts of disturbance, it seems to have been unnoticed in England at the time, or the clause would probably have been repealed by Lord Rockingham; and eventually the Assembly of New York seems to have withdrawn its objections to it, presenting an address to Sir H. Moore, the Governor, in which "they declared their intention of making the required provision for the troops."--Lord E. Fitzmaurice, _Life of Lord Shelburne_, ii., 61.]

[Footnote 46: The "Memoirs of Judge Livingstone" record his expression of opinion as early as 1773, that "it was intolerable that a continent like America should be governed by a little island three thousand miles distant." "America," said he, "must and will be independent." And in the "Memoirs of General Lee" we find him speaking to Mr. Patrick Henry, who in 1766 had been one of the most violent of all the denouncers of the English policy (see _ante_, p. 63), of "independence" as "a golden castle in the air which he had long dreamed of."]

[Footnote 47: See the whole speech, "Parliamentary History," xvi., 853. Many of the taxes he denounced as so injurious to the British manufacturers, "that it must astonish any reasonable man to think how so preposterous a law could originally obtain existence from a British Legislature."]

[Footnote 48: The division was: for the amendment, 142; against it, 204.]

[Footnote 49: The words of the "preamble," on which Burke dwelt in 1774, were: "Whereas it is expedient that a revenue should be raised in your Majesty's dominions in America for making a more certain and adequate provision for defraying the charge of the administration of justice and support of civil government in such provinces where it shall be found necessary, and toward farther defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing: the said dominions, be it enacted," etc.]

[Footnote 50: "Memoirs and Correspondence of Jefferson." Quoted by Lord Stanhope, "History of England," vi., 14.]

[Footnote 51: At Lexington, April 19, 1775.]

[Footnote 52: Lord Stanhope, however, has reason on his side when he calls the words of this petition "vague and general," though "kindly and respectful;" and when he points to the language of extreme bitterness against England indulged in by Franklin at the very time that this petition was voted. He, however, expresses a belief that even then "the progress of civil war might have been arrested," which seems doubtful. But it is impossible not to agree with his lordship in condemning the refusal by the ministry to take any notice of the petition, on the ground that the Congress was a self-constituted body, with no claim to authority or recognition, and one which had already sanctioned the taking up arms against the King.--_History of England_, vi., 93, 95, 105.]

[Footnote 53: It is probable, however, that the greater part of the Hanoverian soldiers were Protestants.]

[Footnote 54: Lord Campbell, who, in his "Life of Lord Bathurst," asserts that the legality of the measure turns upon the just construction of the Act of Settlement, adduces Thurlow's language on this subject as "a proof that he considered that he had the privilege which has been practised by other Attorney-generals and Chancellors too, in debate, of laying down for law what best suited his purpose at the moment." It does not seem quite certain that the noble and learned biographer has not more than once in these biographies allowed himself a similar license in the description of questions of party politics.]

[Footnote 55: In the debates on the subject it was stated that the number of Hanoverians quartered in the two fortresses was nineteen hundred, and the number of British troops left in them was two thousand. Moreover, as has been already remarked, though Lord Shelburne spoke of arming Roman Catholics, it is probable that the Hanoverians were mostly Protestants.]

[Footnote 56: The Preliminary or Provisional Articles, as they were called, of which the Definitive Treaty was but a copy, were signed at Paris, November 30, 1782, during Lord Shelburne's administration. But the Definitive Treaty was not signed till the 3d of September of the following year, under the Coalition Ministry, which was turned out a few weeks afterward.]

[Footnote 57: We shall see in a subsequent chapter that even in this reign of George III. Pitt laid down the true principles of our legislation for the colonies in his bill for the better government of Canada.]

[Footnote 58: An admirably reasoned passage on the influence of the crown, especially in the reigns of the two first Hanoverian Kings, will be found in Hallam, "Constitutional History," c. xvi., vol. iii., p. 392, ed. 1832.]

[Footnote 59: The "Parliamentary History" shows that he had brought forward the same motion before 1780; since Lord Nugent, who replied to him, said "the same motion had been made for some years past, and had been silently decided on." From which it seems that it was never discussed at any length till May 8, 1780.]

[Footnote 60: On the division the numbers were: for the motion, 90; against it, 182.]

[Footnote 61: The division in 1782 was: 161 to 141; in 1783, 293 to 149.]

[Footnote 62: How systematic and open bribery was at this time is shown by an account of Sheridan's expenses at Stafford in 1784, of which the first item is--248 burgesses, paid £5 5s. each, £1302.--Moore's _Life of Sheridan_, i., 405.]

[Footnote 63: "Life of Pitt," i., 359.]

[Footnote 64: Lord North was a Knight of the Garter, the only commoner, except Sir R. Walpole, who received that distinction in the last century, and the latest, with the exception of Lord Castlereagh. on whom it has been conferred.]

[Footnote 65: 233 to 315.]

[Footnote 66: It is perhaps worth pointing out, as a specimen of the practical manner in which parliamentary business was transacted at that time, that this great debate--in which (the House being in committee) Mr. Dunning himself spoke three times, and Lord North, Mr. T. Pitt, Mr. Fox, the Speaker (Sir F. Norton), the Attorney-general, General Conway, Governor Pownall, the Lord-advocate, and several other members took part--was concluded by twelve o'clock.]

[Footnote 67: February 8, 1780, on Lord Shelburne's motion for an inquiry into the public expenditure.--_Parliamentary History_, xx., 1346.]

[Footnote 68: 101 to 55.]

[Footnote 69: "Constitutional History," iii., 43.]

[Footnote 70: His language is said to have been that "there was at all events one Magistrate in the kingdom who would do his duty."--Lord Stanhope, _History of England_, vii., 48.]

[Footnote 71: "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," c. clxvii.]

[Footnote 72: Lord Stanhope's "History of England," vii, 56.]