committee. The only point carried was that which, as we have said, abolished the Board of Trade, by a majority, however, of only eight. By this Gibbon lost his post as a commissioner, and Cumberland, the dramatist, that of secretary to the board. Gibbon's income being but small, he retired to Lausanne in Switzerland, where he completed his great work, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The Board of Trade was ere long restored again. The other portions of Burke's great scheme occupied the house through March, April, and May, and then was got rid of by a manoeuvre in the committee, Burke declaring he would bring the measure forward again next session.

In the meantime, lord Shelburne had introduced his promised motion for a commission of accounts. This was to consist of members of both houses, who were neither in office nor possessed pensions. They were to examine the public expenditure; to inquire into the grant of all contracts, and their execution; and to consider what retrenchments could be made consistent with the public dignity and justice by abolishing useless offices. Lord Shelburne said that his object was not to weaken the proper administration of the government, but to increase it, by cutting off all these drains upon the public money, which, through undue influences operating on the two houses, had fastened themselves on the country, and were sapping its honour and its strength. He showed the salutary effect of such committees in former reigns. He was ably supported by the earl of Coventry and the duke of Grafton, who drew in melancholy colours the condition of the country; but he was boldly contradicted by the young earl of Chesterfield and by lord Mansfield and the chancellor Thurlow, who resorted to the usual cry, that there would be a violation of the constitution, the constitution being the most convenient of all words when there is any attack contemplated on the diseases and polypi of the constitution. The motion was negatived by one hundred and one votes against fifty-five.

North, however, by his standing majority of myrmidons, carried the bill through the house; and Sir Guy Carleton, late governer of Canada, and five others, were appointed commissioners. Thus the whole motion was in reality shelved.

Sir George Saville moved, that at least the names of all pensioners for life, and of all places held by patents, should be laid before the house; but North rushed to the rescue of those tender scions of aristocracy, who were hardy enough to solicit any amount of emolument in places or pensions, but too susceptible to be told of it. He said, "To expose the necessities of ancient and noble families to the prying eye of malignant curiosity; to hold up the man who has a pension, to the envy and detraction of him who hates him, because he has none; to prepare a feast for party writers, and furnish materials for magazines and newspapers, which would magnify and misrepresent every circumstance: these are the bad effects; but I know of no good ones that could result from such indiscriminate exposure, since the civil list money was granted freely, and without restriction or control, to the person of the king."

This was the kind of language by which, for a century, the most shameful grants of the public money to people who had never rendered, and never could render, the smallest service in return, was defended. True, the civil list was granted to the king, and, had he confined his expenses within it, the country would have been silent. But George was continually coming to the parliament for augmentations, and payment of debts, for the very purpose of feeding all these aristocratic incubi. North, who was at the same time losing America, and thus throwing the resources of the country to those who enabled him to keep his place and effect this ruin, was supported by Dundas, the lord advocate, and Wedderburn, the attorney-general, in artful speeches. Barré, justly provoked at the advocacy of corruption by these two Scotchmen, exclaimed, "That not a But the subject was not so easily disposed of. Colonel single Englishman dared to stand forth in defence of Barré, in the house of commons, only three days after the minister, that he had only two Scots!" This remark Burke introduced his great motion, declared that Burke's excited the nationality of the Scottish members, and there was measure did not go far enough; that Burke did not a great uproar. Lord Nugent, though an aristocrat himself, mean to interfere with the enormous pensions and overpaid could not help exclaiming, cynically, "There would be many places already in possession; and that he would himself lady Bridgets, lady Marys, and lady Jennys, who would be introduce a motion for a committee of accounts, to probe all much hurt at hearing their names entered on the proceedthese depths of corruption, and to examine into the army ings of the house as pensioners of the state." North moved extravagancies, which were excessive, and to him unan amendment, that the resolution should be restricted to such accountable. Lord North, so far from opposing this pensions only as were paid at the Exchequer, thus exemptmotion, declared his surprise that no one had thought of ing those upon the civil list, and this he carried at one introducing it before. That he was extremely anxious o'clock in the morning, though only by a majority of two. himself for the reduction of all needless expenditure. The A similar motion was, on the 10th of March, introduced opposition expressed their particular satisfaction; but they into the house of peers by the earl of Effingham, which was were rather too precipitate, for North, with a trickiness promptly negatived. In that debate, a great exposure was disgraceful in a British minister, made haste to get the made of the pauperised condition of the Scottish peerage, business into his own hands; and, on the 2nd of March, was the members of which almost entirely, with a vast tribe of ready with a bill of his own framing. The opposition were their needy relations, hung on place and the pension list lost in astonishment; and Barré denounced this perfidious like a whole hive of bees at a swarming. conduct in the minister in terms of a just indignation. The rancour which these revelations of the hordes of The whole opposition, who found themselves impudently out-high-bred parasites who were battening on the strength of witted, declared that the scheme, so far from being intended the country excited, became so intense that duels grew into to relieve the country, was meant to shield all the existing fashion. Mr. Fox had had to fight his man, and now lord abuses, and they accordingly resisted it to the utmost. Shelburne was called out. He had proposed

an address to

A.D. 1780.]

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243

Whilst these indignant sentiments were uttering, the petitions for economical reform were pouring in from all parts of the country in such numbers that the table of the house appeared buried under them. The house went into committee upon the subject, and then Dunning rose and introduced his famous motion for a resolution in these words :-" That it is the opinion of this committee that the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished."

his majesty to inquire whether he had been pleased to | vermin-the very "scum of the earth;" and Fox declared, dismiss two lord-lieutenants of counties on account of their that if soldiers were to be let loose on the constitutional conduct in parliament, and in his speech had commented meetings of the people, then all who went to such meetings strongly on a regiment having been given to a Mr. must go armed! Fullarton, the member for Plympton, who was a civilian, and had been secretary to the late lord Stormont, at Paris. Lord Shelburne had therefore styled him a commis, or mere clerk. For this, and for saying that men thus appointed-not for their fitness, but their subservience—would be as ready to lead their regiments against the people as against their enemies, Fullarton challenged Shelburne, and severely wounded him. The affair, coupled with that of Mr. Fox, excited a great sensation, both in and out of parliament. Sir James Lowther said, in the commons, that such practices would soon reduce the English parliament to the level of a Polish diet; but it was replied that a few such correctives would teach gentlemen to speak with better manners. Not a word was uttered as to the folly and wickedness of duelling in general; the day when that light should dawn upon the Christian mind was yet far off.

The affair of Mr., or colonel, Fullarton excited a strong spirit of jealousy against this and the other new regiments which had been raised chiefly by private gentlemen, who thus, however, obtained great influence with government, and were enabled to put in their friends as officers, and were, in return, ready to support ministers in their despotic conduct. Mr. John Chewe reproduced the bill of Mr. Dowdeswell, to disable revenue officers from voting at elections, which was at once rejected. Sir Philip Jennings Clerke then reproduced his bill, to exclude contractors from the house of commons, unless their contracts were obtained at a public bidding; this was suffered for appearance' sake to pass the house with very little opposition, but it was arrested in the peers by the law lords, at the head of whom were Mansfield and Thurlow, and thrown out.

In a debate on the army estimates and the new levies, which immediately followed, on the 5th of April, Sir Philip Jennings Clerke made some strong remarks on the new regiment of the Cinque Ports, which lord North had raised, and to which he had appointed his son as colonel. This cailed up lord North's son, who was in the house, and the discussion grew warm, drawing into it the regiments of Fullarton and colonel Holroyd, the friend of Gibbon. The colonels defended themselves with much fire, but the agitation of the question tended to throw still more light on the manner in which even ostensibly patriotic movements were made the engines of ministerial domination.

Dunning declaimed in language bold and unsparing, and expatiated at great length on the alarming influence of the crown, purchased by the lavish expenditure of the people's money, the people thus being made the instruments of their own slavery. He censured in stinging terms the treatment of the economical plans of Burke, the treacherous terms of approbation with which ministers had received them, and then had trodden on them piecemeal till they had left of them the merest shred. He trusted the nation would still resent this audacious mockery of reform-this insult to the most distinguished patriots. This was the way, he contended, that this administration had again and again acted; adding ridicule to oppression. He was followed by others, who also averred that it was by this corrupt influence, this lavish distribution of the money of the deluded people, that lord North had alone been able to maintain himself in power; a great truth when combined with the obtuse obstinacy of the king.

Sir Fletcher Norton, the speaker, seized the opportunity of the house being in committee, when he was at liberty to take part in debate, to wreak his own sense of injury on the ministers. The post of chief-justice had been held out to him as an inducement to accept the speaker's chair, but now the chief-justice De Grey was asked to retire in order that the attorney general, Wedderburn, might succeed him. This was too much for Norton. When Burke's resolutions were before the house in committee, he had upbraided North with this transaction, and North had coolly replied that he was not bound by the promises of his predecessor. Wedderburn, too, incensed at the mention of his name, poured the vials of his wrath on Norton, and told him that he had already, in acknowledgment of his services, received one of the richest sinecures in possession of the crown-one of the chief-justiceships in Eyre. Norton now repaid this severity by cordially supporting the motion of Dunning, declaring from his heart the conviction that the power of the crown was enormous, and also increasing. He reminded the house that the parliamentary term was drawing to an end, and he wished those members joy of going down to their constituents who should now vote the petitions of the people unfounded.

The next day, April 6th, a great meeting was held in Westminster, avowedly to add weight to the county petitions for economical reform, which were now pouring into the house of commons. Fox presided, and was supported by the dukes of Devonshire and Portland. Government, to throw discredit on the meeting, affected alarm, and, at the request of the Middlesex magistrates, who were believed to have been moved by ministers to make it, a body of troops Lord North defended his conduct by declaring that he were drawn up in the neighbourhood of Westminster Hall. never had asserted that his abilities were equal to his The indignation of the opposition was so much excited that arduous post; but that it was clear that he had retained it Burke, in the house of commons, commenting on this simply because the people had a still less opinion of the attempt to insinuate evil designs against the friends of fitness of his opponents. There was, however, so ominous reform, denounced the Middlesex magistrates as creeping a feeling in the house-such a persuasion that Dunning's

the benefits prayed for in their petitions, the motion was
rejected by a majority of fifty-one in a very full house.
Fox and Dunning vented their indignation at this result
on the ministerial phalanx, whom they declared to be the

motion could not well be negatived-that Dundas, the lord advocate, endeavoured to get rid of the debate by moving that the chairman should leave the chair; but this was so ill received that it was withdrawn. Still, Dundas made another effort, which was this time in the contrary direc-worst of slaves-slaves sold by themselves into the most tion—that is, to tire out the house by proposing, as an amendment, that the words, "It is now necessary to declare," should be prefixed to Dunning's motion. Fox at once seconded the motion, by which the intended delay of a debate was prevented. It was put to the house and carried; | and Dunning's motion was also carried, at a late hour of the night, by two hundred and thirty-three votes against two hundred and fifteen.

Encouraged by this unwonted success, for the words of the speaker, reminding them of the coming elections, had sunk deep into many hearts, Dunning immediately moved a second proposition, namely, that it was competent to that house to examine into and correct any abuses of the civil list, as well as of any other branch of the public revenue. Lord North begged the committee not to proceed any further that night; but the opposition had no idea of being stopped in their new career of success. The resolution was carried without a division. Immediately on the heels of this, Thomas Pitt moved that it was the duty of the house to redress without delay the grievances enumerated in the petitions of the people. Lord North again implored that they would not proceed any further that night; but this resolution was also put and carried, likewise without division. Immediately, though it was past one o'clock in the morning, Fox moved that all these motions should be reported. Lord North, in the utmost consternation, declared this procedure was "violent, arbitrary, and unusual;" but Fox pressed his motion, and it was carried, like the rest, without a division, and the report was brought up.

When the committee on the petitions next met, on the 10th of April, Dunning, elated with his success, was ready with fresh resolutions. His first was that it was necessary for the purity and independence of parliament that the proper officer should, within ten days of the meeting of parliament in each session, lay before the house an account of monies paid out of the civil list, or out of any part of the public revenue, to any member of parliament. This, too, was triumphantly carried, only to be followed by another from Dunning, that the persons holding the offices of treasurer of the chamber, treasurer of the household, or clerkships of the green cloth, with all their deputies, should be incapable of sitting in the house of commons. Here the confounded ministerial members began to recover their spirit under the sweeping sentences passed against them, and Dunning only carried this resolution by a majority of two.

On the 14th of April the house was adjourned for ten days, on account of the illness of the speaker, Sir Fletcher Norton; and, on assembling again, it was found that the ministerial majority had recovered its old hardihood. Either they thought they had done enough by their late votes to satisfy their constituents, or ministers had found means to render them obedient by menacing losses from their side, for, when Dunning proposed a resolution that his majesty should be requested not to dissolve or prorogue parliament until proper measures had been taken to secure to the people

contemptible thraldom. But their castigation was in vain; the troop was brought back to its primitive compliance, and defeated every future motion from the opposition. On the 19th, Mr. Serjeant Adair moved that the supplies should be withheld till the public grievances were redressed. This was negatived by eighty-nine votes against fifty-four; and, finally, on the 26th of May, when Dunning moved for the bringing up the report of the committee on the 10th of April, an amendment was moved and carried that the chairman should quit the chair.

Thus, all the result of these triumphant motions of the opposition was the simple fact of the resolutions of the 10th of April remaining on the journals; everything which could give effect to them was swept away again, and they were left little better than a dead letter. Fox denounced the whole proceeding as most treacherous and unmanly; and the opposition declared that it was an insolent announcement that the prayers of the people should receive no attention from that house.

Amidst this domestic debate, the affairs of America excited very little discussion. General Conway, indeed, on the 5th of May, brought in a bill for restoring peace to the colonies; but it was so little acceptable to either party, that it was got rid of by passing to the order of the day.

Whilst the opposition was in the dejection of disappointed hopes, suddenly there arose an explosion of popular opinion against the catholics, stimulated and led on by an insane fanatic, which threatened the most direful consequences, and produced sufficiently frightful ones the so-called Gordon Riots.

We have already noted the excitement in Scotland at the act which was passed in 1778, for the repeal of some of the severest disabilities of the catholics; and this had been greatly increased by the proposal to extend its operation by a second act to Scotland. The fanatics of Scotland called upon the general assembly to petition government against any such act for Scotland; but the assembly most meritoriously refused. This, however, only increased the fury of the fanatical portion of the public. The clergy, many of them, showed a very different disposition to the general assembly, and from their pulpits excited the people against any relaxation of the laws against catholics, which were much more harshly administered in Scotland than in England. They declared that the church was in danger; that popery was going to be restored again, in all its horrors. Pamphlets of the most rancorous kind were printed and circulated all over the country, in which the pope, the devil, and Sir George Saville, who had introduced the catholic relief bill, were put pretty much on a par.

The synod of Glasgow passed resolutions for opposing any bill which should be brought into parliament for relaxing the penal laws against catholics in Scotland; and its example was widely followed by other synods and presby teries, denouncing vengeance against all who should favour any measures for the relief of the catholics. Not so the

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had been made to the catholics of Scotland, to repeal the laws against them, but Dundas replied, that, in consequence of the excited state of the public mind in Scotland, it was agreed to postpone any measure of the kind to a future day. The persecuted and despoiled catholics of Edinburgh presented, by Burke, a petition for compensation for the damages sustained, and for measures of future security. Fox, in supporting this petition, commented in severe terms on the bitter spirit of Scotch theology, and contrasted it with the all-tolerant spirit of the Founder of Christianity; demanding that parliament, in defiance of these broils and popular violences, should repeal the penal laws in toto.

But the same unchristian spirit had now spread to England, and protestant associations, as they were called, linked together by corresponding committees, were established in various towns, and had elected as their president and parlia

synod of Edinburgh, which was distinguished by many members of literary eminence, and who had read to a more Christian purpose the sublime tolerance of the Saviour; they refused to take any part in the illiberal agitation, but this only incited the intolerant masses the more. They formed themselves into a "Committee of the Protestant Interest," and, headed by shopkeepers and their apprentices, they held meetings and passed resolutions of the bitterest and most vindictive kind. The odious sentiments which they, and which a society calling itself a Christian Knowledge Society, promulgated, were speedily answered by acts of fierce assault on the catholic population, and by riots. The catholics, alarmed for their lives and property, implored lord North to lay aside any intention of passing an act in their favour, as its certain consequence would be an intolerable aggravation of their sufferings. They also published in the newspapers a statement that they sought no exemp-mentary head lord George Gordon, a brother of the duke of tion from the existing laws; but this had no effect on the insensate zealots. In January, 1779, the mobs assembled in Leith Wynd, and about what they called the Pillar of Popery, a catholic chapel and priests' house, which had been lately erected. These they demolished and set on fire; thence they adjourned to Blackfriars Wynd, where they destroyed another chapel, after plundering it and carrying off or burning a fine collection of books. The magistrates scarcely attempted to check their destructive fury. They continued to parade the streets, breaking the windows of all who were catholics, or the friends of catholics. They particularly vowed vengeance against Robertson, the historian, who was averse to all religious persecutions, and assembled in a tumultuous mob to pull down his house. By this time, however, a party of dragoons had arrived, who preserved for the learned historian his house and library.

Gordon. This young man, who was about nine-and-twenty, had been some time in parliament, and had attracted attention by the eccentricity of his manners and the slovenliness of his dress. Especially during the present session he had spoken a great deal, and in a style which was already full of a fanaticism fast ripening into insanity. Sometimes this fanaticism produced flashes of what looked like inspiration, at other times it descended to a low buffoonery. Early in the year he obtained an interview with the king, and read over to him the greatest part of an Irish pamphlet to show him the dangerous character of popery; for he suspected that George himself was in heart a papist.

To abate the virulence of the dissenters, it was resolved to give them an act of parliament, relieving them from subscription to nearly the extent of the bill rejected in 1772, and again in 1773. But this act, now passed without debate, had no effect in reducing the anti-catholic excite

These riots might soon have been quelled, but the corporation of Edinburgh was deeply infected with the anti-ment. Lord George Gordon continued his wild harangues catholic spirit. They were very willing to lie still, and let the populace do its worst. In Glasgow the mob had no such indulgence, for there was not a catholic chapel or a catholic priest to be found in that zealous presbyterian city; but they found a Mr. Bagnal, a catholic earthenware manufacturer from Staffordshire, and they fell upon his house, and drove him and his family, with the fiercest insult and violence, thence, and destroyed his property. In Edinburgh, the duke of Buccleuch, who commanded a regiment of fencibles, offered to march in and quell the mob, but the corporation repelled his offer. A lieutenant of the navy, who was lying at Leith, offered the same service, but the provost ordered him at once out of the city. When the mischief was pretty well completed, the provost issued a proclamation, calling on the mob to return to order, so as to quiet the fears of many well-meaning people, assuring them that the bill for the repeal of the penal statutes against the catholics was quite laid aside, and that it was expected that for the future the people of Edinburgh would avoid connecting themselves with any tumultuous assembly. Not the slightest attempt was made to punish the ringleaders of these abominable outrages; and, though the riots were over, no catholic was safe that dared to appear abroad.

Wilkes, in the house of commons, demanded of the lord advocate whether it was intended to keep the promise which

in the commons, at which the members often laughed, and treated his menaces as mere sounds. He assured them that every man in Scotland, except the papists, was ready for a revolution; he moved that the petition introduced by Burke should be thrown over the table; and he declared that he would come down to the house with one hundred and fifty thousand men of the protestant associations at his back; that he would besiege both houses of parliament, the king, and the prince of Wales, with petitions. He asserted in the house in November, 1779, that the Scotch were quite satisfied that the king was a papist. During the spring of 1780 he presented several petitions from the people of Kent, and he then conceived his grand idea of a petition long enough to reach from the speaker's chair to the centre window at Whitehall, out of which Charles walked to the scaffold. At a meeting of the protestant association, held towards the end of May in Coachmakers'-hall, he announced that he would present this petition on the 2nd of June. Resolutions were passed that the whole body of the association and all their friends must go in procession on that day to present the petition. They were to assemble in St. George's-fields, every one must have a blue cockade in his hat, to distinguish them from the enemies of the cause, and lord George, to stimulate them, told them that unless the assembly amounted to twenty thousand he would not present the petition. On the 26th