Delawar, [John West] Lord, 143, 640, 642, | Perry, Micajah, 110. Hardwicke, [Philip Yorke] Lord, 144, 152, Herbert, Henry Arthur, [afterwards Earl of Hervey, [John Hervey] Lord, 332, 646, 667, Ilay, [Archibald Campbell] Earl of, 285, 708, Limerick, Earl of, 448, 496, 532, 563. Lockwood, Richard, 11, 99. Lord Chancellor, see Hardwicke. Lovel, Lord, 231. Phillips, Mr. 428, 444, 460, 522, 611, 746, 895, Pitt, William, [created Viscount Pitt and Earl Pulteney, William, [created Earl of Bath, in Quarendon, Lord [afterwards Earl of Litch- Raymond, Lord, 594, 851. Ryder, Dudley, (Attorney General) 40, 69, Salisbury, Bishop of, (Dr. Benjamin Hoadley) Sandwich, Earl of, 601, 640, 1059, 1071, 1276, Sandys, Samuel, 37, 87, 130, 131, 164, 718, Selwyn, Major, 863. Somerset, Lord Noel [afterwards Duke of Southwell, Edward, 10, 47, 89. Strange, Lord, 732, 882, 999. Talbot, Lord, 248, 646, 662, 1209, 1268, 1334, Tracy, Robert, 40, 94. Viner, Mr. 60, 69, 96, 166, 172. Wade, General, 37. Lyttelton, George [created Lord Lyttelton in Wager, Sir Charles, 33, 71, 88, 96, 139, 140, 1757] 89, 91, 118, 517, 584. Malton, Earl of, 223. Montfort, [Henry Bromley] Lord, 839. Newcastle, [Thomas Holles] Duke of, 143, Onslow, Arthur, [the Speaker] 48, 126, 131, Oxford, [Edward Harley] Earl of, 1186. Pelham, Henry, 44, 64, 73, 118, 121, 125, 131, 141, 142, 458. Waller, Edmund, 953. Walpole, Sir Robert, [created in 1742, Earl of Orford] 35, 47, 54, 68, 85, 98, 100, 108, Walpole, Edward, 876. Westmoreland, [John Fane] Earl of, 849. Winchelsea, [Daniel Finch] Earl of, 153, 753, Winnington, Thomas, 42, 45, 46, 66, 75, 117, Wynn, Sir Watkin Williams, 361, 434, 854, Yonge, Sir William, 26, 41, 67, 74, 90, 92, Parliamentary History. 14 GEORGE THE SECOND, DEBATE in the Lords on the Place Bill.*] February 26, 1741. The order of the day being read for the second reading of a Bill entitled, An Act for the better securing the freedom of parliaments by limiting the number of officers in the House of Commons.' The said Bill was read a second time, and it being moved to commit the Bill, the same was objected to. After debate, the question was put, Whether the • From the SECKER Manuscript. Feb. 26. The Place Bill read a second time: Question, whether it shall be committed? Devonshire. This Bill is more calculated to keep the Commons from dependance than corruption. Passing it would be a censure upon the proceedings of parliament and our own Resolutions. A parliament of a different complection from the present, would be a great public harm. [Here he spoke in his own defence, against the imputation of being influenced by a place.] The power of the Commons hath increased, and taking away from any other branch of the legislature must increase theirs. Reasons against this Bill appear upon your Journals. Read 11th February, 1705. Talbot. Taking from the crown a power that may be indirectly used, is not destroying the constitutional dependance of the House. The Commons have often rejected this Bill. Now they pass it, when they are to seek the favour of their constituents. This they would not do if they thought it a reflection on themselves. In 52 counties which send 92 members, there are but 10 in employment. I am far from thinking it a right Bill in its present state: but make it so. Ilay. Read the act for securing the Protestant succession, in 1705. The Act read. N. C. 63. C. 44, of which bishops of Glocester, Oxford. [VOL. XII. ] said Bill shall be committed? It was resolved in the negative. Content 44. Not content 63.. The following Protest was thereupon enProtest on rejecting the Place Bill.] tered on the Journals: "Dissentient' Northampton, Shaftsbury, Stanhope, Clifton. 1. "Because we conceive, that our constitution itself points out, this Bill as one of its principal securities; a due poize and independency of the three several consti The Reason for this Bill is, that over great dependency of the Commons on the crown must be fatal, and places during pleasure have a tendency to create this. Therefore they may be too many. Therefore it may be useful to restrain them. Objection 1. Resentment or desire of places, may influence also. But may not this influence be counterbalanced by a restrained number of places? 2. It is taking away the people's liberty to chuse, and gentlemen's capacity to be chosen.. But this is done in many instances already. And may be done in more, if the public good require. That, therefore, is the only question. 3. It will be expected the Lords should lie under the same restraints. And if there appear the same reason, let them. If not, the case is not parallel. 4. If the Commons cannot have so many places, they will get all the good ones. But the rank and merit of the Lords will entitle them to their share. At least the liberties of the nation are of more importance than this. 5. It will be a security to the nation that persons in place will have an interest in securing the privileges of parliament. But this security is from persons in great places, who will still be in parliament; not from persons in small ones, whose influence can do no good, and whose votes, corruptly given, may do great harm. 6. There are not places enough left. Commit it then, and put in more. To say, as bath [B] 3] tuent parts of the supreme legislative been said on another occasion, that it hath been in effect committed already, is destroying the ancient and useful forms of proceeding in this House. 7. It condemns his majesty's administration. No. It is only a provision against future dangers. And if they are supposable ones, the speediest provision is the wisest. The better the administration is, the likelier this will be to pass. 8. It is altering the constitution. No. It is only carrying what hath been done somewhat farther. The increase of places is altering our constitution. And a balance must be found to that. | When the Evil is become very great, such a Bill will not pass. It hath now for once passed the Commons. If with a desire that it should pass here, why should it not? But doth any body think now, that the Commons expect great matters to themselves from this Bill, and want it to pass? And if they want the contrary, how are, we treated, and shall we consult our own honour by doing unpopular work for them? There is no instance of such complaisance on their side. And this amongst others would be a very wrong one on ours. majority of placemen meeting under the "2. Though we do not absolutely as- "3. Because, though it should be granted, that this Bill would have re strained in some degree the liberty of the electors, that objection has no weight upon this occasion; every law being, in some degree, a restraint upon the natural liberty of man, but yet justly enacted, wherever the good of the whole (which should be the object of every law) is promoted there. by; and we apprehend, that this restraint is of such a nature, that those only will be uneasy under it who intended to abuse the liberty. The votes of the electors of Great Britain, if unbiassed, would rarely concur in the choice of persons avowed creatures of a minister, known dependants having shewn us, that this seeming security is for the most part become ineffectual, there being very few instances of persons failing in such re-elections, though utter strangers to their electors. And it is natural to suppose, that, when the means of corrupting are greater, the success of the candidate recommending himself by corruption only will not be less. 5. Because we observe with concern, that a Bill of this nature has been already thrice rejected by this very House of Commons, and not been allowed to be com was proposed to extend; which, in our on a court, and utterly unknown to those who elect them. But if, in an age when luxury invites corruption, and corruption feeds luxury, there is too much reason to fear, that the people may be prevailed upon, in many places by a pecuniary influence, to give their votes to those whom their uninfluenced sentiments would reject with indignation or contempt; we think it necessary to lay this just and constitutional restraint upon the liberties of some, as the only means to preserve the liberties of all. By former acts of parliament, the electors are already debarred from elect-mitted, so as to have it known how far it ing persons in certain considerable employments: and in the Act for preserving our Constitution, by settling the crown upon the present royal family, it was enacted, That no person whatsoever in employ⚫ment should be capable of being chosen • a member of the House of Commons.' Such was then the spirit of liberty, that even this total exclusion could not be refused; nor could the repeal of it afterwards be obtained, without enacting a limitation of the number of placemen allowed to sit in the House of Commons, and a new election of every person who, whilst he was a member of that House, should accept of any employment under the crown; as likewise a total (we wish we could say an effectual) exclusion of all persons holding employments erected since the passing of that act. And there is no reason to doubt, but that the same spirit of precaution would, upon the same constitutional principles, have been carried much farther at that time, could it then have been foreseen or imagined, that the exclusion of some civil officers would have been rendered useless, by the introduction of so many military ones; and so many persons in employments, infinitely inferior both in rank and profit to those excluded by these several acts, could ever have been by any means elected into parliament. And indeed it seems to us highly incongruous, that inferior clerks and attendants of offices, who have not seats in the presence of their masters, should be admitted to have seats in the legislature, and therefore become the check and controul of their masters themselves. 4. "Because we do not apprehend that the freedom of parliament is now in the least secured, by the obligation laid upon all members of the House of Commons, who accept any employment under the crown, of being re-elected; experience only proceed, either from their conviction at last of the necessity of such a bill, of which they are surely the properest judges; or, in compliance with the almost univer sal instructions of their constituents, whose voice, we think, ought to have some weight even here; or lastly, to delude their constituents themselves, by tacitly consenting to what they were either told, or hoped, this House would refuse. And, in this case, we apprehend, that a confidence so injurious and dishonourable, ought to have been disappointed, from a just sense of the contempt thereby shewn of the credit, weight, and dignity, of this House. 6. "Because we think it particularly seasonable, so near the end of this parlia ment, to provide for the freedom and independency of the next: and as we consider this opportunity as the only one we are likely to have, for some years at least, to do it; it is with the greater concern that we see this Bill thus laid aside, rather by a division than a debate, and by numbers rather than arguments. But, however unsuccessful our endeavours have been for the future security of this constitution; however unavailing our desire of enquiring into past and present transactions; however fruitless our attempts to prevent future mismanagements, by a censure of the past, and the removal of the author of them; we have at least this comfort of transmitting our names to posterity', as dissenting from those measures, of which the present age sufficiently testifies its dislike, and of which the next may too probably feel the fatal consequences. (Signed) Abingdon, Bridgwater, Haversham, Macclesfield, Greenwich, Hereford, Aylesford, Warrington, Bruce, R. Litch. and Coventry, Carlisle, Talbot, Gower, Ward, Mansel, Cobham, Chesterfield, Masham, Halifax, Denbigh. For all the above Reasons except the last, Foley." Ordered, that the said Bill be rejected. Debate in the Commons on the Bill to prevent the Inconveniencies arising from the Insurance of Ships.*] February 27. A Bill to explain and amend so much of an Act, made in the 6th of king George 1, intituled, An Act for better securing certain powers and privileges, intended to be granted by his majesty, by two charters, for Assurance of Ships, and Merchandizes at sea; and for lending money upon Bottomry; and for restraining several extravagant and unwarrantable practices therein mentioned, as relates to the extravagant and unwarrantable practices therein mentioned, was read a second time, and gave rise to the following Debate: Sir John Barnard: Sir; there cannot be brought before this House any questions more difficult in themselves, more entangled with a multiplicity of relations, or more perplexed with an endless diversity of circumstances, than those which relate to commercial affairs; affairs on which the most experienced often disagree, and on which the most sagacious may deceive themselves with erroneous conjectures. There are no questions, Sir, which require so much personal knowledge of the subject to which they relate, nor is there any subject with which so few gentlemen in this House have had opportunities of being acquainted. There are no questions, Sir, which their variety of relations to different persons exposes to be so easily misrepresented without detection, nor any in which the opposition of particular interests, so much incites a false representation. In all these cases, deceit is easy, and there is a strong temptation to deceive. Nor are these questions, Sir, always perplexed by intentional fraud, or false assertions, of which they that utter them are themselves conscious. Those who deceive us, do not always suppress any truth of which they are convinced, or set facts before us in any other *From the Gentleman's Magazine: compiled by Dr. Johnson. light, than that in which themselves behold them; they for the most part err with an honest intention, and propagate no mistakes but those which they have themselves admitted. Of this kind, Sir, are doubtless the measures proposed in the Bill before us, which those by whom they are promoted, may easily think to be of benefit to the public, but which, I believe, will appear the result of imperfect views, and partial consideration. The great and fundamental error, Sir, of the patrons of this Bill, seems to be an opinion, that the practice of insuring is not known to other nations, nor can be carried on in any other place, and from this principle they deduce consequences, which, if they were inevitably certain, might easily influence us to an immediate approbation of the Bill, as necessary to secure our commerce, and distress our enemies. They conclude, Sir, with sufficient justness, that very few merchants would hazard their fortunes in long voyages or distant commerce, or expose themselves to the dangers of war, without security, which insurances afford them, and having persuaded themselves that such security is to be obtained from no other nation, they imagine that we might, by prohibiting it, confine all the foreign vessels. in their ports, and destroy by one resolution the trade of both our rivals and our enemies. That our East-Indian company may desire the ratification of this Bill, I cannot deny, because they might perhaps receive from it some temporary advantage by the short inconveniencies which those whom they consider as the enemies of their commerce would feel from it. They may desire it, because the experiment, if it fails, as it must, cannot injure them: and if it succeeds, may produce great advantages to them; they may wish it, because they will feel the immediate benefit, and the detriment will fall upon others. I shall not enquire whether our merchants are inclined to look with malevolence on all those who cultivate the same branches of commerce with themselves, though they have neither the violation of natural rights, nor the infringement of national treaties to complain of. I should be unwilling to suspect a British merchant, whose acquaintance with the con stitution of his own country ought to shew him the value of liberty, who ought to be above narrow schemes, by the knowledge which his profession enables him to |