No More Learning

To the general astonishment there were only one hundred and
thirty-three Ayes to one hundred and eighty-nine Noes. That the City of
London did not consider Somers as the destroyer, and his enemies as the
protectors, of trade, was proved on the following morning by the most
unequivocal of signs. As soon as the news of his triumph reached the
Royal Exchange, the price of stocks went up.

Some weeks elapsed before the Tories ventured again to attack him. In
the meantime they amused themselves by trying to worry another person
whom they hated even more bitterly. When, in a financial debate,
the arrangements of the household of the Duke of Gloucester were
incidentally mentioned, one or two members took the opportunity of
throwing reflections on Burnet. Burnet's very name sufficed to raise
among the High Churchmen a storm of mingled merriment and anger. The
Speaker in vain reminded the orators that they were wandering from the
question. The majority was determined to have some fun with the Right
Reverend Whig, and encouraged them to proceed. Nothing appears to have
been said on the other side. The chiefs of the opposition inferred from
the laughing and cheering of the Bishop's enemies, and from the silence
of his friends, that there would be no difficulty in driving from Court,
with contumely, the prelate whom of all prelates they most detested, as
the personification of the latitudinarian spirit, a Jack Presbyter in
lawn sleeves. They, therefore, after the lapse of a few hours, moved
quite unexpectedly an address requesting the King to remove the Bishop
of Salisbury from the place of preceptor to the young heir apparent.
But it soon appeared that many who could not help smiling at Burnet's
weaknesses did justice to his abilities and virtues. The debate was hot.
The unlucky Pastoral Letter was of course not forgotten. It was asked
whether a man who had proclaimed that England was a conquered country, a
man whose servile pages the English Commons had ordered to be burned
by the hangman, could be a fit instructor for an English Prince. Some
reviled the Bishop for being a Socinian, which he was not, and some
for being a Scotchman, which he was. His defenders fought his battle
gallantly. "Grant," they said, "that it is possible to find, amidst an
immense mass of eloquent and learned matter published in defence of the
Protestant religion and of the English Constitution, a paragraph which,
though well intended, was not well considered, is that error of an
unguarded minute to outweigh the services of more than twenty years? If
one House of Commons, by a very small majority, censured a little tract
of which his Lordship was the author, let it be remembered that another
House of Commons unanimously voted thanks to him for a work of very
different magnitude and importance, the History of the Reformation. And,
as to what is said about his birthplace, is there not already ill humour
enough in Scotland? Has not the failure of that unhappy expedition to
Darien raised a sufficiently bitter feeling against us throughout that
kingdom? Every wise and honest man is desirous to soothe the angry
passions of our neighbours. And shall we, just at this moment,
exasperate those passions by proclaiming that to be born on the north
of the Tweed is a disqualification for all honourable trust? " The
ministerial members would gladly have permitted the motion to be
withdrawn. But the opposition, elated with hope, insisted on dividing,
and were confounded by finding that, with all the advantage of a
surprise, they were only one hundred and thirty-three to one hundred and
seventy-three. Their defeat would probably have been less complete, had
not all those members who were especially attached to the Princess of
Denmark voted in the majority or absented themselves. Marlborough used
all his influence against the motion; and he had strong reasons for
doing so. He was by no means well pleased to see the Commons engaged in
discussing the characters and past lives of the persons who were placed
about the Duke of Gloucester. If the High Churchmen, by reviving old
stories, succeeded in carrying a vote against the Preceptor, it was
by no means unlikely that some malicious Whig might retaliate on
the Governor. The Governor must have been conscious that he was not
invulnerable; nor could he absolutely rely on the support of the
whole body of Tories; for it was believed that their favourite leader,
Rochester, thought himself the fittest person to superintend the
education of his grand nephew.

From Burnet the opposition went back to Somers. Some Crown property
near Reigate had been granted to Somers by the King. In this transaction
there was nothing that deserved blame. The Great Seal ought always to
be held by a lawyer of the highest distinction; nor can such a lawyer
discharge his duties in a perfectly efficient manner unless, with the
Great Seal, he accepts a peerage. But he may not have accumulated a
fortune such as will alone suffice to support a peerage; his peerage
is permanent; and his tenure of the Great Seal is precarious. In a few
weeks he may be dismissed from office, and may find that he has lost a
lucrative profession, that he has got nothing but a costly dignity, that
he has been transformed from a prosperous barrister into a mendicant
lord. Such a risk no wise man will run. If, therefore, the state is to
be well served in the highest civil post, it is absolutely necessary
that a provision should be made for retired Chancellors. The Sovereign
is now empowered by Act of Parliament to make such a provision out of
the public revenue. In old times such a provision was ordinarily made
out of the hereditary domain of the Crown. What had been bestowed on
Somers appears to have amounted, after all deductions, to a net income
of about sixteen hundred a year, a sum which will hardly shock us who
have seen at one time five retired Chancellors enjoying pensions of five
thousand a year each. For the crime, however, of accepting this grant
the leaders of the opposition hoped that they should be able to punish
Somers with disgrace and ruin. One difficulty stood in the way. All that
he had received was but a pittance when compared with the wealth with
which some of his persecutors had been loaded by the last two kings of
the House of Stuart. It was not easy to pass any censure on him which
should not imply a still more severe censure on two generations of
Granvilles, on two generations of Hydes, and on two generations of
Finches. At last some ingenious Tory thought of a device by which it
might be possible to strike the enemy without wounding friends.
The grants of Charles and James had been made in time of peace; and
William's grant to Somers had been made in time of war. Malice eagerly
caught at this childish distinction. It was moved that any minister
who had been concerned in passing a grant for his own benefit while the
nation was under the heavy taxes of the late war had violated his trust;
as if the expenditure which is necessary to secure to the country a good
administration of justice ought to be suspended by war; or as if it were
not criminal in a government to squander the resources of the state in
time of peace. The motion was made by James Brydges, eldest son of the
Lord Chandos, the James Brydges who afterwards became Duke of Chandos,
who raised a gigantic fortune out of war taxes, to squander it in
comfortless and tasteless ostentation, and who is still remembered
as the Timon of Pope's keen and brilliant satire. It was remarked as
extraordinary that Brydges brought forward and defended his motion
merely as the assertion of an abstract truth, and avoided all mention
of the Chancellor. It seemed still more extraordinary that Howe, whose
whole eloquence consisted in cutting personalities, named nobody on this
occasion, and contented himself with declaiming in general terms against
corruption and profusion. It was plain that the enemies of Somers were
at once urged forward by hatred and kept back by fear. They knew
that they could not carry a resolution directly condemning him. They,
therefore, cunningly brought forward a mere speculative proposition
which many members might be willing to affirm without scrutinising it
severely. But, as soon as the major premise had been admitted, the minor
would be without difficulty established; and it would be impossible to
avoid coming to the conclusion that Somers had violated his trust. Such
tactics, however, have very seldom succeeded in English parliaments;
for a little good sense and a little straightforwardness are quite
sufficient to confound them. A sturdy Whig member, Sir Rowland Gwyn,
disconcerted the whole scheme of operations. "Why this reserve? " he
said, "Everybody knows your meaning. Everybody sees that you have not
the courage to name the great man whom you are trying to destroy. " "That
is false," cried Brydges; and a stormy altercation followed. It soon
appeared that innocence would again triumph. The two parties seemed to
have exchanged characters for one day. The friends of the government,
who in the Parliament were generally humble and timorous, took a high
tone, and spoke as it becomes men to speak who are defending persecuted
genius and virtue. The malecontents, generally so insolent and
turbulent, seemed to be completely cowed. They abased themselves so
low as to protest, what no human being could believe, that they had no
intention of attacking the Chancellor, and had framed their resolution
without any view to him. Howe, from whose lips scarcely any thing ever
dropped but gall and poison, went so far as to say: "My Lord Somers is
a man of eminent merit, of merit so eminent that, if he had made a slip,
we might well overlook it. " At a late hour the question was put; and the
motion was rejected by a majority of fifty in a house of four hundred
and nineteen members. It was long since there had been so large an
attendance at a division.

The ignominious failure of the attacks on Somers and Burnet seemed to
prove that the assembly was coming round to a better temper. But the
temper of a House of Commons left without the guidance of a ministry
is never to be trusted. "Nobody can tell today," said an experienced
politician of that time, "what the majority may take it into their heads
to do tomorrow. " Already a storm was gathering in which the Constitution
itself was in danger of perishing, and from which none of the three
branches of the legislature escaped without serious damage.

The question of the Irish forfeitures had been raised; and about
that question the minds of men, both within and without the walls of
Parliament, were in a strangely excitable state. Candid and intelligent
men, whatever veneration they may feel for the memory of William,
must find it impossible to deny that, in his eagerness to enrich and
aggrandise his personal friends, he too often forgot what was due to
his own reputation and to the public interest. It is true that in giving
away the old domains of the Crown he did only what he had a right to
do, and what all his predecessors had done; nor could the most factious
opposition insist on resuming his grants of those domains without
resuming at the same time the grants of his uncles. But between those
domains and the estates recently forfeited in Ireland there was a
distinction, which would not indeed have been recognised by the
judges, but which to a popular assembly might well seem to be of grave
importance. In the year 1690 a Bill had been brought in for applying the
Irish forfeitures to the public service. That Bill passed the Commons,
and would probably, with large amendments, have passed the Lords, had
not the King, who was under the necessity of attending the Congress at
the Hague, put an end to the session. In bidding the Houses farewell
on that occasion, he assured them that he should not dispose of the
property about which they had been deliberating, till they should have
had another opportunity of settling that matter. He had, as he thought,
strictly kept his word; for he had not disposed of this property till
the Houses had repeatedly met and separated without presenting to him
any bill on the subject. They had had the opportunity which he had
assured them that they should have. They had had more than one such
opportunity. The pledge which he had given had therefore been amply
redeemed; and he did not conceive that he was bound to abstain longer
from exercising his undoubted prerogative. But, though it could hardly
be denied that he had literally fulfilled his promise, the general
opinion was that such a promise ought to have been more than literally
fulfilled. If his Parliament, overwhelmed with business which could not
be postponed without danger to his throne and to his person, had been
forced to defer, year after year, the consideration of so large and
complex a question as that of the Irish forfeitures, it ill became
him to take advantage of such a laches with the eagerness of a shrewd
attorney. Many persons, therefore, who were sincerely attached to his
government, and who on principle disapproved of resumptions, thought the
case of these forfeitures an exception to the general rule.

The Commons had at the close of the last session tacked to the Land Tax
Bill a clause impowering seven Commissioners, who were designated by
name, to take account of the Irish forfeitures; and the Lords and the
King, afraid of losing the Land Tax Bill, had reluctantly consented to
this clause. During the recess, the commissioners had visited Ireland.
They had since returned to England. Their report was soon laid before
both Houses. By the Tories, and by their allies the republicans, it was
eagerly hailed. It had, indeed, been framed for the express purpose
of flattering and of inflaming them. Three of the commissioners had
strongly objected to some passages as indecorous, and even calumnious;
but the other four had overruled every objection. Of the four the chief
was Trenchard. He was by calling a pamphleteer, and seems not to have
been aware that the sharpness of style and of temper which may be
tolerated in a pamphlet is inexcusable in a state paper. He was certain
that he should be protected and rewarded by the party to which he owed
his appointment, and was delighted to have it in his power to publish,
with perfect security and with a semblance of official authority, bitter
reflections on King and ministry, Dutch favourites, French refugees, and
Irish Papists. The consequence was that only four names were subscribed
to the report. The three dissentients presented a separate memorial. As
to the main facts, however, there was little or no dispute. It appeared
that more than a million of Irish acres, or about seventeen
hundred thousand English acres, an area equal to that of Middlesex,
Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire
together, had been forfeited during the late troubles. But of the
value of this large territory very different estimates were formed.
The commissioners acknowledged that they could obtain no certain
information. In the absence of such information they conjectured the
annual rent to be about two hundred thousand pounds, and the fee simple
to be worth thirteen years' purchase, that is to say, about two millions
six hundred thousand pounds. They seem not to have been aware that much
of the land had been let very low on perpetual leases, and that much was
burdened with mortgages. A contemporary writer, who was evidently well
acquainted with Ireland, asserted that the authors of the report had
valued the forfeited property in Carlow at six times the real market
price, and that the two million six hundred thousand pounds, of which
they talked, would be found to shrink to about half a million, which, as
the exchanges then stood between Dublin and London, would have dwindled
to four hundred thousand pounds by the time that it reached the English
Exchequer. It was subsequently proved, beyond all dispute, that this
estimate was very much nearer the truth than that which had been formed
by Trenchard and Trenchard's colleagues.

Of the seventeen hundred thousand acres which had been forfeited, above
a fourth part had been restored to the ancient proprietors in conformity
with the civil articles of the treaty of Limerick. About one seventh
of the remaining three fourths had been given back to unhappy families,
which, though they could not plead the letter of the treaty, had been
thought fit objects of clemency. The rest had been bestowed, partly on
persons whose seances merited all and more than all that they obtained,
but chiefly on the King's personal friends. Romney had obtained a
considerable share of the royal bounty. But of all the grants the
largest was to Woodstock, the eldest son of Portland; the next was to
Albemarle. An admirer of William cannot relate without pain that he
divided between these two foreigners an extent of country larger than
Hertfordshire.

This fact, simply reported, would have sufficed to excite a strong
feeling of indignation in a House of Commons less irritable and
querulous than that which then sate at Westminster. But Trenchard and
his confederates were not content with simply reporting the fact. They
employed all their skill to inflame the passions of the majority. They
at once applied goads to its anger and held out baits to its cupidity.

They censured that part of William's conduct which deserved high
praise even more severely than that part of his conduct for which it is
impossible to set up any defence. They told the Parliament that the old
proprietors of the soil had been treated with pernicious indulgence;
that the capitulation of Limerick had been construed in a manner far
too favourable to the conquered race; and that the King had suffered his
compassion to lead him into the error of showing indulgence to many who
could not pretend that they were within the terms of the capitulation.
Even now, after the lapse of eight years, it might be possible, by
instituting a severe inquisition, and by giving proper encouragement to
informers, to prove that many Papists, who were still permitted to enjoy
their estates, had taken the side of James during the civil war. There
would thus be a new and plentiful harvest of confiscations. The four
bitterly complained that their task had been made more difficult by
the hostility of persons who held office in Ireland, and by the secret
influence of great men who were interested in concealing the truth.
These grave charges were made in general terms. No name was mentioned;
no fact was specified; no evidence was tendered.

Had the report stopped here, those who drew it up might justly have
been blamed for the unfair and ill natured manner in which they had
discharged their functions; but they could not have been accused of
usurping functions which did not belong to them for the purpose of
insulting the Sovereign and exasperating the nation. But these men
well knew in what way and for what purpose they might safely venture to
exceed their commission. The Act of Parliament from which they derived
their powers authorised them to report on estates forfeited during the
late troubles. It contained not a word which could be construed into an
authority to report on the old hereditary domain of the Crown. With that
domain they had as little to do as with the seignorage levied on tin
in the Duchy of Cornwall, or with the church patronage of the Duchy of
Lancaster. But they had discovered that a part of that domain had been
alienated by a grant which they could not deny themselves the pleasure
of publishing to the world. It was indeed an unfortunate grant, a grant
which could not be brought to light without much mischief and much
scandal. It was long since William had ceased to be the lover of
Elisabeth Villiers, long since he had asked her counsel or listened to
her fascinating conversation except in the presence of other persons.
She had been some years married to George Hamilton, a soldier who had
distinguished himself by his courage in Ireland and Flanders, and who
probably held the courtier like doctrine that a lady is not dishonoured
by having been the paramour of a king. William was well pleased with the
marriage, bestowed on the wife a portion of the old Crown property in
Ireland, and created the husband a peer of Scotland by the title of
Earl of Orkney. Assuredly William would not have raised his character by
abandoning to poverty a woman whom he had loved, though with a criminal
love. He was undoubtedly bound, as a man of humanity and honour, to
provide liberally for her; but he should have provided for her rather
by saving from his civil list than by alienating his hereditary revenue.
The four malecontent commissioners rejoiced with spiteful joy over this
discovery. It was in vain that the other three represented that the
grant to Lady Orkney was one with which they had nothing to do, and
that, if they went out of their way to hold it up to obloquy, they might
be justly said to fly in the King's face. "To fly in the King's face! "
said one of the majority; "our business is to fly in the King's face. We
were sent here to fly in the King's face. " With this patriotic object a
paragraph about Lady Orkney's grant was added to the report, a paragraph
too in which the value of that grant was so monstrously exaggerated that
William appeared to have surpassed the profligate extravagance of
his uncle Charles. The estate bestowed on the countess was valued at
twenty-four thousand pounds a year. The truth seems to be that the
income which she derived from the royal bounty, after making allowance
for incumbrances and for the rate of exchange, was about four thousand
pounds.

The success of the report was complete. The nation and its
representatives hated taxes, hated foreign favourites, and hated Irish
Papists; and here was a document which held out the hope that England
might, at the expense of foreign courtiers and of popish Celts, be
relieved from a great load of taxes. Many, both within and without
the walls of Parliament, gave entire faith to the estimate which the
commissioners had formed by a wild guess, in the absence of trustworthy
information. They gave entire faith also to the prediction that a strict
inquiry would detect many traitors who had hitherto been permitted to
escape with impunity, and that a large addition would thus be made
to the extensive territory which had already been confiscated. It was
popularly said that, if vigorous measures were taken, the gain to the
kingdom would be not less than three hundred thousand pounds a year; and
almost the whole of this sum, a sum more than sufficient to defray the
whole charge of such an army as the Commons were disposed to keep up
in time of peace, would be raised by simply taking away what had been
unjustifiably given to Dutchmen, who would still retain immense wealth
taken out of English pockets, or unjustifiably left to Irishmen,
who thought it at once the most pleasant and the most pious of all
employments to cut English throats. The Lower House went to work with
the double eagerness of rapacity and of animosity. As soon as the report
of the four and the protest of the three had been laid on the table
and read by the clerk, it was resolved that a Resumption Bill should
be brought in. It was then resolved, in opposition to the plainest
principles of justice, that no petition from any person who might think
himself aggrieved by this bill should ever be received. It was necessary
to consider how the commissioners should be remunerated for their
services; and this question was decided with impudent injustice. It
was determined that the commissioners who had signed the report should
receive a thousand pounds each. But a large party thought that the
dissentient three deserved no recompense; and two of them were merely
allowed what was thought sufficient to cover the expense of their
journey to Ireland. This was nothing less than to give notice to every
man who should ever be employed in any similar inquiry that, if he
wished to be paid, he must report what would please the assembly which
held the purse of the state. In truth the House was despotic, and was
fast contracting the vices of a despot. It was proud of its antipathy to
courtiers; and it was calling into existence a new set of courtiers who
would study all its humours, who would flatter all its weaknesses, who
would prophesy to it smooth things, and who would assuredly be, in no
respect, less greedy, less faithless, or less abject than the sycophants
who bow in the antechambers of kings.

Indeed the dissentient commissioners had worse evils to apprehend than
that of being left unremunerated. One of them, Sir Richard Levinz, had
mentioned in private to his friends some disrespectful expressions
which had been used by one of his colleagues about the King. What he
had mentioned in private was, not perhaps very discreetly, repeated
by Montague in the House. The predominant party eagerly seized the
opportunity of worrying both Montague and Levinz. A resolution implying
a severe censure on Montague was carried. Levinz was brought to the bar
and examined. The four were also in attendance. They protested that he
had misrepresented them. Trenchard declared that he had always spoken of
His Majesty as a subject ought to speak of an excellent sovereign, who
had been deceived by evil counsellors, and who would be grateful to
those who should bring the truth to his knowledge. He vehemently denied
that he had called the grant to Lady Orkney villainous. It was a
word that he never used, a word that never came out of the mouth of a
gentleman. These assertions will be estimated at the proper value by
those who are acquainted with Trenchard's pamphlets, pamphlets in which
the shocking word villainous will without difficulty be found, and which
are full of malignant reflections on William. [20] But the House was
determined not to believe Levinz. He was voted a calumniator, and sent
to the Tower, as an example to all who should be tempted to speak truth
which the Commons might not like to hear.

Meanwhile the bill had been brought in, and was proceeding easily. It
provided that all the property which had belonged to the Crown at the
time of the accession of James the Second, or which had been forfeited
to the Crown since that time, should be vested in trustees. These
trustees were named in the bill; and among them were the four
commissioners who had signed the report. All the Irish grants of William
were annulled. The legal rights of persons other than the grantees were
saved. But of those rights the trustees were to be judges, and judges
without appeal. A claimant who gave them the trouble of attending to
him, and could not make out his case, was to be heavily fined. Rewards
were offered to informers who should discover any property which was
liable to confiscation, and which had not yet been confiscated. Though
eight years had elapsed since an arm had been lifted up in the conquered
island against the domination of the Englishry, the unhappy children
of the soil, who had been suffered to live, submissive and obscure,
on their hereditary fields, were threatened with a new and severe
inquisition into old offences.

Objectionable as many parts of the bill undoubtedly were, nobody who
knew the House of Commons believed it to be possible to carry any
amendment. The King flattered himself that a motion for leaving at his
disposal a third part of the forfeitures would be favourably received.
There can be little doubt that a compromise would have been willingly
accepted twelve months earlier. But the report had made all compromise
impossible. William, however, was bent on trying the experiment; and
Vernon consented to go on what he considered as a forlorn hope. He made
his speech and his motion; but the reception which he met with was such
that he did not venture to demand a division. This feeble attempt
at obstruction only made the impetuous current chafe the more. Howe
immediately moved two resolutions; one attributing the load of debts and
taxes which lay on the nation to the Irish grants; the other censuring
all who had been concerned in advising or passing those grants. Nobody
was named; not because the majority was inclined to show any tenderness
to the Whig ministers, but because some of the most objectionable grants
had been sanctioned by the Board of Treasury when Godolphin and Seymour,
who had great influence with the country party, sate at that board.

Howe's two resolutions were laid before the King by the Speaker, in
whose train all the leaders of the opposition appeared at Kensington.
Even Seymour, with characteristic effrontery, showed himself there as
one of the chief authors of a vote which pronounced him guilty of a
breach of duty. William's answer was that he had thought himself bound
to reward out of the forfeited property those who had served him well,
and especially those who had borne a principal part in the reduction of
Ireland. The war, he said, had undoubtedly left behind it a heavy debt;
and he should be glad to see that debt reduced by just and effectual
means. This answer was but a bad one; and, in truth, it was
hardly possible for him to return a good one. He had done what was
indefensible; and, by attempting to defend himself, he made his case
worse. It was not true that the Irish forfeitures, or one fifth part of
them, had been granted to men who had distinguished themselves in the
Irish war; and it was not judicious to hint that those forfeitures could
not justly be applied to the discharge of the public debts. The Commons
murmured, and not altogether without reason.
"His Majesty tells us,"
they said, "that the debts fall to us and the forfeitures to him. We
are to make good out of the purses of Englishmen what was spent upon the
war; and he is to put into the purses of Dutchmen what was got by the
war. " When the House met again, Howe moved that whoever had advised
the King to return such an answer was an enemy to His Majesty and the
kingdom; and this resolution was carried with some slight modification.

To whatever criticism William's answer might be open, he had said one
thing which well deserved the attention of the House. A small part of
the forfeited property had been bestowed on men whose services to the
state well deserved a much larger recompense; and that part could not
be resumed without gross injustice and ingratitude. An estate of very
moderate value had been given, with the title of Earl of Athlone, to
Ginkell, whose skill and valour had brought the war in Ireland to a
triumphant close. Another estate had been given, with the title of Earl
of Galway, to Rouvigny, who, in the crisis of the decisive battle, at
the very moment when Saint Ruth was waving his hat, and exclaiming
that the English should be beaten back to Dublin, had, at the head of
a gallant body of horse, struggled through the morass, turned the left
wing of the Celtic army, and retrieved the day. But the predominant
faction, drunk with insolence and animosity, made no distinction between
courtiers who had been enriched by injudicious partiality and warriors
who had been sparingly rewarded for great exploits achieved in defence
of the liberties and the religion of our country. Athlone was a
Dutchman; Galway was a Frenchman; and it did not become a good
Englishman to say a word in favour of either.

Yet this was not the most flagrant injustice of which the Commons were
guilty. According to the plainest principles of common law and of common
sense, no man can forfeit any rights except those which he has. All the
donations which William had made he had made subject to this limitation.
But by this limitation the Commons were too angry and too rapacious to
be bound. They determined to vest in the trustees of the forfeited lands
an estate greater than had ever belonged to the forfeiting landholders.
Thus innocent persons were violently deprived of property which was
theirs by descent or by purchase, of property which had been strictly
respected by the King and by his grantees. No immunity was granted even
to men who had fought on the English side, even to men who had lined the
walls of Londonderry and rushed on the Irish guns at Newton Butler.

In some cases the Commons showed indulgence; but their indulgence was
not less unjustifiable, nor of less pernicious example, than their
severity. The ancient rule, a rule which is still strictly maintained,
and which cannot be relaxed without danger of boundless profusion and
shameless jobbery, is that whatever the Parliament grants shall be
granted to the Sovereign, and that no public bounty shall be bestowed on
any private person except by the Sovereign.

The Lower House now, contemptuously disregarding both principles and
precedents, took on itself to carve estates out of the forfeitures
for persons whom it was inclined to favour. To the Duke of Ormond
especially, who ranked among the Tories and was distinguished by his
dislike of the foreigners, marked partiality was shown. Some of his
friends, indeed, hoped that they should be able to insert in the bill
a clause bestowing on him all the confiscated estates in the county of
Tipperary. But they found that it would be prudent in them to content
themselves with conferring on him a boon smaller in amount, but equally
objectionable in principle. He had owed very large debts to persons who
had forfeited to the Crown all that belonged to them. Those debts were
therefore now due from him to the Crown. The House determined to make
him a present of the whole, that very House which would not consent
to leave a single acre to the general who had stormed Athlone, who had
gained the battle of Aghrim, who had entered Galway in triumph, and who
had received the submission of Limerick.

That a bill so violent, so unjust, and so unconstitutional would pass
the Lords without considerable alteration was hardly to be expected. The
ruling demagogues, therefore, resolved to join it with the bill which
granted to the Crown a land tax of two shillings in the pound for the
service of the next year, and thus to place the Upper House under the
necessity of either passing both bills together without the change of a
word, or rejecting both together, and leaving the public creditor unpaid
and the nation defenceless.

There was great indignation among the Peers. They were not indeed more
disposed than the Commons to approve of the manner in which the Irish
forfeitures had been granted away; for the antipathy to the foreigners,
strong as it was in the nation generally, was strongest in the highest
ranks. Old barons were angry at seeing themselves preceded by new
earls from Holland and Guelders. Garters, gold keys, white staves,
rangerships, which had been considered as peculiarly belonging to the
hereditary grandees of the realm, were now intercepted by aliens.
Every English nobleman felt that his chance of obtaining a share of
the favours of the Crown was seriously diminished by the competition
of Bentincks and Keppels, Auverquerques and Zulesteins. But, though the
riches and dignities heaped on the little knot of Dutch courtiers might
disgust him, the recent proceedings of the Commons could not but disgust
him still more. The authority, the respectability, the existence of his
order were threatened with destruction. Not only,--such were the
just complaints of the Peers,--not only are we to be deprived of that
coordinate legislative power to which we are, by the constitution of the
realm, entitled. We are not to be allowed even a suspensive veto. We are
not to dare to remonstrate, to suggest an amendment, to offer a reason,
to ask for an explanation. Whenever the other House has passed a bill
to which it is known that we have strong objections, that bill is to
be tacked to a bill of supply. If we alter it, we are told that we
are attacking the most sacred privilege of the representatives of the
people, and that we must either take the whole or reject the whole. If
we reject the whole, public credit is shaken; the Royal Exchange is in
confusion; the Bank stops payment; the army is disbanded; the fleet
is in mutiny; the island is left, without one regiment, without one
frigate, at the mercy of every enemy. The danger of throwing out a bill
of supply is doubtless great. Yet it may on the whole be better that we
should face that danger, once for all, than that we should consent to
be, what we are fast becoming, a body of no more importance than the
Convocation.

Animated by such feelings as these, a party in the Upper House was eager
to take the earliest opportunity of making a stand. On the fourth of
April, the second reading was moved. Near a hundred lords were present.
Somers, whose serene wisdom and persuasive eloquence had seldom been
more needed, was confined to his room by illness; and his place on the
woolsack was supplied by the Earl of Bridgewater. Several orators, both
Whig and Tory, objected to proceeding farther. But the chiefs of both
parties thought it better to try the almost hopeless experiment of
committing the bill and sending it back amended to the Commons. The
second reading was carried by seventy votes to twenty-three. It was
remarked that both Portland and Albemarle voted in the majority.

In the Committee and on the third reading several amendments were
proposed and carried. Wharton, the boldest and most active of the Whig
peers, and the Lord Privy Seal Lonsdale, one of the most moderate and
reasonable of the Tories, took the lead, and were strenuously supported
by the Lord President Pembroke, and by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who
seems on this occasion to have a little forgotten his habitual sobriety
and caution. Two natural sons of Charles the Second, Richmond and
Southampton, who had strong personal reasons for disliking resumption
bills, were zealous on the same side. No peer, however, as far as can
now be discovered, ventured to defend the way in which William had
disposed of his Irish domains. The provisions which annulled the grants
of those domains were left untouched. But the words of which the effect
was to vest in the parliamentary trustees property which had never
been forfeited to the King, and had never been given away by him, were
altered; and the clauses by which estates and sums of money were,
in defiance of constitutional principle and of immemorial practice,
bestowed on persons who were favourites of the Commons, were so far
modified as to be, in form, somewhat less exceptionable. The bill,
improved by these changes, was sent down by two judges to the Lower
House.

The Lower House was all in a flame. There was now no difference of
opinion there. Even those members who thought that the Resumption Bill
and the Land Tax Bill ought not to have been tacked together, yet felt
that, since those bills had been tacked together, it was impossible to
agree to the amendments made by the Lords without surrendering one
of the most precious privileges of the Commons. The amendments
were rejected without one dissentient voice. It was resolved that a
conference should be demanded; and the gentlemen who were to manage the
conference were instructed to say merely that the Upper House had no
right to alter a money bill; that the point had long been settled and
was too clear for argument; that they should leave the bill with the
Lords, and that they should leave with the Lords also the responsibility
of stopping the supplies which were necessary for the public service.
Several votes of menacing sound were passed at the same sitting. It was
Monday the eighth of April. Tuesday the ninth was allowed to the
other House for reflection and repentance. It was resolved that on the
Wednesday morning the question of the Irish forfeitures should again be
taken into consideration, and that every member who was in town should
be then in his place on peril of the highest displeasure of the House.
It was moved and carried that every Privy Councillor who had been
concerned in procuring or passing any exorbitant grant for his own
benefit had been guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour. Lest the
courtiers should flatter themselves that this was meant to be a mere
abstract proposition, it was ordered that a list of the members of
the Privy Council should be laid on the table. As it was thought not
improbable that the crisis might end in an appeal to the constituent
bodies, nothing was omitted which could excite out of doors a feeling
in favour of the bill. The Speaker was directed to print and publish the
report signed by the four Commissioners, not accompanied, as in common
justice it ought to have been, by the protest of the three dissentients,
but accompanied by several extracts from the journals which were thought
likely to produce an impression favourable to the House and unfavourable
to the Court. All these resolutions passed without any division,
and without, as far as appears, any debate. There was, indeed, much
speaking, but all on one side. Seymour, Harley, Howe, Harcourt, Shower,
Musgrave, declaimed, one after another, about the obstinacy of the other
House, the alarming state of the country, the dangers which threatened
the public peace and the public credit. If, it was said, none but
Englishmen sate in the Parliament and in the Council, we might hope that
they would relent at the thought of the calamities which impend over
England. But we have to deal with men who are not Englishmen, with men
who consider this country as their own only for evil, as their property,
not as their home; who, when they have gorged themselves with our
wealth, will, without one uneasy feeling, leave us sunk in bankruptcy,
distracted by faction, exposed without defence to invasion. "A new war,"
said one of these orators, "a new war, as long, as bloody, and as
costly as the last, would do less mischief than has been done by the
introduction of that batch of Dutchmen among the barons of the realm. "
Another was so absurd as to call on the House to declare that whoever
should advise a dissolution would be guilty of high treason. A third
gave utterance to a sentiment which it is difficult to understand how
any assembly of civilised and Christian men, even in a moment of strong
excitement, should have heard without horror. "They object to tacking;
do they? Let them take care that they do not provoke us to tack in
earnest. How would they like to have bills of supply with bills of
attainder tacked to them? " This atrocious threat, worthy of the tribune
of the French Convention in the worst days of the Jacobin tyranny,
seems to have passed unreprehended. It was meant--such at least was the
impression at the Dutch embassy--to intimidate Somers. He was
confined by illness. He had been unable to take any public part in the
proceedings of the Lords; and he had privately blamed them for engaging
in a conflict in which he justly thought that they could not be
victorious. Nevertheless, the Tory leaders hoped that they might be
able to direct against him the whole force of the storm which they had
raised. Seymour, in particular, encouraged by the wild and almost savage
temper of his hearers, harangued with rancorous violence against the
wisdom and the virtue which presented the strongest contrast to his own
turbulence, insolence, faithlessness, and rapacity. No doubt, he said,
the Lord Chancellor was a man of parts. Anybody might be glad to have
for counsel so acute and eloquent an advocate. But a very good advocate
might be a very bad minister; and, of all the ministers who had brought
the kingdom into difficulties, this plausible, fair-spoken person was
the most dangerous. Nor was the old reprobate ashamed to add that he was
afraid that his Lordship was no better than a Hobbist in religion.

After a long sitting the members separated; but they reassembled early
on the morning of the following day, Tuesday the ninth of April. A
conference was held; and Seymour, as chief manager for the Commons,
returned the bill and the amendments to the Peers in the manner which
had been prescribed to him. From the Painted Chamber he went back to the
Lower House, and reported what had passed. "If," he said, "I may venture
to judge by the looks and manner of their Lordships, all will go right. "
But within half an hour evil tidings came through the Court of Requests
and the lobbies. The Lords had divided on the question whether they
would adhere to their amendments. Forty-seven had voted for adhering,
and thirty-four for giving way. The House of Commons broke up with
gloomy looks, and in great agitation. All London looked forward to the
next day with painful forebodings. The general feeling was in favour
of the bill. It was rumoured that the majority which had determined to
stand by the amendments had been swollen by several prelates, by several
of the illegitimate sons of Charles the Second, and by several needy and
greedy courtiers. The cry in all the public places of resort was that
the nation would be ruined by the three B's, Bishops, Bastards, and
Beggars. On Wednesday the tenth, at length, the contest came to a
decisive issue. Both Houses were early crowded. The Lords demanded a
conference. It was held; and Pembroke delivered back to Seymour the
bill and the amendments, together with a paper containing a concise,
but luminous and forcible, exposition of the grounds on which the Lords
conceived themselves to be acting in a constitutional and strictly
defensive manner. This paper was read at the bar; but, whatever effect
it may now produce on a dispassionate student of history, it produced
none on the thick ranks of country gentlemen. It was instantly resolved
that the bill should again be sent back to the Lords with a peremptory
announcement that the Commons' determination was unalterable.

The Lords again took the amendments into consideration. During the last
forty-eight hours, great exertions had been made in various quarters to
avert a complete rupture between the Houses. The statesmen of the junto
were far too wise not to see that it would be madness to continue the
struggle longer. It was indeed necessary, unless the King and the Lords
were to be of as little weight in the State as in 1648, unless the
House of Commons was not merely to exercise a general control over the
government, but to be, as in the days of the Rump, itself the whole
government, the sole legislative chamber, the fountain from which were
to flow all those favours which had hitherto been in the gift of the
Crown, that a determined stand should be made. But, in order that such a
stand might be successful, the ground must be carefully selected; for
a defeat might be fatal. The Lords must wait for some occasion on
which their privileges would be bound up with the privileges of all
Englishmen, for some occasion on which the constituent bodies would,
if an appeal were made to them, disavow the acts of the representative
body; and this was not such an occasion. The enlightened and large
minded few considered tacking as a practice so pernicious that it
would be justified only by an emergency which would justify a resort to
physical force. But, in the many, tacking, when employed for a popular
end, excited little or no disapprobation. The public, which seldom
troubles itself with nice distinctions, could not be made to understand
that the question at issue was any other than this, whether a sum which
was vulgarly estimated at millions, and which undoubtedly amounted to
some hundreds of thousands, should be employed in paying the debts of
the state and alleviating the load of taxation, or in making Dutchmen,
who were already too rich, still richer. It was evident that on that
question the Lords could not hope to have the country with them,
and that, if a general election took place while that question was
unsettled, the new House of Commons would be even more mutinous and
impracticable than the present House. Somers, in his sick chamber,
had given this opinion. Orford had voted for the bill in every stage.
Montague, though no longer a minister, had obtained admission to the
royal closet, and had strongly represented to the King the dangers which
threatened the state. The King had at length consented to let it be
understood that he considered the passing of the bill as on the whole
the less of two great evils. It was soon clear that the temper of the
Peers had undergone a considerable alteration since the preceding
day. Scarcely any, indeed, changed sides. But not a few abstained from
voting. Wharton, who had at first spoken powerfully for the amendments,
left town for Newmarket. On the other hand, some Lords who had not yet
taken their part came down to give a healing vote. Among them were the
two persons to whom the education of the young heir apparent had
been entrusted, Marlborough and Burnet. Marlborough showed his usual
prudence. He had remained neutral while by taking a part he must have
offended either the House of Commons or the King. He took a part as soon
as he saw that it was possible to please both. Burnet, alarmed for the
public peace, was in a state of great excitement, and, as was usual with
him when in such a state, forgot dignity and decorum, called out "stuff"
in a very audible voice while a noble Lord was haranguing in favour of
the amendments, and was in great danger of being reprimanded at the bar
or delivered over to Black Rod. The motion on which the division took
place was that the House do adhere to the amendments. There were forty
contents and thirty-seven not contents. Proxies were called; and the
numbers were found to be exactly even. In the House of Lords there is no
casting vote. When the numbers are even, the non contents have it. The
motion to adhere had therefore been negatived. But this was not enough.
It was necessary that an affirmative resolution should be moved to the
effect that the House agreed to the bill without amendments; and, if the
numbers should again be equal, this motion would also be lost. It was
an anxious moment. Fortunately the Primate's heart failed him. He had
obstinately fought the battle down to the last stage. But he probably
felt that it was no light thing to take on himself, and to bring on his
order, the responsibility of throwing the whole kingdom into confusion.
He started up and hurried out of the House, beckoning to some of his
brethren. His brethren followed him with a prompt obedience, which,
serious as the crisis was, caused no small merriment. In consequence of
this defection, the motion to agree was carried by a majority of five.
Meanwhile the members of the other House had been impatiently waiting
for news, and had been alternately elated and depressed by the reports
which followed one another in rapid succession. At first it was
confidently expected that the Peers would yield; and there was general
good humour. Then came intelligence that the majority of the Lords
present had voted for adhering to the amendments. "I believe," so Vernon
wrote the next day, "I believe there was not one man in the House that
did not think the nation ruined. " The lobbies were cleared; the back
doors were locked; the keys were laid on the table; the Serjeant at Arms
was directed to take his post at the front door, and to suffer no member
to withdraw. An awful interval followed, during which the angry passions
of the assembly seemed to be subdued by terror. Some of the leaders
of the opposition, men of grave character and of large property, stood
aghast at finding that they were engaged,--they scarcely knew how,--in
a conflict such as they had not at all expected, in a conflict in which
they could be victorious only at the expense of the peace and order of
society. Even Seymour was sobered by the greatness and nearness of the
danger. Even Howe thought it advisable to hold conciliatory language. It
was no time, he said, for wrangling. Court party and country party were
Englishmen alike. Their duty was to forget all past grievances, and to
cooperate heartily for the purpose of saving the country.

In a moment all was changed. A message from the Lords was announced.
It was a message which lightened many heavy hearts. The bill had been
passed without amendments.

The leading malecontents, who, a few minutes before, scared by finding
that their violence had brought on a crisis for which they were not
prepared, had talked about the duty of mutual forgiveness and close
union, instantly became again as rancorous as ever. One danger, they
said, was over. So far well. But it was the duty of the representatives
of the people to take such steps as might make it impossible that there
should ever again be such danger. Every adviser of the Crown, who had
been concerned in the procuring or passing of any exorbitant grant,
ought to be excluded from all access to the royal ear. A list of the
privy councillors, furnished in conformity with the order made two
days before, was on the table. That list the clerk was ordered to read.
Prince George of Denmark and the Archbishop of Canterbury passed without
remark. But, as soon as the Chancellor's name had been pronounced, the
rage of his enemies broke forth. Twice already, in the course of that
stormy session, they had attempted to ruin his fame and his fortunes;
and twice his innocence and his calm fortitude had confounded all their
politics. Perhaps, in the state of excitement to which the House had
been wrought up, a third attack on him might be successful. Orator
after orator declaimed against him. He was the great offender. He was
responsible for all the grievances of which the nation complained.
He had obtained exorbitant grants for himself. He had defended the
exorbitant grants obtained by others. He had not, indeed, been able, in
the late debates, to raise his own voice against the just demands of the
nation. But it might well be suspected that he had in secret prompted
the ungracious answer of the King and encouraged the pertinacious
resistance of the Lords. Sir John Levison Gower, a noisy and acrimonious
Tory, called for impeachment. But Musgrave, an abler and more
experienced politician, saw that, if the imputations which the
opposition had been in the habit of throwing on the Chancellor were
exhibited with the precision of a legal charge, their futility would
excite universal derision, and thought it more expedient to move that
the House should, without assigning any reason, request the King to
remove Lord Somers from His Majesty's counsels and presence for ever.
Cowper defended his persecuted friend with great eloquence and effect;
and he was warmly supported by many members who had been zealous for the
resumption of the Irish grants. Only a hundred and six members went into
the lobby with Musgrave; a hundred and sixty-seven voted against him.
Such a division, in such a House of Commons, and on such a day, is
sufficient evidence of the respect which the great qualities of Somers
had extorted even from his political enemies.

The clerk then went on with the list. The Lord President and the Lord
Privy Seal, who were well known to have stood up strongly for the
privileges of the Lords, were reviled by some angry members; but no
motion was made against either. And soon the Tories became uneasy in
their turn; for the name of the Duke of Leeds was read. He was one of
themselves. They were very unwilling to put a stigma on him. Yet how
could they, just after declaiming against the Chancellor for accepting
a very moderate and well earned provision, undertake the defence of
a statesman who had, out of grants, pardons and bribes, accumulated
a princely fortune? There was actually on the table evidence that His
Grace was receiving from the bounty of the Crown more than thrice as
much as had been bestowed on Somers; and nobody could doubt that His
Grace's secret gains had very far exceeded those of which there was
evidence on the table. It was accordingly moved that the House, which
had indeed been sitting massy hours, should adjourn. The motion was
lost; but neither party was disposed to move that the consideration of
the list should be resumed. It was however resolved, without a division,
that an address should be presented to the King, requesting that no
person not a native of his dominions, Prince George excepted, might
be admitted to the Privy Council either of England or of Ireland. The
evening was now far spent. The candles had been some time lighted;
and the House rose. So ended one of the most anxious, turbulent, and
variously eventful days in the long Parliamentary History of England.

What the morrow would have produced if time had been allowed for a
renewal of hostilities can only be guessed.