cognizance of Whittam the messenger; this was followed by a resolution that there should be no more proceedings at law in the case; and that the lord mayor and Oliver should be committed to the Tower. Some proposed his expulsion from the house; others a vote of censure: and, when it was proposed to commit him, the utmost confusion took place, some members declaring that they would accompany him to the place of confinement, &c. Some days after the commitment, when the lord mayor attended at the house of commons, insults were offered to many of the members, particularly lord North; who, on this occasion, lost his hat, and narrowly escaped with his life.

Wilkes, on being ordered to attend on this memorable occasion, wrote a letter to the speaker, in which he observed, that no mention had been made of his being a member; and that if his seat in parliament, to which he had been duly elected, was to be granted him, he would attend and justify his conduct. The ministry, however, declined to encounter this demagogue at this time and were reduced to the miserable shift of ordering him to attend on the 8th of April, 1771, at the same time that they adjourned the house to the 9th.

Every step taken about this time by administration seemed calculated to add to the public ill humor. Towards the end of the session a bill was brought in 'for enabling certain persons to enclose and embank part of the river Thames, adjoining to Durham yard, Salisbury-street, Cecil-street, and Beaufort-buildings, in the county of Middlesex. This bill was opposed, as contrary to the ancient rights and privileges of the city of London; but was easily carried through both houses, though it produced a protest in the upper house; and, a few days before the rising of the session, the city of London petitioned against it. The only other transaction of moment during this session related to the East India company. It was proposed to raise 2000 men in England for the service of the company, the officers to be appointed by the king, and to be paid by the company. But, after much argument, it was rejected as unconstitutional and dangerous to keep an armed force in the kingdom which was not paid by government. The session terminated on the 8th of May, 1771.. When the lord mayor and aldermen were released by this event from the tower, they were welcomed by every mark of public congratulation. The city was illuminated; and the mob, as usual, took vengeance on their opponents by breaking their windows. A committee was even appointed to carry on a prosecution against the speaker of the house of commons; but, as this did not seem likely to afford them any redress, they determined once more to have recourse to the throne. Accordingly, on the 10th of July, 1771, another petition and remonstrance was presented, the subjects of which were the embankments of the Thames, the proceedings against the magistrates, and a speedy dissolution of parliament. But this met with as unfavorable an answer as before. His majesty said, that he was ready to put an end to the real grievances of his faithful subjects; but was

sorry to find that a part of them still renewen requests, which he had repeatedly refused to comply with.

In the speech from the throne, when the parliament met, January 21st, 1772, his majesty observed, that the performance of the king of Spain's engagements, and the behaviour of the other European powers, promised a continuance of peace; and, though the necessity of keeping up a respectable naval force was evident, yet no extraordinary aid for that purpose would be necessary he concluded with recommending the most vigilant and active attention to the concerns of the country, with an assurance of the interposition of the crown to remedy abuses or supply defects. Little dispute was made about the addresses in answer to this speech; but an ample subject of altercation soon occurred. This was a motion made by administration, intimating the necessity of raising 25,000 seamen for the service of the year; 'it being always necessary,' they said, for us to preserve a superiority to the French in the East Indies, which had not been the case since they sent a considerable fleet thither. It was equally necessary to preserve the present strength of the West Indies unimpaired; as the Spaniards knew the importance of our settlements there too well not to make an attack upon them first, if ever a rupture should take place. A declaration of this kind, coming immediately after the assurances of peace that had been given from the throne, was said to be a contradiction; that the peace establishment would be thus augmented till we were overburdened by it, &c. If the assurances of peace from the throne were well founded, the force in the East Indies was already too great; if, on the contrary, a war was at hand, it would be too small notwithstanding the proposed augmentation. The question for the augmentation, however, was carried without a division: after which the subject of subscription to articles of religion came to be discussed. This was, in fact, occasioned by the general tendency to Arianism or Socinianism which had for some time prevailed, and had infected the established church in such a manner, that the subscription to her standards was reckoned intolerable by many of the clergy. Meetings had been held by the discontented members, to consider of some mode of relief; and in the beginning of February, 1772, about 250 of them, with several professors of law and physic, joined in a petition to the house of commons, expressing their dissatisfaction with the subscription to any human forms, and praying for relief. In this petition they asserted, that they held certain rights and pri vileges from God alone; such as the exercise of their own reason and judgment, by which they were instructed and confirmed in their belief of the Christian religion, as contained in the holy scriptures. They accounted it a blessing to live under a government, which maintained the sufficiency of the scriptures to instruct in all things necessary to salvation. Hence they concluded, that they had a right from nature, as well as from the principles of the reformed religion, to judge for themselves, what was or was not contained in the scriptures. From this invaluable

privilege, however, they found themselves in a great measure precluded by the laws relative to subscription; by which they were enjoined to acknowledge certain articles and confessions of faith, framed by fallible men, as entirely agreeable to scripture. They prayed, therefore, to be relieved from such impositions, and to be restored to their undoubted right of interpreting scripture for themselves, without being bound by any human explanation of it, or being required to acknowledge, by subscription or declaration, the truth of any formulary of religious faith and doctrine whatever, excepting the holy scripture itself. The affair of subscription they looked upon to be not only a grievance to themselves, but an encroachment on their rights as men, and members of a Protestant establishment, as well as a great hindrance to the spreading of the Christian religion; giving occasion for unbelievers and Papists to reproach and vilify the clergy, by representing them as guilty of prevarication, and of accommodating their faith to lucrative views. Such of the petitioners, as had been educated with a view to the professions of civil law and physic, said they, could not but think it a great hardship to be obliged, as they all were in one of the universities, even at their first matriculation and admission, though at an age very improper for such important disquisitions, to subscribe their assent to a variety of theological tenets, concerning which their private opinions could be of no consequence to the public, in order to entitle them to academical degrees in those faculties; more especially as the course of their studies, and attention to their practice, did not afford them leisure sufficient to examine how far these tenets were consonant to the word of God. This petition was presented by Sir William Meredith, who, along with the other members who favored the cause, enforced it by many arguments drawn from the principles of toleration. The articles themselves were said to have been composed in haste; that they contained doctrines highly controvertible; and that this restraint on the consciences of men was of all others the greatest hardship. A majority of both houses of parliament, however, were inimical to the petition, though some who opposed it wished for time to consider it more deliberately. By the rest it was urged, that the matter of the petition was a violent infraction of the laws; and that, if this was granted, another would soon follow against the liturgy. The conduct of many of the petitioners, instead of being founded in any regard for religion, it was said, had its origin in hypocrisy and dissoluteness, and proceeded in many instances from a disbelief of the Trinity, and of the divinity of our Saviour. The complaints of men were to be disregarded, when they wished to profit by the emoluments of the church without subscribing to its laws; besides, the king was bound by his coronation oath to continue the government of the church without alteration. The rejection of the subscription bill was followed by that of a bill for quieting the possessions of his majesty's subjects from dormant claims of the church; after which the attention of parliament was called to another measure of the utmost importance, VOL. X.

The

introduced by a message from the king. This was the famous royal marriage act, occasioned by the marriage of the duke of Cumberland with Mrs. Horton, a widow lady, daughter of lord Irnham, and sister to colonel Luttrel, and that of the duke of Gloucester with the countess dowager of Waldegrave. By the message it was recommended to both houses to take it into their consideration, whether it might not be expedient to supply the defects of the law then in being, and by some new regulations more effectually to prevent the descendants of his late majesty (excepting the issue of the princesses who had married, or might hereafter marry into foreign families) from marrying without the consent of his present majesty, his heirs, and successors : and a bill was brought in by the ministry, declaring all such marriages, without the consent above mentioned, to be null and void. The descendants of his majesty, however, if above the age of twenty-five years, might marry without the royal consent, provided they gave intimation. a year before to the privy council, and no opposition was made to the match by parliament during that interval. This bill met with the most violent and powerful opposition. principal arguments against it were expressed in two protests from the upper house, and were to the following purpose:-1. The doctrine that marriages in the royal family are of the highest importance to the state, and that therefore the kings of this realm have ever been trusted with the care thereof, is both absurd and unconstitutional: though it would from that period have the force of a parliamentary declaration. The immediate tendency of this was to create as many prerogatives to the crown, as there are matters of importance in the state; and to extend them in a manner as vague and exceptionable, as had ever been done in the most despotic periods. 2. The enacting part of the bill had an inconvenient and impolitic extent; namely to all the descendants of George II. In process of time, that description might become very general, and comprehend a great number of people; and it was apprehended that it would be an intolerable grievance for the marriages of so many subjects, perhaps dispersed among the various ranks of civil life, to be subject to the restrictions of this act; especially as the abettors of this doctrine had also maintained, that the care and approbation of the marriage also included the education and custody of the person. This extensive power might in time make many of the first families of the kingdom entirely dependent on the crown; and it was regretted that all endeavours to limit, in some degree, the generality of that description, had proved ineffectual. 3. The time of nonage for the royal family appeared to be improperly extended beyond the limit of twenty-one years; a period which the wisdom of the constitution seems with great wisdom to have assigned to minority. 4. The deferring their marriage to the age of twentysix might also be attended with other bad consesequences, by driving them into a disorderly course of life, which ought to be particularly guarded against in those of such an exalted station. 5. The power given by this bill, to a 2 H

prince to marry after the age of twenty-six, is totally defeated by the proviso, which declares the consent of parliament to be ultimately necessary. Thus great difficulties must be laid on future parliaments, as their silence in such a case must imply a disapprobation of the king's refusal; and their concurrence with it might prove a perpetual prohibition from marriage to the party concerned. 6. The right of conferring a discretionary power of prohibiting all marriages, appears to be above the reach of any legislature whatever, as being contrary to the inherent rights of human nature; which, as they are not derived from, or held under, the sanction of any civil laws, cannot be taken away by them in any case whatever. 7. This bill has a natural tendency to produce a disputed title to the crown. If those who are affected by it are in power, they will easily procure a repeal of this act, and the confirmation of a marriage made contrary to it; and if they are not, it will at least be the source of the most dangerous faction that can exist in any country, viz. one attached to the pretender to the crown; whose claim, he may assert, has been set aside by no other authority than that of an act to which the legislature was not competent, as being contrary to the common rights of mankind. 8. The bill provides no security against the improper marriages of princesses married into foreign families and those of their issue; which may fully as materially affect the interest of this nation, as the marriages of princes residing in the dominions of Great Britain; and it provides no remedy against the improper marriage of the reigning king, or regent, &c., though evidently the most important of all others to the public. The answer to all these arguments was, that the inconveniences so much talked of were merely imaginary; and, if the king should make any improper use of his authority, parliament had it either in their power to prevent the effect, or to punish the minister who advised it. The crown, it was said, was dishonored by improper connexions, and many of the greatest national calamities have proceeded from improper alliances between the royal family and subjects; and that if, from after experience, we should find any material grievances ensue from this act, it could as easily be repealed at that time as thrown out now, and on better grounds. It was very rapidly carried through both houses; in the upper house by ninety to twenty-six; and in the lower by 165

to 115.

Although the late decision, concerning subscription to the thirty-nine articles, did not promise much success to any innovations in religious matters, yet the case of dissenting ministers was introduced soon after the discussion of the royal marriage act. A petition was presented by a great body of these people, praying to be relieved from the hardship of subscribing to the articles of a church to which they did not belong, and a bill grounded on the petition was fully debated. It was violently opposed by the opponents of the former bill, though with very little success in the house of commons, where it was carried by a prodigious majority. It was argued that nothing can advance the true interest of religion so much

as toleration; and, if articles of subscription are necessary, it must only be for men destitute of principle, and who would, in compliance with ambition or avarice, as readily subscribe to one set of articles as another. If thus any of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity are impugned, there are many laws in existence to correct the impiety.. The dissenters have indeed altered some of their original forms and doctrines, but that only in matters of indifference. It is the effect of learning, leisure, and refinement, to give men many opportunities of altering established forms. This has been the case formerly, and always will be. The dissenters have long been virtually exempted from this subscription; and yet the piety and decency of many of them, particularly in Scotland and Ireland where no such laws are in being, sufficiently show, that men, whose minds are stedfast in the purity of religion, will not be confined nor influenced by laws of human invention. But, though the dissenters enjoy full liberty by connivance at present, where is their security against the sudden attacks of malice and envy, which may be backed by the sanction of law? Every neglect of a law by connivance is an additional proof of the necessity of abrogating that law; and liberty is but an empty name, where it is enjoyed by an oversight only, as it were, of our superiors. In the house of lords, however, the bill was rejected by a majority of seventy. Here the doctrine of universal toleration was strenuously opposed, as well as the great danger set forth to which the church of England would be exposed, by departing from the laws which guarded its privileges. The dissenters, it was said, had great reason to be satisfied with the favor they enjoyed by connivance; and the laws were only kept on record as a necessary curb, lest, in the degeneracy of a declining age, religion should be destitute of protection against heresy and blasphemy.

The only other important debates of this session were respecting an enquiry into the affairs of the East India company, which were now in a very critical situation. These, however, did not come under full consideration till the next session, which took place November 26th, 1772; and now they occupied the chief attention of parliament. It had been projected, as far back as the year 1767, when they were in a very flourishing condition, to bring them under the inspection of government, that the nation might share the immense wealth supposed to be enjoyed by the company. The design, did not succeed at that time, nor would it probably have been easily brought to bear, had not the affairs of the company become embarrassed. A motion was now made in parliament, by a gentleman unconnected with administration, for a select committee to enquire into the affairs of the company: but many reasons were urged against this, particularly that the season was too far advanced for a business of such importance; that the committee, being a secret one, was not accountable for its conduct; and that, as the minister would have it in his power to nominate the members of the committee, considerable partiality might on that account take place. The motion, however, was

carried without a division; and the members were chosen by ballot. During the recess, the affairs of the East India company proceeded from bad to worse. The treasury at home was quite exhausted; while bills to a vast amount, drawn on Bengal, were nearly due; which, with their debt to the bank and other public offices, along with the sum to be paid to government, reduced them almost to the brink of bankruptcy. They were therefore reduced to the expedient of borrowing a sum of money from administration: but their application was received with great indifference. The minister desired them to apply to parliament. The reports of the select committee, in the mean time, contrary to the promise of secrecy, were published, and gave the public no favorable opinion of the behaviour of the company's servants. At the next meeting of parliament, the minister moved for another comnittee, under the title of the committee of secrecy, to consist of thirteen persons, for taking into consideration the state of the company's affairs; which might thus undergo a full investigation. The members of this new committee were also to be chosen by ballot. It was objected that this mode of secret enquiry, by a small number, was unprecedented and unconstitutional; that the members would, in effect, be nominated by the minister, and act under his direction; and that a free investigation by parliament was essentially different from that by a secret committee. In the latter case, every information that the minister thought proper to conceal would be withheld at any rate a committee of secrecy is an evident absurdity; a committee can be no longer secret than during the time it takes up for enquiry. Its proceedings must be laid before the public; and, in case of unjust accounts, the parliament had no means of being undeceived. These reasonings, however, were of no avail. The committee of secrecy was carried without a division; and the members, though chosen by ballot, were almost all devoted to administration. The select committee was likewise revived. In a very short sime after these appointments, a report was given in, stating that the company were in great distress for want of money; and, as this was the case, a bill ought to be brought in for restraining them from sending out supervisors to India, a scheme which they, at this time, meditated. The minister and his adherents enlarged greatly on the utility of this bill. It was the sin cere wish of parliament, they said, to render them a great and successful company: but it was absolutely necessary for this purpose not to allow them to engage in an expensive commission, at a time when their affairs were so much embarrassed. It was even doubted whether the company, without the sanction of parliamentary authority, had power to appoint a commission of this kind. On the other hand, the minister's proposal was characterised by opposition as unconstitutional and insidious. Two gentlemen, belonging to the company, offered to pledge themselves, that the commission of supervision should not be allowed to depart, until, from further reports, a full knowledge of the company's affairs should be acquired. This, however, was instantly rejected, it being said to be

defective in security; that the East India company would not scruple to make an agreement of this kind to-day, and break it to-morrow; which could only be prevented by an act of parliament, &c. The company, in fact, used every endeavour to prevent this bill passing into a law. They petitioned; and some of their servants were examined in the house of commons, in order to show the necessity of supervisors being sent out, who might be qualified to reduce their affairs to some order by being on the spot. In spite of all opposition, however, the bill for restraining the company from sending out any commission of supervision was carried by a majority of 153 to twenty-eight. In the house of lords it met with similar success, being carried by twenty-six to six, though the minority entered a protest. The secret committee now gave in their second re-. port, containing a statement of the debt, credit, and effects of the company in England; beginning with an account of the cash in the company's treasury on the 1st December, 1772, and containing a statement of all their debts and claims. Thus it appeared that the cash, credit, and effects, of the company amounted to £6,397,299 10s. 6d., and their debts to the sum of £2,032,306, leaving a balance in their favor of £4,364,993 10s. 6d., without any estimate of the value of their fortifications and buildings abroad. The statement, however, was complained of as unfair: and it was said that impartiality was not to be expected from men who had it in their power to make what report they pleased for the interest of government: but the administration insisted, that, until proof could be brought that the statement was unfair, the house was bound to adhere to it.

The business was revived, after the holydays, by an application from the company to government, for a loan of £1,500,000, for four years, at four per cent. interest, with the liberty of repaying the same according to their ability; and that the company should not make a dividend of more than six per cent. until the loan should be reduced to £750,000. It was also requested, that the company should be released from the heavy penal interest, incurred by the non-payment of money owing in consequence of the late acts for the indemnity on teas; and that they should be discharged from the annual payment of the £400,000 to the public, for the remainder of the five years specified in the agreement. They farther requested that the accounts of the Duannee revenues, of the charges of collection, expenses of Bengal, company's accounts of sales, &c., should be delivered annually to parliament, and that leave might be given to export teas, free of all duty, to America, and foreign parts. This request was judged expedient to be granted, and resolutions in conformity to it were agreed to. The two following motions were also founded upon the report of the secret committee, viz. That, supposing the public should advance a loan to the East India company, it was the opinion of the committee that the dividend should be restrained to six per cent., until the payment of the sum advanced; and that the company be allowed to divide no more than seven per cent. until their bond debt be

to

reduced to £1,500,000. These severe restrictions were judged proper by administration for the security of the public, and were such, they said, as every creditor has a right to make beforehand with a person who wishes to borrow money from him. The company, however, replied, that the restrictions were contrary to the proposals they had made, and void of foundation, as being built on the erroneous reports of the secret committee. The chairman of the company declared, at a general court, that the government had agreed, or would agree, to the proposed dividend, before the participation of profits took place betwixt the government and company; the first lord of the treasury had told him so, and now wished to deny what he had said. Some time was demanded to consider of these motions; but, that being denied, the question was put and carried as the ministry proposed.

It was next proposed to deprive the company of their supposed territorial right to the countries they possessed in the East Indies. This had been allowed them in the most explicit manner, as appears by some of the papers which passed between the French and English ministers, during the negociations for the treaty of Paris; from one of which the following is an extract :Respecting those territorial acquisitions which the English East India company have made in Asia, every dispute relative thereto must be settled by that company itself, the crown of England having no right to interfere in what is allowed to be the legal and exclusive property of a body corporate, belonging to the English nation.' This right, however, was now denied. After reading the company's petition, lord North told the house, that it was the opinion of several great lawyers, that such territorial possessions as the subjects of any state shall acquire by conquest, are virtually the property of the state, and not of those individuals who acquire them. It was his opinion, however, that it would be more beneficial to the public, and to the East India company, to let the territorial acquisitions remain in the possession of the company for a limited time, not exceeding six years, to commence from the agreement betwixt the public and the company. At the same time it was moved, that no participation of profits should take place betwixt the public and the company, until after the repayment of £1,400,000 advanced to the company; and the reduction of the company's bond debt to £1,500,000. That after the payment of the loan advanced to the company, and the reduction of their bond debts to the sum specified, threefourths of the neat surplus profits of the company at home, above the sum of eight per cent. upon their capital stock, should be paid into the exchequer for the use of the public, and the remaining fourth be set apart, either for reducing the company's bond debt, or for composing a fund for the discharging of any contingent exigencies the company might labor under. These proceedings were exceedingly disagreeable to the company. But the only effect which these remonstrances produced was that it was agreed by government that, as the company had a stock of teas amounting to about 17,000,000 of pounds in their warehouses, they should be allowed to export as

much of it as they thought proper free of duty, and employ the money thence arising for the benefit of their affairs. This concession in favor of the East India company, it is remarkable, proved in the event the loss of the American colonies; nor, indeed, could these arbitrary proceedings with such a considerable body tend to impress the minds of any part of the nation with ideas favorable to the views of administration. In other respects the minister abated nothing of the disposition he had from first to last shown with regard to the company. On the 3rd May, 1773, the following resolutions were proposed by him as the foundation of a bill for establishing certain regulations for the better management of the East India company, as well in India as in Europe. 1. That the court of directors should, in future, be elected for four years; six members annually, but not to hold their seats longer than four years. 2. That no person should vote at the election of the directors, who had not possessed their stock twelve months. 3. That the stock of qualification should, for the future, be £1000 instead of £500. 4. The mayor's court of Calcutta should, for the future, be confined to small mercantile causes, to which its jurisdiction only extended before the territorial acquisitions. 5. That, instead of this court thus taken away, a new one should be established, consisting of a chief justice and three puisne judges. 6. These judges to be appointed by the crown. 7. That a superiority be given to the presidency of Bengal over the other presidencies in India. Each of these resolutions was carried by a great majority. The salaries of the judges were fixed at £6000 each, and that of the chief justice at £8000. The governor of the council was to have £25.000 annually, and the members of the council £10,000 each.

By the friends of the company this bill was supposed to have a tendency to effect a total alteration in its constitution in England, as well as in the administration of all its presidencies in Asia. No delinquency was charged, nor any specific ground of forfeiture of their privileges, they said, assigned; yet, by this bill, more than 1200 freemen were to be disfranchised and deprived of any voice in the management of their own property. By cutting off the £500 stockholders, the proprietary would become more manageable by the crown; nor was there any security, that the directors would be faithful to the interests of the company, when they were no longer responsible to them for their actions. The proprietors of £500 stock presented a petition, setting forth that, by king William's charter granted to the company, and repeatedly confirmed since that time, in consideration of many large sums repeatedly advanced by the company to the public, they were legally possessed of a right of voting at the election of directors, making of bye laws, or in any other matter relating to the affairs and government of the company; but, by a clause in this regulating bill, they were deprived of this right, and that under a pretence of preventing the pernicious practice of splitting stock by collusive transfers; for so far were the proprietors from giving way to such practices, that, in the year 1767, they petitioned parliament for