[295] 6 Anne, c. 6; _Parl. Hist._ 613; Somerville, 296; _Hardw.

Papers_, ii. 473. Cunningham attests the zeal of the whigs for

abolishing the Scots privy council, though he is wrong in reckoning

Lord Cowper among them, whose name appears in the protest on the other

side. ii. 135, etc. The distinction of old and modern whigs appeared

again in this reign; the former professing, and in general feeling, a

more steady attachment to the principles of civil liberty. Sir Peter

King, Sir Joseph Jekyll, Mr. Wortley, Mr. Hampden, and the historian

himself, were of this description; and consequently did not always

support Godolphin. P. 210, etc. Mr. Wortley brought in a bill, which

passed the Commons in 1710, for voting by ballot. It was opposed by

Wharton and Godolphin in the Lords, as dangerous to the constitution,

and thrown out. Wortley, he says, went the next year to Venice, on

purpose to inquire into the effects of the ballot which prevailed

universally in that republic. P. 285.

[296] _Parl. Hist._ vi. 805; Burnet, 537; _State Trials_, xv. 1. It is

said in Coxe's _Life of Marlborough_, iii. 141, that Marlborough and

Somers were against this prosecution. This writer goes out of his way

to make a false and impertinent remark on the managers of the

impeachment, as giving encouragement by their speeches to

licentiousness and sedition. _Id._ 166.

[297] "The managers appointed by the House of Commons," says an ardent

jacobite, "behaved with all the insolence imaginable. In their

discourse they boldly asserted, even in her majesty's presence, that,

if the right to the crown was hereditary and indefeasible, the prince

beyond the seas, meaning the king, and not the queen, had the legal

title to it, she having no claim thereto, but what she owed to the

people; and that by the revolution principles, on which the

constitution was founded and to which the laws of the land agreed, the

people might turn out or lay aside their sovereigns as they saw cause.

Though, no doubt of it, there was a great deal of truth in these

assertions, it is easy to be believed that the queen was not well

pleased to hear them maintained, even in her own presence and in so

solemn a manner, before such a great concourse of her subjects. For,

though princes do cherish these and the like doctrines, whilst they

serve as the means to advance themselves to a crown, yet being once

possessed thereof, they have as little satisfaction in them as those

who succeed by an hereditary unquestionable title." _Lockhart Papers_,

i. 312.

It is probable enough that the last remark has its weight, and that

the queen did not wholly like the speeches of some of the managers;

and yet nothing can be more certain than that she owed her crown in

the first instance, and the preservation of it at that very time, to

those insolent doctrines which wounded her royal ear; and that the

genuine loyalists would soon have lodged her in the Tower.

[298] _State Trials_, xv. 95.

[299] _Id._ 115.

[300] _Id._ 127.

[301] _Id._ 61.

[302] _State Trials_, 196, 229. It is observed by Cunningham (p. 286)

that Sacheverell's counsel, except Phipps, were ashamed of him; which

is really not far from the case. "The doctor," says Lockhart,

"employed Sir Simon, afterwards Lord Harcourt, and Sir Constantine

Phipps as his counsel, who defended him the best way they could,

though they were hard put to it to maintain the hereditary right and

unlimited doctrine of non-resistance, and not condemn the revolution.

And the truth on it is, these are so inconsistent with one another

that the chief arguments alleged in this and other parallel cases came

to no more than this; that the revolution was an exception from the

nature of government in general, and the constitution and laws of

Britain in particular, which necessity in that particular case made

expedient and lawful." _Ibid._

[303] _State Trials_, 407.

[304] _Id._ 110.

[305] Cunningham says that the Duke of Leeds spoke strongly in favour

of the revolution, though he voted Sacheverell not guilty. P. 298.

Lockhart observes that he added success to necessity, as an essential

point for rendering the revolution lawful.

[306] The homilies are so much more vehement against resistance than

Sacheverell was, that it would have been awkward to pass a rigorous

sentence on him. In fact, he or any other clergyman had a right to

preach the homily against rebellion instead of a sermon. As to their

laying down general rules without adverting to the exceptions, an

apology which the managers set up for them, it was just as good for

Sacheverell; and the homilies expressly deny all possible exceptions.

Tillotson had a plan of dropping these old compositions, which in some

doctrinal points, as well as in the tenet of non-resistance, do not

represent the sentiments of the modern church, though, in a general

way, it subscribes to them. But the times were not ripe for this, or

some other of that good prelate's designs. Wordsworth's _Eccles.

Biog._ vol. vi. The quotations from the homilies and other approved

works by Sacheverell's counsel are irresistible, and must have

increased the party spirit of the clergy. "No conjuncture of

circumstances whatever," says Bishop Sanderson, "can make that

expedient to be done at any time that is of itself, and in the kind,

unlawful. For a man to take up arms offensive or defensive against a

lawful sovereign, being a thing in its nature simply and _de toto

genere_ unlawful, may not be done by any man, at any time, in any

case, upon any colour or pretence whatsoever." _State Trials_, 231.

[307] _Parl. Hist._ vi. 57. They did not scruple, however, to say what

cost nothing but veracity and gratitude, that Marlborough had

retrieved the honour of the nation. This was justly objected to, as

reflecting on the late king, but carried by 180 to 80. _Id._ 58;

Burnet.

[308] Coxe's _Marlborough_, i. 483. Mr. Smith was chosen speaker by

248 to 205, a slender majority; but some of the ministerial party seem

to have thought him too much a whig. _Id._ 485; _Parl. Hist._ 450. The

whig newspapers were long hostile to Marlborough.

[309] Burnet rather gently slides over these jealousies between

Godolphin and the whig junto; and Tindal, his mere copyist, is not

worth mentioning. But Cunningham's history, and still more the letters

published in Coxe's _Life of Marlborough_, show better the state of

party intrigues; which the _Parliamentary History_ also illustrates,

as well as many pamphlets of the time. Somerville has carefully

compiled as much as was known when he wrote.

[310] _Parl. Hist._ vi. 4.

[311] Nov. 27; _Parl. Hist._ 477.

[312] Coxe's _Marlborough_, i. 453, ii. 110; Cunningham, ii. 52, 83.

[313] _Mémoires de Torcy_, vol. ii. _passim_; Coxe's _Marlborough_,

vol. iii.; Bolingbroke's _Letters on History_, and Lord Walpole's

answer to them; Cunningham; Somerville, 840.

[314] The late biographer of Marlborough asserts that he was against

breaking off the conferences in 1709, though clearly for insisting on

the cession of Spain (iii. 40). Godolphin, Somers, and the whigs in

general, expected Louis XIV. to yield the thirty-seventh article.

Cowper, however, was always doubtful of this. _Id._ 176.

It is very hard to pronounce, as it appears to me, on the great

problem of Louis's sincerity in this negotiation. No decisive evidence

seems to have been brought on the contrary side. The most remarkable

authority that way is a passage in the _Mémoires of St. Phelipe_, iii.

263, who certainly asserts that the King of France had, without the

knowledge of any of his ministers, assured his grandson of a continued

support. But the question returns as to St. Phelipe's means of knowing

so important a secret. On the other hand, I cannot discover in the

long correspondence between Madame de Maintenon and the Princesse des

Ursins the least corroboration of these suspicions, but much to the

contrary effect. Nor does Torcy drop a word, though writing when all

was over, by which we should infer that the court of Versailles had

any other hopes left in 1709, than what still lingered in their heart

from the determined spirit of the Castilians themselves.

It appears by the _Mémoires de Noailles_, iii. 10 (edit. 1777), that

Louis wrote to Philip, 26th Nov. 1708, hinting that he must

reluctantly give him up, in answer to one wherein the latter had

declared that he would not quit Spain while he had a drop of blood in

his veins. And on the French ambassador at Madrid, Amelot,

remonstrating against the abandonment of Spain, with an evident

intimation that Philip could not support himself alone, the King of

France answered that he must end the war at any price. 15th April

1709. _Id._ 34. In the next year, after the battle of Saragosa, which

seemed to turn the scale wholly against Philip, Noailles was sent to

Madrid in order to persuade that prince to abandon the contest. _Id._

107. There were some in France who would even have accepted the

thirty-seventh article, of whom Madame de Maintenon seems to have

been. P. 117. We may perhaps think that an explicit offer of Naples,

on the part of the allies, would have changed the scene; nay, it seems

as if Louis would have been content at this time with Sardinia and

Sicily. P. 108.

[315] A contemporary historian of remarkable gravity observes: "It was

strange to see how much the desire of French wine, and the dearness of

it, alienated many men from the Duke of Marlborough's friendship."

Cunningham, ii. 220. The hard drinkers complained that they were

poisoned by port; these formed almost a party: Dr. Aldrich (Dean of

Christchurch, surnamed the priest of Bacchus), Dr. Ratcliffe, General

Churchill, etc. "And all the bottle companions, many physicians, and

great numbers of the lawyers and inferior clergy, and, in fine, the

loose women too, were united together in the faction against the Duke

of Marlborough."

[316] A bill was attempted in 1704 to recruit the army by a forced

conscription of men from each parish, but laid aside as

unconstitutional. Boyer's _Reign of Queen Anne_, p. 123. It was tried

again in 1707 with like success. P. 319. But it was resolved instead

to bring in a bill for raising a sufficient number of troops out of

such persons as have no lawful calling or employment. Stat. 4 Anne, c.

10; _Parl. Hist._ 335. The parish officers were thus enabled to press

men for the land service; a method hardly more unconstitutional than

the former, and liable to enormous abuses. The act was temporary, but

renewed several times during the war. It was afterwards revived in

1757 (30 Geo. 2, c. 8), but never, I believe, on any later occasion.

[317] Every contemporary writer bears testimony to the exhaustion of

France, rendered still more deplorable by the unfavourable season of

1709, which produced a famine. Madame de Maintenon's letters to the

Princess des Ursins are full of the public misery, which she did not

soften, out of some vain hope that her inflexible correspondent might

relent at length, and prevail on the King and Queen of Spain to

abandon their throne.

[318] It is evident from Macpherson's _Papers_, that all hopes of a

restoration in the reign of Anne were given up in England. They soon

revived, however, as to Scotland, and grew stronger about the time of

the union.

[319] The _Rehearsal_ is not written in such a manner as to gain over

many proselytes. The scheme of fighting against liberty with her own

arms had not yet come into vogue; or rather Leslie was too mere a

bigot to practise it. He is wholly for arbitrary power; but the

commons stuff of his journal is high-church notions of all

descriptions. This could not win many in the reign of Anne.

[320] Macpherson, i. 608. If Carte's anecdotes are true, which is very

doubtful, Godolphin, after he was turned out, declared his concern at

not having restored the king; that he thought Harley would do it, but

by French assistance, which he did not intend; that the tories had

always distressed him, and his administration had passed in a struggle

with the whig junto. _Id._ 170. Somerville says, he was assured that

Carte was reckoned credulous and ill-informed by the jacobites. P.

273. It seems indeed, by some passages in Macpherson's _Papers_, that

the Stuart agents either kept up an intercourse with Godolphin, or

pretended to do so. Vol. ii. 2 _et post_. But it is evident that they

had no confidence in him.

It must be observed, however, that Lord Dartmouth, in his notes on

Burnet, repeatedly intimates that Godolphin's secret object in his

ministry was the restoration of the house of Stuart, and that with

this view he suffered the act of security in Scotland to pass, which

raised such a clamour that he was forced to close with the whigs in

order to save himself. It is said also by a very good authority, Lord

Hardwicke (note on Burnet, Oxf. edit. v. 352) that there was something

not easy to be accounted for in the conduct of the ministry, preceding

the attempt on Scotland in 1708; giving us to understand in the

subsequent part of the note that Godolphin was suspected of connivance

with it. And this is confirmed by Ker of Kersland, who directly

charges the treasurer with extreme remissness, if not something worse.

_Memoirs_, i. 54. See also Lockhart's _Commentaries_ (in _Lockhart

Papers_, i. 308). Yet it seems almost impossible to suspect Godolphin

of such treachery, not only towards the protestant succession, but his

mistress herself.

[321] Macpherson, ii. 74 _et post_; Hooke's _Negotiations_; Lockhart's

_Commentaries_; Ker of Kersland's _Memoirs_, 45; Burnet; Cunningham;

Somerville.

[322] Burnet, 502.

[323] Macpherson, ii. 158, 228, 283, and see Somerville, 272.

[324] _Memoirs of Berwick_, 1778 (English translation). And compare

Lockhart's _Commentaries_, p. 368; Macpherson, sub. ann. 1712 and

1713, _passim_.

[325] The pamphlets on Harley's side, and probably written under his

inspection, for at least the first year after his elevation to power,

such as one entitled "Faults on both Sides," ascribed to Richard

Harley, his relation (_Somers Tracts_, xii. 678); "Spectator's Address

to the Whigs on Occasion of the stabbing Mr. Harley," or the "Secret

History of the October Club," 1711 (I believe by De Foe), seem to have

for their object to reconcile as many of the whigs as possible to his

administration, and to display his aversion to the violent tories.

There can be no doubt that his first project was to have excluded the

more acrimonious whigs, such as Wharton and Sunderland, as well as the

Duke of Marlborough and his wife, and coalesced with Cowper and

Somers, both of whom were also in favour with the queen. But the

steadiness of the whig party, and their resentment of his duplicity,

forced him into the opposite quarters, though he never lost sight of

his schemes for reconciliation.

The dissembling nature of this unfortunate statesman rendered his

designs suspected. The whigs, at least in 1713, in their

correspondence with the court of Hanover, speak of him as entirely in

the jacobite interest. Macpherson, ii. 472, 509. Cunningham, who is

not on the whole unfavourable to Harley, says, that "men of all

parties agreed in concluding that his designs were in the Pretender's

favour. And it is certain that he affected to have it thought so."--P.

303. Lockhart also bears witness to the reliance placed on him by the

jacobites, and argues with some plausibility (p. 377) that the Duke of

Hamilton's appointment as ambassador to France, in 1712, must have

been designed to further their object; though he believed that the

death of that nobleman, in a duel with Lord Mohun, just as he was

setting out for Paris, put a stop to the scheme, and "questions if it

was ever heartily re-assumed by Lord Oxford."--"This I know, that his

lordship regretting to a friend of mine the duke's death, next day

after it happened, told him that it disordered all their schemes,

seeing Great Britain did not afford a person capable to discharge the

trust which was committed to his grace, which sure was somewhat very

extraordinary; and what other than the king's restoration could there

be of so very great importance, or require such dexterity in managing,

is not easy to imagine. And indeed it is more than probable that

before his lordship could pitch upon one he might depend on in such

weighty matters, the discord and division which happened betwixt him

and the other ministers of state diverted or suspended his design of

serving the king." Lockhart's _Commentaries_, p. 410. But there is

more reason to doubt whether this design to serve the king ever

existed.

[326] If we may trust to a book printed in 1717, with the title,

"Minutes of Monsieur Mesnager's Negotiations with the Court of England

towards the Close of the last Reign, written by himself," that agent

of the French cabinet entered into an arrangement with Bolingbroke in

March 1712, about the Pretender. It was agreed that Louis should

ostensibly abandon him, but should not be obliged, in case of the

queen's death, not to use endeavours for his restoration. Lady Masham

was wholly for this; but owned "the rage and irreconcilable aversion

of the greatest part of the common people to her (the queen's) brother

was grown to a height." But I must confess that, although Macpherson

has extracted the above passage, and a more judicious writer,

Somerville, quotes the book freely as genuine (_Hist. of Anne_, p.

581, etc.), I found in reading it what seemed to me the strongest

grounds of suspicion. It is printed in England, without a word of

preface to explain how such important secrets came to be divulged, or

by what means the book came before the world; the correct information

as to English customs and persons frequently betrays a native pen; the

truth it contains, as to jacobite intrigues, might have transpired

from other sources, and in the main was pretty well suspected, as the

Report of the Secret Committee on the Impeachments in 1715 shows; so

that, upon the whole, I cannot but reckon it a forgery in order to

injure the tory leaders.

But however this may be, we find Bolingbroke in correspondence with

the Stuart agents in the later part of 1712. Macpherson, 366. And his

own correspondence with Lord Strafford shows his dread and dislike of

Hanover (_Bol. Corr._ ii. 487 _et alibi_). The Duke of Buckingham

wrote to St. Germains in July that year, with strong expressions of

his attachment to the cause, and pressing the necessity of the

prince's conversion to the protestant religion. Macpherson, 327.

Ormond is mentioned in the Duke of Berwick's letters as in

correspondence with him; and Lockhart says there was no reason to make

the least question of his affection to the king, whose friends were

consequently well pleased at his appointment to succeed Marlborough in

the command of the army, and thought it portended some good designs in

favour of him. _Id._ 376.

Of Ormond's sincerity in this cause there can indeed be little doubt;

but there is almost as much reason to suspect that of Bolingbroke as

of Oxford; except that, having more rashness and less principle, he

was better fitted for so dangerous a counter-revolution. But in

reality he had a perfect contempt for the Stuart and tory notions of

government, and would doubtless have served the house of Hanover with

more pleasure, if his prospects in that quarter had been more

favourable. It appears that in the session of 1714, when he had become

lord of the ascendant, he disappointed the zealous royalists by his

delays as much as his more cautious rival had done before. Lockhart,

470. This writer repeatedly asserts that a majority of the House of

Commons, both in the parliament of 1710 and that of 1713, wanted only

the least encouragement from the court to have brought about the

repeal of the act of settlement. But I think this very doubtful; and I

am quite convinced that the nation would not have acquiesced in it.

Lockhart is sanguine, and ignorant of England.

It must be admitted that part of the cabinet were steady to the

protestant succession. Lord Dartmouth, Lord Powlett, Lord Trevor, and

the Bishop of London were certainly so; nor can there be any

reasonable doubt, as I conceive, of the Duke of Shrewsbury. On the

other side, besides Ormond, Harcourt, and Bolingbroke, were the Duke

of Buckingham, Sir William Wyndham, and probably Mr. Bromley.

[327] It is said that the Duke of Leeds, who was now in the Stuart

interest, had sounded her in 1711, but with no success in discovering

her intention. Macpherson, 212. The Duke of Buckingham pretended, in

the above-mentioned letter to St. Germains, June 1712, that he had

often pressed the queen on the subject of her brother's restoration,

but could get no other answer than, "you see he does not make the

least step to oblige me;" or, "he may thank himself for it: he knows I

always loved him better than the other." _Id._ 328. This alludes to

the Pretender's pertinacity, as the writer thought it, in adhering to

his religion; and it may be very questionable, whether he had ever

such conversation with the queen at all. But, if he had, it does not

lead to the supposition, that under all circumstances she meditated

his restoration. If the book under the name of Mesnager is genuine,

which I much doubt, Mrs. Masham had never been able to elicit anything

decisive of her majesty's inclinations; nor do any of the Stuart

correspondents in Macpherson pretend to know her intentions with

certainty. The following passage in Lockhart seems rather more to the

purpose: On his coming to parliament in 1710, with a "high monarchical

address," which he had procured from the county of Edinburgh, "the

queen told me, though I had almost always opposed her measures, she

did not doubt of my affection to her person, and hoped I would not

concur in the design against Mrs. Masham, or for bringing over the

Prince of Hanover. At first I was somewhat surprised, but recovering

myself, I assured her I should never be accessary to the imposing any

hardship or affront upon her; and as for the Prince of Hanover, her

majesty might judge from the address I had read, that I should not be

acceptable to my constituents if I gave my consent for bringing over

any of that family, either now or at any time hereafter. At that she

smiled, and I withdrew; and then she said to the duke (Hamilton), she

believed I was an honest man and a fair dealer, and the duke replied,

he could assure her I liked her majesty and all her father's

bairns."--P. 317. It appears in subsequent parts of this book, that

Lockhart and his friends were confident of the queen's inclinations in

the last year of her life, though not of her resolution.

The truth seems to be, that Anne was very dissembling, as Swift

repeatedly says in his private letters, and as feeble and timid

persons in high station generally are; that she hated the house of

Hanover, and in some measure feared them; but that she had no regard

for the Pretender (for it is really absurd to talk like Somerville of

natural affection under all the circumstances), and feared him a great

deal more than the other; that she had, however, some scruples about

his right, which were counterbalanced by her attachment to the church

of England; consequently, that she was wavering among opposite

impulses, but with a predominating timidity which would have probably

kept her from any change.

[328] The Duchess of Gordon, in June 1711, sent a silver medal to the

faculty of advocates at Edinburgh, with a head on one side, and the

inscription, "Cujus est"; on the other, the British isles, with the

word "Reddite." The dean of faculty, Dundas of Arniston, presented

this medal; and there seems reason to believe that a majority of the

advocates voted for its reception. Somerville, p. 452. Bolingbroke, in

writing on the subject to a friend, it must be owned, speaks of the

proceeding with due disapprobation. _Bolingbroke Correspondence_, i.

343. No measures, however, were taken to mark the court's displeasure.

"Nothing is more certain," says Bolingbroke in his letter to Sir

William Wyndham, perhaps the finest of his writings, "than this truth,

that there was at that time _no formed design_ in the party, whatever

views some particular men might have, against his majesty's accession

to the throne."--P. 22. This is in effect to confess a great deal; and

in other parts of the same letter, he makes admissions of the same

kind: though he says that he and other tories had determined, before

the queen's death, to have no connection with the Pretender, on

account of his religious bigotry. P. 111.

[329] Lockhart gives us a speech of Sir William Whitelock in 1714,

bitterly inveighing against the elector of Hanover, who, he hoped,

would never come to the crown. Some of the whigs cried out on this

that he should be brought to the bar; when Whitelock said he would not

recede an inch; he hoped the queen would outlive that prince, and in

comparison to her he did not value all the princes of Germany one

farthing. P. 469. Swift, in "Some Free Thoughts upon the present State

of Affairs," 1714, speaks with much contempt of the house of Hanover

and its sovereign; and suggests, in derision, that the infant son of

the electoral prince might be invited to take up his residence in

England. He pretends in this tract, as in all his writings, to deny

entirely that there was the least tendency towards jacobitism, either

in any one of the ministry, or even any eminent individual out of it;

but with so impudent a disregard of truth that I am not perfectly

convinced of his own innocence as to that intrigue. Thus, in his

"Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry," he says, "I

remember, during the late treaty of peace, discoursing at several

times with some very eminent persons of the opposite side with whom I

had long acquaintance. I asked them seriously, whether they or any of

their friends did in earnest believe, or suspect the queen or the

ministry to have any favourable regards towards the Pretender? They

all confessed for themselves that they believed nothing of the

matter," etc. He then tells us that he had the curiosity to ask almost

every person in great employment, whether they knew or had heard of

any one particular man, except professed nonjurors, that discovered

the least inclination towards the Pretender; and the whole number they

could muster up did not amount to above five or six; among whom one

was a certain old lord lately dead, and one a private gentleman, of

little consequence and of a broken fortune, etc. (vol. 15, p. 94,

edit. 12mo, 1765). This acute observer of mankind well knew that lying

is frequently successful in the ratio of its effrontery and

extravagance. There are, however, some passages in this tract, as in

others written by Swift, in relation to that time, which serve to

illustrate the obscure machinations of those famous last years of the

queen.

[330] On a motion in the House of Lords that the protestant succession

was in danger, April 5, 1714, the ministry had only a majority of 76

to 69, several bishops and other tories voting against them. _Parl.

Hist._ vi. 1334. Even in the Commons the division was but 256 to 208.

_Id._ 1347.

[331] Somerville has a separate dissertation on the danger of the

protestant succession, intended to prove that it was in no danger at

all, except through the violence of the whigs in exasperating the

queen. It is true that Lockhart's _Commentaries_ were not published at

this time; but he had Macpherson before him, and the _Memoirs of

Berwick_, and even gave credit to the authenticity of Mesnager, which

I do not. But this sensible, and on the whole impartial writer, had

contracted an excessive prejudice against the whigs of that period as

a party, though he seems to adopt their principles. His dissertation

is a laboured attempt to explain away the most evident facts, and to

deny what no one of either party at that time would probably have in

private denied.

[332] The queen was very ill about the close of 1713; in fact it

became evident, as it had long been apprehended, that she could not

live much longer. The Hanoverians, both whigs and tories, urged that

the electoral prince should be sent for; it was thought that whichever

of the competitors should have the start upon her death would succeed

in securing the crown. Macpherson, 385, 546, 557 _et alibi_. Can there

be a more complete justification of this measure, which Somerville and

the tory writers treat as disrespectful to the queen? The Hanoverian

envoy, Schutz, demanded the writ for the electoral prince without his

master's orders; but it was done with the advice of all the whig

leaders (_Id._ 592), and with the sanction of the Electress Sophia,

who died immediately after. "All who are for Hanover believe the

coming of the electoral prince to be advantageous; all those against

it are frightened at it." _Id._ 596. It was doubtless a critical

moment; and the court of Hanover might be excused for pausing in the

choice of dangers, as the step must make the queen decidedly their

enemy. She was greatly offended, and forbade the Hanoverian minister

to appear at court. Indeed she wrote to the elector, on May 19,

expressing her disapprobation of the prince's coming over to England,

and "her determination to oppose a project so contrary to her royal

authority, however fatal the consequences may be." _Id._ 621. Oxford

and Bolingbroke intimate the same. _Id._ 593; and see _Bolingbroke

Correspondence_, iv. 512, a very strong passage. The measure was given

up, whether from unwillingness on the part of George to make the queen

irreconcilable, or, as is at least equally probable, out of jealousy

of his son. The former certainly disappointed his adherents by more

apparent apathy than their ardour required; which will not be

surprising, when we reflect that, even upon the throne, he seemed to

care very little about it. Macpherson, sub ann. 1714, _passim_.

[333] He was strongly pressed by his English adherents to declare

himself a protestant. He wrote a very good answer. Macpherson, 436.

Madame de Maintenon says, some catholics urged him to the same course,

"par une politique poussée un peu trop loin." _Lettres à la Princesse

des Ursins_, ii. 428.

[334] The rage of the tory party against the queen and Lord Oxford for

retaining whigs in office is notorious from Swift's private letters,

and many other authorities. And Bolingbroke, in his letter to Sir W.

Wyndham, very fairly owns their intention "to fill the employments of

the kingdom, down to the meanest, with tories."--"We imagined," he

proceeds, "that such measures, joined to the advantages of our numbers

and our property, would secure us against all attempts during her

reign; and that we should soon become too considerable not to make our

terms in all events which might happen afterwards; concerning which,

to speak truly, I believe few or none of us had any very settled

resolution." P. 11. It is rather amusing to observe that those who

called themselves the tory or church party, seem to have fancied they

had a natural right to power and profit, so that an injury was done

them when these rewards went another way; and I am not sure that

something of the same prejudice has not been perceptible in times a

good deal later.

[335] Though no republican party, as I have elsewhere observed, could

with any propriety be said to exist, it is easy to perceive that a

certain degree of provocation from the Crown might have brought one

together in no slight force. These two propositions are perfectly

compatible.

[336] This is well put by Bishop Willis in his speech on the bill

against Atterbury. _Parl. Hist._ viii. 305. In a pamphlet, entitled

"English Advice to the Freeholders" (_Somers Tracts_, xiii. 521),

ascribed to Atterbury himself, a most virulent attack is made on the

government, merely because what he calls the church party had been

thrown out of office. "Among all who call themselves whigs," he says,

"and are of any consideration as such, name me the man I cannot prove

to be an inveterate enemy to the church of England; and I will be a

convert that instant to their cause." It must be owned perhaps that

the whig ministry might better have avoided some reflections on the

late times in the addresses of both houses; and still more, some not

very constitutional recommendations to the electors, in the

proclamation calling the new parliament in 1714 _Parl. Hist._ vi. 44,

50. "Never was prince more universally well received by subjects than

his present majesty on his arrival; and never was less done by a

prince to create a change in people's affections. But so it is, a very

observable change hath happened. Evil infusions were spread on the one

hand; and, it may be, there was too great a stoicism or contempt of

popularity on the other." "Argument to prove the Affections of the

People of England to be the best Security for the Government," p. 11

(1716). This is the pamphlet written to recommend lenity towards the

rebels, which Addison has answered in the _Freeholder_. It is

invidious, and perhaps secretly jacobite. Bolingbroke observes, in the

letter already quoted, that the Pretender's journey from Bar, in 1714,

was a mere farce, no party being ready to receive him; but "the

menaces of the whigs, backed by some very rash declarations [those of

the king], and little circumstances of humour, which frequently offend

more than real injuries, and by the entire change of all persons in

employment, blew up the coals."--P. 34. Then, he owns, the tories

looked to Bar. "The violence of the whigs forced them into the arms of

the Pretender." It is to be remarked on all this, that, by

Bolingbroke's own account, the tories, if they had no "formed design"

or "settled resolution" that way, were not very determined in their

repugnance before the queen's death; and that the chief violence of

which they complained was, that George chose to employ his friends

rather than his enemies.

[337] The trials after this rebellion were not conducted with quite

that appearance of impartiality which we now exact from judges. Chief

Baron Montagu reprimanded a jury for acquitting some persons indicted

for treason; and Tindal, an historian very strongly on the court side,

admits that the dying speeches of some of the sufferers made an

impression on the people, so as to increase rather than lessen the

number of jacobites. _Continuation of Rapin_, p. 501 (folio edit.).

There seems, however, upon the whole, to have been greater and less

necessary severity after the rebellion in 1745; and upon this latter

occasion it is impossible not to reprobate the execution of Mr.

Ratcliffe (brother of that Earl of Derwentwater who had lost his head

in 1716), after an absence of thirty years from this country, to the

sovereign of which he had never professed allegiance nor could owe

any, except by the fiction of our law.

[338] _Parl. Hist._ 73. It was carried against Oxford by 247 to 127,

Sir Joseph Jekyll strongly opposing it, though he had said before

(_Id._ 67) that they had more than sufficient evidence against

Bolingbroke on the statute of Edward III. A motion was made in the

Lords, to consult the judges whether the articles amounted to treason,

but lost by 84 to 52. _Id._ 154. Lord Cowper on this occasion

challenged all the lawyers in England to disprove that proposition.

The proposal of reference to the judges was perhaps premature; but the

house must surely have done this before their final sentence, or shown

themselves more passionate than in the case of Lord Strafford.

[339] _Parl. Hist._ vii. 486. The division was 88 to 56. There was a

schism in the whig party at this time; yet I should suppose the

ministers might have prevented this defeat, if they had been anxious

to do so. It seems, however, by a letter in Coxe's _Memoirs of

Walpole_, vol. ii. p. 123, that the government were for dropping the

charge of treason against Oxford, "it being very certain that there is

not sufficient evidence to convict him of that crime," but for

pressing those of misdemeanour.

[340] _Parl. Hist._ vii. 105.

[341] _Parl. Hist._ vi. 972. Burnet, 560, makes some observations on

the vote passed on this occasion, censuring the late ministers for

advising an offensive war in Spain. "A resolution in council is only

the sovereign's act, who upon hearing his counsellors deliver their

opinions, forms his own resolution; a counsellor may indeed be liable

to censure for what he may say at that board; but the resolution taken

there has been hitherto treated with a silent respect; but by that

precedent it will be hereafter subject to a parliamentary inquiry."

Speaker Onslow justly remarks that these general and indefinite

sentiments are liable to much exception, and that the bishop did not

try them by his whig principles. The first instance where I find the

responsibility of some one for every act of the Crown strongly laid

down is in a speech of the Duke of Argyle, in 1739. _Parl. Hist._ ix.

1138. "It is true," he says, "the nature of our constitution requires

that public acts should be issued out in his majesty's name; but for

all that, my lords, he is not the author of them."

[342] "Lord Bolingbroke used to say that the restraining orders to the

Duke of Ormond were proposed in the cabinet council, in the queen's

presence, by the Earl of Oxford, who had not communicated his

intention to the rest of the ministers; and that Lord Bolingbroke was

on the point of giving his opinion against it, when the queen, without

suffering the matter to be debated, directed these orders to be sent,

and broke up the council. This story was told by the late Lord

Bolingbroke to my father." Note by Lord Hardwicke on Burnet (Oxf.

edit. vi. 119). The noble annotator has given us the same anecdote in

the _Hardwicke State Papers_, ii. 482; but with this variance, that

Lord Bolingbroke there ascribes the orders to the queen herself,

though he conjectured them to have proceeded from Lord Oxford.

[343] _Parl. Hist._ vii. 292. The apprehension that parliament, having

taken this step, might go on still farther to protract its own

duration, was not quite idle. We find from Coxe's _Memoirs of

Walpole_, ii. 217, that in 1720, when the first septennial House of

Commons had nearly run its term, there was a project of once more

prolonging its life.

[344] _Parl. Hist._ vii. 589.

[345] The arguments on this side are urged by Addison, in the _Old

Whig_; and by the author of a tract, entitled "Six Questions Stated

and Answered."

[346] The speeches of Walpole and others, in the Parliamentary

Debates, contain the whole force of the arguments against the peerage

bill. Steele in the _Plebeian_ opposed his old friend and coadjutor,

Addison, who forgot a little in party and controversy their ancient

friendship.

Lord Sunderland held out, by way of inducements to the bill, that the

Lords would part with _scandalum magnatum_, and permit the Commons to

administer an oath; and that the king would give up the prerogative of

pardoning after an impeachment. Coxe's _Walpole_, ii. 172. Mere

trifles, in comparison with the innovations projected.

[347] The letters in Coxe's _Memoirs of Walpole_, vol. ii., abundantly

show the German nationality, the impolicy and neglect of his duties,

the rapacity and petty selfishness of George I. The whigs were much

dissatisfied; but fear of losing their places made them his slaves.

Nothing can be more demonstrable than that the king's character was

the main cause of preserving jacobitism, as that of his competitor was

of weakening it.

The habeas corpus was several times suspended in this reign, as it had

been in that of William. Though the perpetual conspiracies of the

jacobites afforded a sufficient apology for this measure, it was

invidiously held up as inconsistent with a government which professed

to stand on the principles of liberty. _Parl. Hist._ v. 153, 267, 604;

vii. 276; viii. 38. But some of these suspensions were too long,

especially the last, from October 1722 to October 1723. Sir Joseph

Jekyll, with his usual zeal for liberty, moved to reduce the time to

six months.

[348] "It was first settled by a verbal agreement between Archbishop

Sheldon and the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and tacitly given into by

the clergy in general as a great ease to them in taxations. The first

public act of any kind relating to it was an act of parliament in

1665, by which the clergy were, in common with the laity, charged with

the tax given in that act, and were discharged from the payment of the

subsidies they had granted before in convocation; but in this act of

parliament of 1665 there is an express saving of the right of the

clergy to tax themselves in convocation, if they think fit; but that

has been never done since, nor attempted, as I know of, and the clergy

have been constantly from that time charged with laity in all public

aids to the Crown by the House of Commons. In consequence of this (but

from what period I cannot say), without the intervention of any

particular law for it, except what I shall mention presently, the

clergy (who are not lords of parliament) have assumed, and without any

objection enjoyed, the privilege of voting in the election of members

of the House of Commons, in virtue of their ecclesiastical freeholds.

This has constantly been practised from the time it first began; there

are two acts of parliament which suppose it to be now a right. The

acts are 10 Anne, c. 23; 18 Geo. II. c. 18. Gibson, Bishop of London,

said to me, that this (the taxation of the clergy out of convocation)

was the greatest alteration in the constitution ever made without an

express law." Speaker Onslow's note on Burnet (Oxf. edit. iv. 508).

[349] The first authority I have observed for this pretension is an

address of the House of Lords (19 Nov. 1675) to the throne, for the

frequent meeting of the convocation, and that they do make to the king

such representations as may be for the safety of the religion

established. Lords' Journals. This address was renewed February 22,

1677. But what took place in consequence I am not apprised. It shows,

however, some degree of dissatisfaction on the part of the bishops,

who must be presumed to have set forward these addresses, at the

virtual annihilation of their synod which naturally followed from its

relinquishment of self-taxation.

[350] Kennet, 799, 842; Burnet, 280. This assembly had been suffered

to sit, probably, in consequence of the tory maxims which the ministry

of that year professed.

[351] Wilkins's _Concilia_, iv.; Burnet, _passim_; Boyer's _Life of

Queen Anne_, 225; Somerville, 82, 124.

[352] The lower house of convocation, in the late reign, among their

other vagaries, had requested "that some synodical notice might be

taken of the dishonour done to the church by a sermon preached by Mr.

Benjamin Hoadley at St. Lawrence Jewry, Sept. 29, 1705, containing

positions contrary to the doctrine of the church, expressed in the

first and second parts of the homily against disobedience and wilful

rebellion." Wilkins, iv. 634.

[353] These qualities are so apparent, that after turning over some

forty or fifty tracts, and consuming a good many hours on the

Bangorian controversy, I should find some difficulty in stating with

precision the propositions in dispute. It is, however, evident that a

dislike, not perhaps exactly to the house of Brunswick, but to the

tenor of George I.'s administration, and to Hoadley himself as an

eminent advocate for it, who had been rewarded accordingly, was at the

bottom a leading motive with most of the church party; some of whom,

such as Hare, though originally of a whig connection, might have had

disappointments to exasperate them.

There was nothing whatever in Hoadley's sermon injurious to the

established endowments and privileges, nor to the discipline and

government, of the English church, even in theory. If this had been

the case, he might be reproached with some inconsistency in becoming

so large a partaker of her honours and emoluments. He even admitted

the usefulness of censures for open immoralities, though denying all

church authority to oblige any one to external communion, or to pass

any sentence which should determine the condition of men with respect

to the favour or displeasure of God. Hoadley's Works, ii. 465, 493.

Another great question in this controversy was that of religious

liberty, as a civil right, which the convocation explicitly denied.

And another related to the much debated exercise of private judgment

in religion, which, as one party meant virtually to take away, so the

other perhaps unreasonably exaggerated. Some other disputes arose in

the course of the combat, particularly the delicate problem of the

value of sincerity as a plea for material errors.

[354] Tindal, 539.

[355] _Parl. Hist._ vi. 362.

[356] 10 Anne, c. 2.

[357] 12 Anne, c. 7; _Parl. Hist._ vi. 1349. The schism act, according

to Lockhart, was promoted by Bolingbroke, in order to gratify the high

tories, and to put Lord Oxford under the necessity of declaring

himself one way or other. "Though the Earl of Oxford voted for it

himself, he concurred with those who endeavoured to restrain some

parts which they reckoned too severe; and his friends in both houses,

particularly his brother auditor Harley, spoke and voted against it

very earnestly."--P. 462.

[358] 5 Geo. I. c. 4. The whigs out of power, among whom was Walpole,

factiously and inconsistently opposed the repeal of the schism act, so

that it passed with much difficulty. _Parl. Hist._ vii. 569.

[359] The first act of this kind appears to have been in 1727. 1 Geo.

II. c. 23. It was repeated next year, intermitted the next, and

afterwards renewed in every year of that reign except the fifth, the

seventeenth, the twenty-second, the twenty-third, the twenty-sixth,

and the thirtieth. Whether these occasional interruptions were

intended to prevent the nonconformists from relying upon it, or were

caused by some accidental circumstance, must be left to conjecture. I

believe that the renewal has been regular every year since the

accession of George III. It is to be remembered, that the present work

was first published before the repeal of the test act in 1828.

[360] We find in Gutch's _Collectanea Curiosa_, vol. i. p. 53, a plan,

ascribed to Lord Chancellor Macclesfield, for taking away the election

of heads of colleges from the fellows, and vesting the nomination in

the great officers of state, in order to cure the disaffection and

want of discipline which was justly complained of. This remedy would

have been perhaps the substitution of a permanent for a temporary

evil. It appears also that Archbishop Wake wanted to have had a bill,

in 1716, for asserting the royal supremacy, and better regulating the

clergy of the two universities (Coxe's _Walpole_, ii. 122); but I do

not know that the precise nature of this is anywhere mentioned. I can

scarcely quote Amherst's _Terræ Filius_ as authority; it is a very

clever, though rather libellous, invective against the university of

Oxford at that time; but from internal evidence, as well as the

confirmation which better authorities afford it, I have no doubt that

it contains much truth.

Those who have looked much at the ephemeral literature of these two

reigns must be aware of many publications fixing the charge of

prevalent disaffection on this university, down to the death of George

II.; and Dr. King, the famous jacobite master of St. Mary Hall, admits

that some were left to reproach him for apostasy in going to court on

the accession of the late king in 1760. The general reader will

remember the _Isis_ by Mason, and the _Triumph of Isis_ by Warton; the

one a severe invective, the other an indignant vindication; but in

this instance, notwithstanding the advantages which satire is supposed

to have over panegyric, we must award the laurel to the worse cause,

and, what is more extraordinary, to the worse poet.

[361] Layer, who suffered on account of this plot, had accused several

peers, among others Lord Cowper, who complained to the house of the

publication of his name; and indeed, though he was at that time

strongly in opposition to the court, the charge seems wholly

incredible. Lord Strafford, however, was probably guilty; Lords North

and Orrery certainly so. _Parl. Hist._ viii. 203. There is even ground

to suspect that Sunderland, to use Tindal's words, "in the latter part

of his life had entered into correspondencies and designs, which would

have been fatal to himself or to the public."--P. 657. This is

mentioned by Coxe, i. 165; and certainly confirmed by Lockhart, ii.

68, 70. But the reader will hardly give credit to such a story as

Horace Walpole has told, that he coolly consulted Sir Robert, his

political rival, as to the part they should take on the king's death.

Lord Orford's Works, iv. 287.

[362] _State Trials_, xvi. 324; _Parl. Hist._ viii. 195 _et post_.

Most of the bishops voted against their restless brother; and Willis,

Bishop of Salisbury, made a very good but rather too acrimonious a

speech on the bill. _Id._ 298. Hoadley, who was no orator, published

two letters in the newspaper, signed "Britannicus," in answer to

Atterbury's defence; which, after all that had passed, he might better

have spared. Atterbury's own speech is certainly below his fame,

especially the peroration. _Id._ 267.

No one, I presume, will affect to doubt the reality of Atterbury's

connections with the Stuart family, either before his attainder or

during his exile. The proofs of the latter were published by Lord

Hailes in 1768, and may be found also in Nicholls's edition of

Atterbury's _Correspondence_, i. 148. Additional evidence is furnished

by the _Lockhart Papers_, vol. ii. _passim_.

[363] The Stuart papers obtained lately from Rome, and now in his

majesty's possession, are said to furnish copious evidence of the

jacobite intrigues, and to affect some persons not hitherto suspected.

We have reason to hope that they will not be long withheld from the

public, every motive for concealment being wholly at an end.

It is said that there were not less than fifty jacobites in the

parliament of 1728. Coxe, ii. 294.

[364] The tories, it is observed in the MS. journal of Mr. Yorke

(second Earl of Hardwicke), showed no sign of affection to the

government at the time when the invasion was expected in 1743, but

treated it all with indifference. _Parl. Hist._ xiii. 668. In fact a

disgraceful apathy pervaded the nation; and according to a letter from

Mr. Fox to Mr. Winnington in 1745, which I only quote from

recollection, it seemed perfectly uncertain, from this general

passiveness, whether the revolution might not be suddenly brought

about. Yet very few comparatively, I am persuaded, had the slightest

attachment or prejudice in favour of the house of Stuart; but the

continual absence from England, and the Hanoverian predilections of

the two Georges, the feebleness and factiousness of their

administration, and of public men in general, and an indefinite

opinion of misgovernment, raised through the press, though certainly

without oppression or arbitrary acts, had gradually alienated the mass

of the nation. But this would not lead men to expose their lives and

fortunes; and hence the people of England, a thing almost incredible,

lay quiet and nearly unconcerned, while the little army of Highlanders

came every day nearer to the capital. It is absurd, however, to

suppose that they could have been really successful by marching

onward; though their defeat might have been more glorious at Finchley

than at Culloden.

[365] See _Parl. Hist._ xiii. 1244; and other proofs might be brought

from the same work, as well as from miscellaneous authorities of the

age of George II.

[366] See in the _Lockhart Papers_, ii. 565, a curious relation of

Charles Edward's behaviour in refusing to quit France after the peace

of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was so insolent and absurd that the government

was provoked to arrest him at the opera, and literally to order him to

be bound hand and foot; an outrage which even his preposterous conduct

could hardly excuse.

Dr. King was in correspondence with this prince for some years after

the latter's foolish, though courageous, visit to London in September

1750; which he left again in five days, on finding himself deceived by

some sanguine friends. King says he was wholly ignorant of our history

and constitution. "I never heard him express any noble or benevolent

sentiment, the certain indications of a great soul and good heart; or

discover any sorrow or compassion for the misfortune of so many worthy

men who had suffered in his cause." _Anecdotes of his own Times_, p.

201. He goes on to charge him with love of money and other faults. But

his great folly in keeping a mistress, Mrs. Walkinshaw, whose sister

was housekeeper at Leicester House, alarmed the jacobites. "These were

all men of fortune and distinction, and many of them persons of the

first quality, who attached themselves to the P. as to a person who

they imagined might be made the instrument of saving their country.

They were sensible that by Walpole's administration the English

government was become a system of corruption; and that Walpole's

successors, who pursued his plan without any of his abilities, had

reduced us to such a deplorable situation that our commercial interest

was sinking, our colonies in danger of being lost, and Great Britain,

which, if her powers were properly exerted, as they were afterwards in

Mr. Pitt's administration, was able to give laws to other nations, was

become the contempt of all Europe."--P. 208. This is in truth the

secret of the continuance of jacobitism. But possibly that party were

not sorry to find a pretext for breaking off so hopeless a connection,

which they seem to have done about 1755. Mr. Pitt's great successes

reconciled them to the administration; and his liberal conduct brought

back those who had been disgusted by an exclusive policy. On the

accession of a new king they flocked to St. James's; and probably

scarcely one person of the rank of a gentleman, south of the Tweed,

was found to dispute the right of the house of Brunswick after 1760.

Dr. King himself, it may be observed, laughs at the old passive

obedience doctrine (page 193); so far was he from being a jacobite of

that school.

A few nonjuring congregations lingered on far into the reign of George

III., presided over by the successors of some bishops whom Lloyd of

Norwich, the last of those deprived at the revolution, had consecrated

in order to keep up the schism. A list of these is given in D'Oyly's

_Life of Sancroft_, vol. ii. p. 34, whence it would appear that the

last of them died in 1779. I can trace the line a little farther: a

bishop of that separation, named Cartwright, resided at Shrewsbury in

1793, carrying on the business of a surgeon. _State Trials_, xxiii.

1073. I have heard of similar congregations in the west of England

still later. He had, however, become a very loyal subject to King

George: a singular proof of that tenacity of life by which religious

sects, after dwindling down through neglect, excel frogs and

tortoises; and that, even when they have become almost equally

cold-blooded!

[367] _Parl. Hist._ viii. 904.

[368] _Id._ vii. 536.

[369] 8 Geo. 2, c. 30; _Parl. Hist._ viii. 883.

[370] The military having been called in to quell an alleged riot at

Westminster election in 1741, it was resolved (Dec. 22nd) "that the

presence of a regular body of armed soldiers at an election of members

to serve in parliament is a high infringement of the liberties of the

subject, a manifest violation of the freedom of elections, and an open

defiance of the laws and constitution of this kingdom." The persons

concerned in this, having been ordered to attend the house, received

on their knees a very severe reprimand from the speaker. _Parl. Hist._

ix. 326. Upon some occasion, the circumstances of which I do not

recollect, Chief Justice Willis uttered some laudable sentiments as to

the subordination of military power.

[371] Lord Hardwicke threw out the militia bill in 1756, thinking some

of its clauses rather too republican, and, in fact, being adverse to

the scheme. _Parl. Hist._ xv. 704; H. Walpole's _Memoirs_, ii. 45;

Coxe's _Memoirs of Lord Walpole_, 450.

[372] By the act of 6 Anne, c. 7, all persons holding pensions from

the Crown during pleasure were made incapable of sitting in the House

of Commons; which was extended by 1 Geo. I. c. 56, to those who held

them for any term of years. But the difficulty was to ascertain the

fact; the government refusing information. Mr. Sandys, accordingly

proposed a bill in 1730, by which every member of the Commons was to

take an oath that he did not hold any such pension, and that, in case

of accepting one, he would disclose it to the house within fourteen

days. This was carried by a small majority through the Commons, but

rejected in the other house; which happened again in 1734 and in 1740.

_Parl. Hist._ viii. 789; ix. 369; xi. 510. The king, in an angry note

to Lord Townshend, on the first occasion, calls it "this villainous

bill." Coxe's _Walpole_, ii. 537, 673. A bill of the same gentleman to

limit the number of placemen in the house had so far worse success,

that it did not reach the Serbonian bog. _Parl. Hist._ xi. 328, Bishop

Sherlock made a speech against the prevention of corrupt practices by

the pension bill, which, whether justly or not, excited much

indignation, and even gave rise to the proposal of a bill for putting

an end to the translation of bishops. _Id._ viii. 847.

[373] 25 Geo. 2, c. 22. The king came very reluctantly into this

measure: in the preceding session of 1742, Sandys, now become

chancellor of the exchequer, had opposed it, though originally his

own; alleging, in no very parliamentary manner, that the new ministry

had not yet been able to remove his majesty's prejudices. _Parl.

Hist._ xii. 896.

[374] Mr. Fox declared to the Duke of Newcastle, when the office of

secretary of state, and what was called the management of the House of

Commons, was offered to him, "that he never desired to touch a penny

of the secret service money, or to know the disposition of it farther

than was necessary to _enable him to speak to the members without

being ridiculous_." Dodington's _Diary_, 15th March 1754. H. Walpole

confirms this in nearly the same words. _Mem. of Last Ten Years_, i.

332.

[375] In Coxe's _Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole_, iii. 609, we have the

draught, by that minister, of an intended vindication of himself after

his retirement from office, in order to show the impossibility of

misapplying public money, which, however, he does not show; and his

elaborate account of the method by which payments are made out of the

exchequer, though valuable in some respects, seems rather intended to

lead aside the unpractised reader.

[376] This secret committee were checked at every step for want of

sufficient powers. It is absurd to assert, like Mr. Coxe, that they

advanced accusations which they could not prove, when the means of

proof were withheld. Scrope and Paxton, the one secretary, the other

solicitor, to the treasury, being examined about very large sums

traced to their hands, and other matters, refused to answer questions

that might criminate themselves; and a bill to indemnify evidence was

lost in the upper house. _Parl. Hist._ xii. 625 _et post_.

[377] See vol. i. pp. 254, 255.

[378] _Parl. Hist._ vi. 1265. Walpole says, in speaking for Steele,

"the liberty of the press is unrestrained; how then shall a part of

the legislature dare to punish that as a crime, which is not declared

to be so by any law framed by the whole?"

[379] Vol. i. p. 250.

[380] The instances are so numerous, that to select a few would

perhaps give an inadequate notion of the vast extension which

privilege received. In fact, hardly anything could be done

disagreeable to a member, of which he might inform the house, and

cause it to be punished.

[381] 12 Will. 3, ch. 3.

[382] Journals, 11th Feb. It had been originally proposed, that the

member making the complaint should pay the party's costs and expenses,

which was amended, I presume, in consequence of some doubt as to the

power of the house to enforce it.

[383] 10 G. 3, c. 50.

[384] Resolved, That whatever ill consequences may arise from the so

long deferring the supplies for the year's service, are to be

attributed to the fatal counsel of putting off the meeting of a

parliament so long, and to unnecessary delays of the House of Commons.

Lords' Journals, 23rd June 1701. The Commons had previously come to a

vote, that all the ill consequences which may at this time attend the

delay of the supplies granted by the Commons for the preserving the

public peace, and maintaining the balance of Europe, are to be imputed

to those who, to procure an indemnity for their own enormous crimes,

have used their utmost endeavours to make a breach between the two

houses. Commons' Journals, June 20th.

[385] Journals, 8th May; _Parl. Hist._ v. 1250; Ralph, 947. This

historian, who generally affects to take the popular side, inveighs

against this petition, because the tories had a majority in the

Commons. His partiality, arising out of a dislike to the king, is very

manifest throughout the second volume. He is forced to admit

afterwards, that the house disgusted the people by their votes on this

occasion. P. 976.

[386] _History of the Kentish Petition_; _Somers Tracts_, xi. 242;

_Legion's Paper_; _Id._ 264; _Vindication of the Rights of the

Commons_ (either by Harley or Sir Humphrey Mackworth); _Id._ 276. This

contains in many respects constitutional principles; but the author

holds very strong language about the right of petitioning. After

quoting the statute of Charles II. against tumults on pretence of

presenting petitions, he says: "By this statute it may be observed,

that not only the number of persons is restrained, but the occasion

also for which they may petition; which is for the alteration of

matters established in church or state, for want whereof some

inconvenience may arise to that county from which the petition shall

be brought. For it is plain by the express words and meaning of that

statute that the grievance or matter of the petition must arise in the

same county as the petition itself. They may indeed petition the king

for a parliament to redress their grievances; and they may petition

that parliament to make one law that is advantageous, and repeal

another that is prejudicial to the trade or interest of that county;

but they have no power by this statute, nor by the constitution of the

English government, to direct the parliament in the general

proceedings concerning the whole kingdom; for the law declares that a

general consultation of all the wise representatives of parliament is

more for the safety of England than the hasty advice of a number of

petitioners of a private county, of a grand jury, or of a few justices

of the peace, who seldom have a true state of the case represented to

them."--P. 313.

These are certainly what must appear in the present day very strange

limitations of the subject's right to petition either house of

parliament. But it is really true that such a right was not generally

recognised, nor frequently exercised, in so large an extent as is now

held unquestionable. We may search whole volumes of the journals,

while the most animating topics were in discussion, without finding a

single instance of such an interposition of the constituent with the

representative body. In this particular case of the Kentish petition,

the words in the resolution, that it tended to destroy the

constitution of parliament and subvert the established government,

could be founded on no pretence but its unusual interference with the

counsels of the legislature. With this exception, I am not aware

(stating this, however, with some diffidence) of any merely political

petition before the Septennial bill in 1717, against which several

were presented from corporate towns; one of which was rejected on

account of language that the house thought indecent; and as to these

it may be observed, that towns returning members to parliament had a

particular concern in the measure before the house. They relate,

however, no doubt, to general policy, and seem to establish a popular

principle which stood on little authority. I do not of course include

the petitions to the long parliament in 1640, nor one addressed to the

Convention, in 1689, from the inhabitants of London and Westminster,

pressing their declaration of William and Mary; both in times too

critical to furnish regular precedents. But as the popular principles

of government grew more established, the right of petitioning on

general grounds seems to have been better recognised; and instances

may be found, during the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, though

still by no means frequent. _Parl. Hist._ xii. 119. The city of London

presented a petition against the bill for naturalisation of the Jews,

in 1753, as being derogatory to the Christian religion as well as

detrimental to trade. _Id._ xiv. 1417. It caused, however, some

animadversion; for Mr. Northey, in the debate next session on the

proposal to repeal this bill, alluding to this very petition, and to

the comments Mr. Pelham made on it, as "so like the famous Kentish

petition that if they had been treated in the same manner it would

have been what they deserved," observes in reply, that the "right of

petitioning either the king or the parliament in a decent and

submissive manner, and without any riotous appearance against anything

they think may affect their religion and liberties, will never, I

hope, be taken from the subject." _Id._ xv. 149; see also 376. And it

is very remarkable that notwithstanding the violent clamour excited by

that unfortunate statute, no petitions for its repeal are to be found

in the journals. They are equally silent with regard to the marriage

act, another topic of popular obloquy. Some petitions appear to have

been presented against the bill for naturalisation of foreign

protestants; but probably on the ground of its injurious effect on the

parties themselves. The great multiplication of petitions on matters

wholly unconnected with particular interests cannot, I believe, be

traced higher than those for the abolition of the slave trade in 1787;

though a few were presented for reform about the end of the American

war, which would undoubtedly have been rejected with indignation in

any earlier stage of our constitution. It may be remarked also that

petitions against bills imposing duties are not received, probably on

the principle that they are intended for the general interests, though

affecting the parties who thus complain of them. Hatsell, iii. 200.

The convocation of public meetings for the debate of political

questions, as preparatory to such addresses or petitions, is still

less according to the practice and precedents of our ancestors; nor

does it appear that the sheriffs or other magistrates are more

invested with a right of convening or presiding in assemblies of this

nature than any other persons; though, within the bounds of the public

peace, it would not perhaps be contended that they have ever been

unlawful. But that their origin can be distinctly traced higher than

the year 1769, I am not prepared to assert. It will of course be

understood, that this note is merely historical, and without reference

to the expediency of that change in our constitutional theory which it

illustrates.

[387] _State Trials_, xiv. 849.

[388] _Parl. Hist._ vi. 225 _et post_; _State Trials_, xiv. 695 _et

post_.

[389] _Parl. Hist._ xiv. 888 _et post_, 1063; Walpole's _Memoirs of

the last Ten Years of George II._, i. 15 _et post_.

[390] Journals, vii. 9th July 1725.

[391] Commons' Journals, 25th Oct. 1689.

[392] _Id._ Dec. 5.

[393] _Parl. Hist._ vii. 803.

[394] Lords' Journals, 10th Jan. 1702; _Parl. Hist._ vi. 21.

[395] Hargrave's _Juridical Arguments_, vol. i. p. 1, etc.

[396] _State Trials_, vi. 1369; 1 Modern Reports, 159.

[397] _Id._, xii. 822; T. Jones, Reports, 208.

[398] Journals, 10th, 12th, 19th July 1689.

[399] _State Trials_, xiv. 849.

[400] _Id._, viii. 30.

[401] This is very elaborately and dispassionately argued by Mr.

Hargrave in his _Juridical Arguments_, above cited; also vol. ii. p.

183. "I understand it," he says, "to be clearly part of the law and

custom of parliament that each house of parliament may inquire into

and imprison for breaches of privilege." But this he thinks to be

limited by law; and after allowing it clearly in cases of obstruction,

arrest, assault, etc., on members, admits also that "the judicative

power as to writing, speaking, or publishing, of gross reflections

upon the whole parliament or upon either house, though perhaps

originally questionable, seems now of too long a standing and of too

much frequency in practice to be well counteracted." But after

mentioning the opinions of the judges in Crosby's case, Mr. H.

observes: "I am myself far from being convinced that commitment for

contempts by a house of parliament, or by the highest court of

judicature in Westminster Hall, either ought to be, or are thus wholly

privileged from all examination and appeal."

[402] Mr. Justice Gould, in Crosby's case, as reported by Wilson,

observes: "It is true this court did, in the instance alluded to by

the counsel at the bar (Wilkes's case, 2 Wilson, 151), determine upon

the privilege of parliament in the case of a libel; but then that

privilege was promulged and known; it existed in records and

law-books, and was allowed by parliament itself. But _even in that

case we now know that we were mistaken; for the House of Commons have

since determined, that privilege does not extend to matters of

libel_." It appears, therefore, that Mr. Justice Gould thought a

declaration of the House of Commons was better authority than a

decision of the court of common pleas, as to a privilege which, as he

says, existed in records and law-books.

[403] "I am far from subscribing to all the latitude of the doctrine

of attachments for contempts of the king's courts of Westminster,

especially the King's Bench, as it is sometimes stated, and it has

been sometimes practised." Hargrave, ii. 213.

"The principle upon which attachments issue for libels on courts is of

a more enlarged and important nature: it is _to keep a blaze of glory

around them_, and to deter people from attempting to render them

contemptible in the eyes of the people." Wilmot's _Opinions and

Judgments_, p. 270. Yet the king, who seems as much entitled to this

blaze of glory as his judges, is driven to the verdict of a jury

before the most libellous insult on him can be punished.

[404] Hargrave, _ubi supra_.

[405] This effect of continual new statutes is well pointed out in a

speech ascribed to Sir William Wyndham in 1734: "The learned gentleman

spoke (he says) of the prerogative of the Crown, and asked us if it

had lately been extended beyond the bounds prescribed to it by law.

Sir, I will not say that there have been lately any attempts to extend

it beyond the bounds prescribed by law; but I will say that these

bounds have been of late so vastly enlarged that there seems to be no

great occasion for any such attempt. What are the many penal laws made

within these forty years, but so many extensions of the prerogative of

the Crown, and as many diminutions of the liberty of the subject? And

whatever the necessity was that brought us into the enacting of such

laws, it was a fatal necessity; it has greatly added to the power of

the Crown, and particular care ought to be taken not to throw any more

weight into that scale." _Parl. Hist._ ix. 463.

Among the modern statutes which have strengthened the hands of the

executive power, we should mention the riot act (1 Geo. I. stat. 2, c.

5), whereby all persons tumultuously assembled to the disturbance of

the public peace, and not dispersing within one hour after

proclamation made by a single magistrate, are made guilty of a capital

felony. I am by no means controverting the expediency of this law;

but, especially when combined with the aid of a military force, it is

surely a compensation for much that may seem to have been thrown into

the popular scale.

[406] 9 Geo. 2, c. 35, sect. 10, 13; _Parl. Hist._ ix. 1229. I quote

this as I find it: but probably the expressions are not quite correct;

for the reasoning is not so.

[407] Coxe's _Walpole_, i. 296; H. Walpole's Works, iv. 476. The

former, however, seems to rest on H. Walpole's verbal communication,

whose want of accuracy, or veracity, or both, is so palpable that no

great stress can be laid on his testimony. I believe, however, that

the fact of George I. and his minister conversing in Latin may be

proved on other authority.

[408] H. Walpole's _Memoirs of the last Ten Years_; Lord Waldegrave's

_Memoirs_. In this well written little book, the character of George

II. in reference to his constitutional position, is thus delicately

drawn: "He has more knowledge of foreign affairs than most of his

ministers, and has good general notions of the constitution, strength,

and interest of this country; but, being past thirty when the Hanover

succession took place, and having since experienced the violence of

party, the injustice of popular clamour, the corruption of

parliaments, and the selfish motives of pretended patriots, it is not

surprising that he should have contracted some prejudices in favour of

those governments where the royal authority is under less restraint.

Yet prudence has so far prevailed over these prejudices, that they

have never influenced his conduct. On the contrary, many laws have

been enacted in favour of public liberty; and in the course of a long

reign there has not been a single attempt to extend the prerogative of

the Crown beyond its proper limits. He has as much personal bravery as

any man, though his political courage seems somewhat problematical;

however, it is a fault on the right side; for had he always been as

firm and undaunted in the closet as he showed himself at Oudenarde and

Dettingen, he might not have proved quite so good a king in this

limited monarchy,"--P. 5. This was written in 1757.

The real tories, those I mean who adhered to the principles expressed

by that name, thought the constitutional prerogative of the Crown

impaired by a conspiracy of its servants. Their notions are expressed

in some "Letters on the English Nation," published about 1756, under

the name of Battista Angeloni, by Dr. Shebbeare, once a jacobite, and

still so bitter an enemy of William III. and George I. that he stood

in the pillory, not long afterwards, for a libel on those princes

(among other things); on which Horace Walpole justly animadverts, as a

stretch of the law by Lord Mansfield destructive of all historical

truth. _Memoirs of the last Ten Years_, ii. 328. Shebbeare, however,

was afterwards pensioned, along with Johnson, by Lord Bute, and at the

time when these letters were written, may possibly have been in the

Leicester House interest. Certain it is, that the self-interested

cabal who belonged to that little court endeavoured too successfully

to persuade its chief and her son that the Crown was reduced to a

state of vassalage, from which it ought to be emancipated; and the

government of the Duke of Newcastle, as strong in party connection as

it was contemptible in ability and reputation, afforded them no bad

argument. The consequences are well known, but do not enter into the

plan of this work.

[409] Many proofs of this occur in the correspondence published by Mr.

Coxe. Thus Horace Walpole writing to his brother Sir Robert, in 1739,

says: "King William had no other object but the liberties and balance

of Europe; but, good God! what is the case now? I will tell you in

confidence; little, low, partial, electoral notions are able to stop

or confound the best conducted project for the public." _Memoirs of

Sir R. Walpole_, iii. 535. The Walpoles had, some years before,

disapproved the policy of Lord Townshend on account of his favouring

the king's Hanoverian prejudices. _Id._ i. 334. And, in the preceding

reign, both these whig leaders were extremely disgusted with the

Germanism and continual absence of George I. (_Id._ ii. 116, 297),

though first Townshend, and afterwards Walpole, according to the

necessity, or supposed necessity, which controls statesmen (that is,

the fear of losing their places), became in appearance the passive

instruments of royal pleasure.

It is now, however, known that George II. had been induced by Walpole

to come into a scheme, by which Hanover, after his decease, was to be

separated from England. It stands on the indisputable authority of

Speaker Onslow. "A little while before Sir Robert Walpole's fall (and

as a popular act to save himself, for he went very unwillingly out of

his offices and power), he took me one day aside, and said, 'What will

you say, speaker, if this hand of mine shall bring a message from the

king to the House of Commons, declaring his consent to having any of

his family, after his death, to be made, by act of parliament,

incapable of inheriting and enjoying the crown, and possessing the

electoral dominions at the same time?' My answer was, 'Sir, it will be

as a message from heaven.' He replied, 'It will be done.' But it was

not done; and I have good reason to believe, it would have been

opposed, and rejected at that time, because it came from him, and by

the means of those who had always been most clamorous for it; and thus

perhaps the opportunity was lost: when will it come again? It was said

that the prince at that juncture would have consented to it, if he

could have had the credit and popularity of the measure, and that some

of his friends were to have moved it in parliament, but that the

design at St. James's prevented it. Notwithstanding all this, I have

had some thoughts that neither court ever really intended the thing

itself; but that it came on and went off, by a jealousy of each other

in it, and that both were equally pleased that it did so, from an

equal fondness (very natural) for their own native country." _Notes on

Burnet_ (iv. 490, Oxf. edit.). This story has been told before, but

not in such a manner as to preclude doubt of its authenticity.

[410] A bill was brought in for this purpose in 1712, which Swift, in

his _History of the Last Four Years_, who never printed anything with

his name, naturally blames. It miscarried, probably on account of this

provision. _Parl. Hist._ vi. 1141. But the queen, on opening the

session, in April 1713, recommended some new law to check the

licentiousness of the press. _Id._ 1173. Nothing, however, was done in

consequence.

[411] Bolingbroke's letter to the _Examiner_, in 1710, excited so much

attention that it was answered by Lord Cowper, then chancellor, in a

letter to the _Tatler_ (_Somers Tracts_, xiii. 75), where Sir Walter

Scott justly observes, that the fact of two such statesmen becoming

the correspondents of periodical publications shows the influence they

must have acquired over the public mind.

[412] It was resolved, _nem. con._, Feb. 26th, 1729, That it is an

indignity to, and a breach of the privilege of, this house, for any

person to presume to give, in written or printed newspapers, any

account or minutes of the debates, or other proceedings of this house

or of any committee thereof; and that upon discovery of the authors,

etc., this house will proceed against the offenders with the utmost

severity. _Parl. Hist._ viii. 683. There are former resolutions to the

same effect. The speaker having himself brought the subject under

consideration some years afterwards, in 1738, the resolution was

repeated in nearly the same words, but after a debate wherein, though

no one undertook to defend the practice, the danger of impairing the

liberty of the press was more insisted upon than would formerly have

been usual; and Sir Robert Walpole took credit to himself, justly

enough, for respecting it more than his predecessors. _Id._ x. 800;

Coxe's _Walpole_, i. 572. Edward Cave, the well-known editor of the

_Gentleman's Magazine_, and the publisher of another magazine, was

brought to the bar, April 30th, 1747, for publishing the house's

debates; when the former denied that he retained any person in pay to

make the speeches, and after expressing his contrition was discharged

on payment of fees. _Id._ xiv. 57.

[413] Malthus, _Principles of Political Economy_ (1820), p. 279.

[414] Macpherson (or Anderson), _Hist. of Commerce_; Chalmers's

_Estimate of Strength of Great Britain_; Sinclair's _Hist. of

Revenue_, cum multis aliis.

[415] Tindal, apud _Parl. Hist._ xiv. 66. I have read the same in

other books, but know not at present where to search for the passages.

Hogarth's pictures of the election are evidence to the corruption in

his time, so also are some of Smollett's novels. Addison, Swift, and

Pope would not have neglected to lash this vice if it had been glaring

in their age; which shows that the change took place about the time I

have mentioned.

[416] 9 Anne, c. 5. A bill for this purpose had passed the Commons in

1696; the city of London and several other places petitioning against

it. Journals, Nov. 21, etc. The house refused to let some of these

petitions be read; I suppose on the ground that they related to a

matter of general policy. These towns, however, had a very fair

pretext for alleging that they were interested; and in fact a rider

was added to the bill, that any merchant might serve for a place where

he should be himself a voter, on making oath that he was worth £5000.

_Id._ Dec. 19.

[417] 33 G. II. c. 20.