1782.

Deriving new hopes from these resolutions and the spirit they indicated, Appendix. Mr. Grattan moved an address to the King, declaratory of the rights of Ireland Adolphus' to an independent Legislature, notwithstanding the power of control assumed Hist.Geo.3. by the Parliament of England; but his motion was negatived, as was another Feb. and for a Bill to quiet the proprietors of estates in Ireland under British Acts of March. Parliament. As this measure tended also to affirm that Great Britain had no right to legislate for Ireland, Mr. Yelverton, as a middle course, or temperate expedient, procured, by the concurrence of all parties, an Act for making several laws passed in Great Britain, and affecting Ireland, Acts of the Irish Parliament. At this period the struggle for power in England terminated in the recall of the Earl of Carlisle, who had held the Vice-royalty since December 1780.

Motion of

tish Parlia.

The Easter recess afforded Ministers leisure to arrange the affairs of their 8th April. departments, and procure the re-election of such as were Members of the Lower Mr. Eden House. On the meeting of Parliament, Colonel Luttrell introduced the affairs in the Briof Ireland, by stating the prevailing discontents, and the desire of Ministers to ment reremove them, and requiring from Mr. Eden, who was a Member of the House specting of Commons in Ireland, and had filled the situation of principal Secretary to Lord Carlisle, an explanation of the affairs of that kingdom.

Mr. Eden readily entered on the task, describing the conduct of Government and opposition for the two last years, and descanting on the valour, loyalty, and popularity of the volunteers, whose desires and sentiments were the desires and sentiments of all Ireland. The declaration of rights, so unanimously and ardently cherished, could no longer be opposed with success; the attempt would be as vain as to make the River Thames flow up Highgate Hill. He did not believe the Irish would abuse the advantages they might obtain, and they would be restrained from adopting measures injurious to England, since the King, with the advice of a responsible Cabinet, must sanction all their acts. Besides the declaration of rights, the volunteers, or, in another word, Ireland, had called for a habeas corpus, and obtained it; a Bill for making commissions of Judges quamdiu bene se gesserint, demanded by them, was in its progress through Parliament; the required alteration of the Mutiny Act might easily be granted, and a modification of Poyning's law, which would satisfy the people, could not be dangerous to England. He then moved for leave to bring in a Bill " Repealing so much of the Act of the 6th George I. as asserted a right in the King and Parliament of Great Britain to make laws binding the Kingdom and People of Ireland." He did not wish to be precipitate; but the recess of the Irish Parliament would terminate in eight days, and Mr. Grattan would then renew and carry his motion for a declaration of rights. It would surely then be advisable to anticipate the wishes of the people, to afford them a pledge of the sincerity of England, a security for the permanency of the constitution, and of that trade they were so anxious to preserve.

Three Members, all natives of Ireland, rose to second Mr. Eden's motion; but Mr. Fox declaimed with indignation against the indecent hurry of bringing it forward on the first appearance of the new Ministry in Parliament, before they had time to make arrangements, or digest measures more effectual and important than a little partial repeal, proposed only to acquire a small portion of popularity. Had the late Ministry displayed but a moderate share of that alertness which now so much misbecame the mover, England had not been involved in her present difficulties. Moderate concession granted to temperate requests would have prevented those haughty claims which would wrench the kingdom of Ireland from the legislation of Great Britain; but the nation was now reduced to abject unconditional submission. He wished Mr. Eden to withdraw his motion; which was agreed to after a debate, in which many reflections were made on the harsh manner of notifying Lord Carlisle's recall,

F

Ireland.

Appendix. and his removal from the Lord Lieutenantcy of the East Riding of Yorkshire, which Ministers had restored to Lord Carmarthen.

Adolphus'
Hist.Geo.3.

9th April.

The next day Mr. Fox submitted to Parliament a message from the King, 1782. expressing concern at the discontents and jealousies of Ireland, and recomKing's mending to the serious consideration of the House the means of satisfactory message. adjustment. In moving the address on this message, Mr. Fox declared the resolution of Ministers to act effectually, and not to patch up a temporary cessation of claims, leaving to their successors the dangers of an unsettled constitution. The pretensions of the Irish Parliament and people, comprehended not only commercial rights and privileges, but legislative powers and royalty. The hasty step proposed by Mr. Eden would be unwise and impolitic. Time must be allowed for deliberation, and the acquisition of perfect information, which Ministers would faithfully submit to Parliament, hoping that the happy, speedy, and permanent conclusion of so important an affair, would be forwarded by all the ability, zeal, affection, and honesty of both kingdoms. The address was voted without opposition; as was a similar testimony of respect from the Upper House, on the motion of Lord Shelburne.

11th.

16th April. Declara. tion of

ted by the liament.

celebrated

speech.

The speeches of both Secretaries of State were profuse in general acknowledgments toward the Irish, with a reserve of due consideration for the dignity of Great Britain. Their declarations were involved in studied mystery; but it appeared from the observations of Mr. Fox that the large concessions recommended by Mr. Eden were not intended to be made.

Any hesitation or variety of sentiment which might have been entertained in the British Cabinet was, however abruptly terminated by the decision of the rights vo- Irish House of Commons, where Mr. Grattan, as Mr. Eden had predicted, moved Irish Par- an address to the throne, containing a full and explicit declaration of the rights of Ireland as claimed by the people and the delegates of the volunteers. His Grattan's speech was uncommonly fervid: he remembered Ireland, he said, when she was a child, he had beheld her progress from injuries to arms, from arms to liberty. The Irish were no longer afraid of the French, nor of any nation, nor of any minister. If men turned their eyes to the rest of Europe, they found the ancient spirit expired, liberty ceded, or empire lost; nations subsisting on the memory of past glory, and guarded by mercenary armies. But Ireland, quitting such examples, had become a model to them; she had excelled modern, and equalled ancient Europe. The meeting of military delegates at Dungannon was a great event, an original measure; and like all original measures, matter of surprise till it became matter of admiration. He compared it to the English Convention Parliament, or the assembly of Barons at Runnymead; all were original transactions not flowing from precedent, but containing in themselves precedent and principle. All great constitutional questions had been lost, the public had been lost, had they depended only on Parliament: but they had fallen into the hands of the people, and by the people would be preserved. The Irish volunteers were associated for the preservation of the laws, but the claims of the British Parliament were subversive of all law. The volunteers had supported the rights of the Irish Parliament against those temporary trustees who would have relinquished them. But England had no reason to fear the Irish volunteers; they would die for England and her majestic race of men. Allied by liberty as well as allegiance, the two nations formed a constitutional confederacy; the perpetual annexation of the Crown was one great bond, but liberty was a still greater. It would be easy to find a King, but impossible for the Irish to find a nation who could communicate to them a great charter, save only England. This made England a natural connexion; and every true Irishman would exclaim-Liberty with England-but-at all events -Liberty !*

His reward.

The motion was carried without a division, though not without debate; and the gratitude of the nation was shewn toward the popular orator, by a Parlia* See report of this speech in the Remembrancer, vol. xiv. p. 18.

mentary grant of fifty thousand pounds, for the purpose of purchasing an estate, Appendix. and erecting a mansion.

Adolphus'

1782.

quent pro

tish Par

Instructed by these resolves, and by the evident determination throughout Hist.Geo.3. the country to support them to all extremities, Ministers no longer hesitated 17th May. respecting the quality or mode of concession. Mr. Fox, in a committee of the Consewhole House, expatiated on the claims of Ireland, allowing them to be founded ceedings in justice, and such as he, while out of office, had always maintained. Ireland in the Brihad clearly and plainly stated her wants; he should be as plain; and though liament. perhaps he might have been better pleased with a different mode of asking, still he would meet her on her own terms. Whatever blame might be discovered in the course of the business, he imputed to the late administration, and concluded by moving "for an Act repealing that of the 6th of George I. for securing the dependence of Ireland."

Mr. Thomas Pitt seconded the motion, and members of all parties concurred in applauding it; Lord Beauchamp alone expressed a doubt that the repeal, leaving the question of right undecided, would not satisfy the Irish nation. The motion passed without a division, as did two others, one for an address to the King, praying the adoption of measures for rendering the connexion between the two kingdoms solid and permanent; and another declaring the interests of both inseparable.

The proceedings in the Upper House were nearly similar, and no division 17th May. arose. Lord Loughborough, however, pointed out several inconveniences which might possibly ensue from the extensive construction of the resolutions, and recommended some delay, for the sake of preparation, and to avoid that precipitancy which would seem to result from fear.

The Repealing Act passed both Houses in general silence. Its reception 11th and in Ireland justified, in some degree, Lord Beauchamp's anticipation: for Mr. 14th June. Flood, by maintaining that the concession was insufficient, inasmuch as the principle on which the Act of George I. was founded, was not renounced, wrested from Mr. Grattan, who asserted the contrary, a portion of his popularity.* The Irish Parliament, however, showed great satisfaction at the 27th Jnne. acquisition, and voted addresses of thanks, and a hundred thousand pounds, for a levy of twenty thousand seamen for the British navy.

Efforts for

Contract

ors' bill.

In prosecution of another avowed object, the limitation of influence, the 8th April. popular measures presented in former sessions were revived. The Bill for ex- limiting cluding contractors was in a committee before the expulsion of the late admi- influence. nistration; it was now amended and recommitted, and passed the House of Commons with inconsiderable opposition. In the Lords, the principle was strenuously, and with great force of argument, opposed by the Lord Chancellor and Lord Mansfield. In the committee, Lord Ashburton successfully proposed an amendment, exempting from the operation of the Bill those who made contracts for the produce of their own estates; but the House of Com- 24th and mons disagreed, and the Bill passed in its original form.

27th May.

Revenue

With equal eagerness, the Bill for preventing revenue officers from voting 8th to 25th in Parliamentary elections was pressed in the House. It was strenuously, April. though unsuccessfully opposed in the Commons; but a rider was added to pre- officers' vent its extending to those who held places for life; they, it was argued, could bill. not be under the dominion of influence. On the third reading in the Upper 3d June. House, Lord Mansfield made an able and eloquent speech against the principle of the Bill; he was answered by the Bishop of Peterborough, and the Marquis of Rockingham, who declared his situation as First Lord of the Treasury would be extremely uneasy if the Bill was rejected. In seventy boroughs, he said, the election depended chiefly on revenue officers. Nearly twelve thousand of these persons created by the late administration, possessed votes in other places; and he could not without remorse subject them, by his influence, to the necessity, or at least the imputation of voting against the dictates of gratitude and their * See Reports of the debate on this subject. Remembrancer, vol. xiv. pp. 307, 319.

Appendix. consciences. This curious argument, which implied that unless the voters Adolphus' were deprived of the power of doing wrong, the Minister could not refrain from compelling them, terminated the debate, and the Bill passed.*

Hist.Geo.3.

1782.

3d May

Resolution respecting

the Mid

dlesex election

Another sacrifice to popularity, in the shape of reform, was the expunction from the journals of the resolution of the 17th of February, 1769, respecting the Middlesex election; the motion being made and seconded by Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Byng, Members for the County. Mr. Fox opposed it on the principle that the House of Commons ought, for the advantage of the people, to have the rescinded. privilege of expelling those whom they, as representatives, thought unworthy of a seat, and the privilege was too valuable to be surrendered. In support of this doctrine, he framed an extraordinary case. Suppose," he said, "the Bill for excluding contractors had been rejected by the House of Lords, and the House of Commons had come to a resolution of their own, that no person holding a contract should have a seat; the contractors now in Parliament would be expelled, but might be re-elected; and then, if the inherent privilege did not impede it, those very men whom the House had declared improper to sit, must remain amongst them." He acknowledged himself, however, indifferent to the event of the motion, as the proceedings against the magistrates of London had demonstrated, that whatever privileges the House might possess, they could not be exercised in opposition to the voice of the people.

18th Feb.

Disfran

chisement

lade.

Mr. Dundas, although on the same side, warmly reprobated the unconstitutional doctrines of Mr. Fox; and the motion was carried by a great majority.† Elated with this final triumph, after an annual defeat, Mr. Wilkes published a letter expressive of his raptures, and his resolution to persevere in the cause of freedom and parliamentary reform: but few people now participated his raptures; the question had ceased to be interesting, and the popularity attached to the name of Wilkes had been repeatedly transferred to others, and was in a state of daily fluctuation.

Early in the session, a Bill was introduced for disfranchising the borough of Cricklade. A committee on the petition of an unsuccessful candidate, reported of Crick- that great abuses had been committed; and Sir Harbord Harbord affirmed, that out of two hundred and forty voters, eighty-three had already been convicted of bribery, and actions for the same offence were pending against forty-three 13th Mar. others. In the House of Commons the disfranchisement was opposed with considerable ability, but without effect. It was justified on the same principles as that of the electors of New Shoreham. "When that Bill was shown to the late Earl of Chatham," said Mr. Montague, "he expressed his joy at finding the borough removed from Bengal to its ancient situation in the county of Sussex."-If the present were rejected, Cricklade would certainly be removed from Wiltshire to the East Indies.

3d May.

The progress of the Bill through the House of Lords was rendered remarkable by the zeal and ability with which the Lord Chancellor, Lord Mansfield, and Lord Loughborough opposed, and Lords Grantly and Ashburton supported it. The latter lords found a powerful auxiliary, or rather an able leader, in the Duke of Richmond; but his Grace, in the course of debate, reproached the Lord Chancellor with indiscriminately resisting every measure of regulation or improvement. Lord Fortescue, enlarging on the same topic, bewailed the degraded dignity of the House, lowered and tarnished by a profusion of lawyers. It was no longer a House of Peers, but a mere court of law, where all the solid, honourable principles of truth and justice were shamefully sacrificed to the low pettifogging chicanery and quibbles used in Westminster Hall. That once venerable, dignified, and august assembly, resembled a meeting of attorneys in a Cornish court, acting as barristers. The learned lord on the woolsack seemed fraught with nothing but contradictions, and law subtleties and distinctions, and all that.

* 34 to 18. There were several divisions in the House of Commons, in the proportion of 7 or 8 to 1. + 115 to 47.

1782.

Such remarks obtained no answer, and did not prevent the exertions of Appendix. opposition; evidence was called and counsel heard against the Bill; when the Adolphus' Duke of Richmond again gave vent to his indignation against what he termed Hist.Geo.3. the professional phalanx. Attacked by lawyers above the bar, and interrupted 8th May. by lawyers below, he considered himself unequal to the contest; and therefore obtained the aid of counsel in support of the Bill, which finally passed, great majorities in its favor appearing on every division.*

pelling the

A more important and beneficial law was introduced under the influence of Bill comLord Shelburne, for compelling future holders of patent places in the colonies holders of or plantations, to reside, and act in their offices.

offices to

reside.

and public

a reform of

Hitherto all the reforms supported by Administration had been sanctioned Exertions by the concurrence of Parliament. One remained on which the public felt of clubs considerably interested, from the great pains which had been employed to pro- bodies for cure, in all popular assemblies, votes and resolutions in its favour, and to Parliaexhibit it to the people as a measure on which their freedom and prosperity ment. depended: this was a reform in the representative system of the House of Commons.

April,

Measures for enforcing this reform were systematically adopted in the March and preceding year, by the delegates of the associated or petitioning bodies, com- pr. prising pretended representatives of the counties of York, Surrey, Hertford, Huntingdon, Middlesex, Essex, Kent, Devon, and Nottingham, and the city of Westminster. They resolved, that the public evils were produced by the gross inadequacy in parliamentary representation, which the addition of a hundred county members in due proportions would tend to correct. The Septennial Act was declared a violation of the rights of the people, which impaired the constitutional connexion between them and their representatives, and exposed Parliament to great unconstitutional influence: and its repeal would form a strong barrier against the inroads of parliamentary corruption, and the alarming influence of the Crown. These resolves were enforced by addresses to the electors of Great Britain, urging the necessity of reform, by statements deduced from history, and arguments founded on right and policy.† The livery of London in a Common-hall, resolved, that the inequality of repre- 1782. sentation, and the corrupt state of Parliament, had produced the war, the dismemberment of the empire, and all other grievances. The only adequate remedy would be found in re-establishing the constitutional share of the people in Government, and in a frequent election of representatives, according to ancient usage. They also established a corresponding committee. Against this meeting, however, a protest was signed by five of the Common-council.

31st Jan.

motion.

The cause, thus espoused by these committees and public bodies, was intro- 7th May, duced to Parliament by the brilliant talents of Mr. Pitt. In a speech of great Mr. Pitt's ability, he described the evils which had arisen, and might arise from the unequal representation. Some boroughs were under the command, and others in possession of the Treasury. The influence of Government was contested in others, not by the electors, but by some powerful individual assuming hereditary right. Some boroughs had no actual existence in property, population, trade, nor any weight in the political balance, except in the return of members; and others, in the lofty possession of English freedom, claimed no right but that of bringing their votes to market: they had no other market, no other property, no other stake in the country than the price of their votes. Such boroughs were the most dangerous of all. They never consulted the interests of the public, but offered their representation to the best purchaser: they were properly within the jurisdiction of the Carnatic; and it was a well-known fact, that the Nabob of Arcot had seven or eight members in that House. Foreign influence had ever been considered dangerous; and if the Nabobs of India could acquire such an influence, why might not a foreign power at enmity with * On the commitment, 13th May, the division was 47 to 22. See Remembrancer, vol. xiii. p. 193.

G