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1770.]

OPENING OF PARLIAMENT-LORD CHATHAM.

301

nothing but the misery of a ruined grazier." But a voice more terrible than that of Junius was to rouse the government from its seeming unconcern. In the House of Lords, Chatham moved an amendment to the Address, pledging the peers that they would take into their most serious consideration the causes of the discontents which so generally prevailed, and particularly the late proceedings in the House of Commons touching the incapacity of John Wilkes, Esq., to be elected a member of the present Parliament. The scene in the Upper House on this occasion must have been as exciting as any in the history of our country. The speech by which Chatham introduced the amendment, as well as the speech of lord Mansfield, and lord Chatham's reply, were first published in 1792, from a report of Mr. Francis, afterwards sir Philip Francis, upon whom rests the prevailing opinion that he was Junius. We may judge by the following passage of the tendency of Chatham's speech: "The liberty of the subject is invaded, not only in the provinces, but here at home! The English people are loud in their complaints; they demand redress; and, depend upon it, my lords, that, one way or another, they will have redress. They will never return to a state of tranquillity till they are redressed. Nor ought they. For in my judgment, my lords, and I speak it boldly, it were better for them to perish in a glorious contention for their rights, than to purchase a slavish tranquillity at the expense of a single iota of the Constitution." Lord Mansfield spoke, contending that the proposed amendment was an attack upon the privileges of the other House of Parliament. This produced a reply from lord Chatham. When men speak of the eloquence of this wondrous orator, they quote such passages of this speech as the following.

On the usurpation of power by the House of Commons:-"The Constitution of this country has been openly invaded in fact; and I have heard, with horror and astonishment, that very invasion defended upon principle. What is this mysterious power, undefined by law, unknown to the subject, which we must not approach without awe, nor speak of without reverence,which no man may question, and to which all men must submit? My lords, I thought the slavish doctrine of passive obedience had long since been exploded; and, when our kings were obliged to confess that their title to the Crown, and the rule of their government, had no other foundation than the known laws of the land, I never expected to hear a divine right, or a divine infallibility, attributed to any other branch of the Legislature. My lords, I beg to be understood. No man respects the House of Commons more than I do, or would contend more strenuously than I would, to preserve to them their just and legal authority. Within the bounds prescribed by the Constitution, that authority is necessary for the well-being of the people. Beyond that line every exertion of power is arbitrary, is illegal; it threatens tyranny to the people, and destruction to the state. Power without right is the most odious and detestable object that can be offered to the human imagination. It is not only pernicious to those who are subject to it, but tends to its own destruction. . . . . . . The House of Commons, we are told, have a supreme jurisdiction, and there is no appeal from their sentence; and that wherever they are competent judges, their decision must be received and submitted to, as, ipso facto, the law of the land. My lords, I am a plain man, and have been brought up in a religious reverence for the original simplicity of the laws of

302

CHATHAM'S SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS.

[1770. England. By what sophistry they have been perverted, by what artifices they have been involved in obscurity, is not for me to explain. The principles, however, of the English laws are still sufficiently clear; they are founded in reason, and are the masterpiece of the human understanding; but it is in the text that I would look for a direction to my judgment, not in the commentaries of modern professors. The noble lord assures us that he knows not in what code the law of Parliament is to be found; that the House of Commons, when they act as judges, have no law to direct them but their own wisdom; that their decision is law; and if they determine wrong, the subject has no appeal but to Heaven. What then, my lords? Are all the generous efforts of our ancestors, are all those glorious contentions, by which they meant to secure to themselves, and to transmit to their posterity, a known law, a certain rule of living, reduced to this conclusion, that instead of the arbitrary power of a King, we must submit to the arbitrary power of the House of Commons? If this be true, what benefit do we derive from the exchange? Tyranny, my lords, is detestable in every shape, but in none so formidable as when it is assumed and exercised by a number of tyrants. But, my lords, this is not the fact; this is not the Constitution. We have a law of Parliament. We have a code in which every honest man may find it. We have Magna Charta. We have the Statute Book, and the Bill of Rights."

Could the mischief of the decision of the House of Commons not be redressed :-" If we are to believe the noble lord, this great grievance, this manifest violation of the first principles of the Constitution, will not admit of a remedy. It is not even capable of redress, unless we appeal at once to Heaven! My lords, I have better hopes of the Constitution, and a firmer confidence in the wisdom and constitutional authority of this House. It is to your ancestors, my lords, it is to the English barons, that we are indebted for the laws and Constitution we possess. Their virtues were rude and uncultivated, but they were great and sincere. Their understandings were as little polished as their manners, but they had hearts to distinguish right from wrong; they had heads to distinguish truth from falsehood; they understood the rights of humanity, and they had spirit to maintain them. My lords, I think that history has not done justice to their conduct, when they obtained from their sovereign that great acknowledgment of national rights contained in Magna Charta: they did not confine it to themselves alone, but delivered it as a common blessing to the whole people. They did not say, these are the rights of the great barons, or these are the rights of the great prelates. No, my lords, they said, in the simple Latin of the times, 'nullus liber homo' [no free man], and provided as carefully for the meanest subject as for the greatest. These are uncouth words, and sound but poorly in the ears of scholars, neither are they addressed to the criticism of scholars, but to the hearts of free men. These three words, nullus liber homo,' have a meaning which interests us all. They deserve to be remembered,-they deserve to be inculcated in our minds,-they are worth all the classics. Let us not, then, degenerate from the glorious example of our ancestors. Those iron barons (for so I may call them when compared with silken barons of modern days) were the guardians of the people; yet their virtues, my lords, were never engaged in a question of such importance as the present. A breach

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1770].

SCHISM IN THE MINISTRY.

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has been made in the Constitution,-the battlements are dismantled,-the citadel is open to the first invader, the walls totter, the Constitution is not tenable. What remains, then, but for us to stand forward in the breach, and repair it, or perish in it?"

That memorable debate of the Peers on the 9th of January was closed by an event which was not unexpected, but which formed a striking exception to the ordinary course of the actions of great statesmen. It is clear from the Chatham Correspondence that the Lord Chancellor Camden, and the marquis of Granby, were to a certain extent under the influence of Chatham. His confidential correspondent, Mr. John Calcraft, writes to him on the 28th of November, to beg "that they may be put on their guard" not to attend a particular council. "Fearing neither of our friends are the best politicians, I cannot help harbouring doubts but they may get entangled at this council, for no pains will be spared." Camden, Granby, and Conway, as well as

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Grafton, in the spring of 1769, held to the necessity of not attempting any laxation of America, by import duties. They were overruled. Grafton remained in power, and Camden and Granby did not quit their employments. The schism in the cabinet was made more serious by the question of Wilkes.

304

LORD CAMDEN DISCLAIMS THEIR MEASURES.

[1770.

After Chatham's speech, on the 9th of January, Camden rose from the woolsack, and thus threw off all restraint:-"I accepted the great seal without conditions; I meant not, therefore, to be trammelled by his majesty -I beg pardon, by his ministers-but I have suffered myself to be so too long. For some time I have beheld with silent indignation the arbitrary measures of the minister. I have often drooped and hung down my head in council, and disapproved by my looks those steps which I knew my avowed opposition could not prevent. I will do so no longer, but openly and boldly speak my sentiments. I now proclaim to the world that I entirely coincide in the opinion expressed by my noble friend-whose presence again reanimates us -respecting this unconstitutional vote of the House of Commons. If, in giving my opinion as a judge, I were to pay any respect to that vote, I should look upon myself as a traitor to my trust, and an enemy to my country. By their violent and tyrannical conduct, ministers have alienated the minds of the people from his majesty's government-I had almost said from his majesty's person-insomuch, that if some measures are not devised to appease the clamours so universally prevalent, I know not, my lords, whether the people, in despair, may not become their own avengers, and take the redress of grievances into their own hands."

In the House of Commons, the marquis of Granby voted for the amendment which had been proposed in opposition to the government. The Lord Chancellor, and the Commander-in-Chief, were thus in open hostility with the other members of the Cabinet. Such an anomalous state could not long endure. Chatham, Temple, and their friends, were waiting the issue with extreme solicitude. Granby had been earnestly entreated to retain his command of the army in spite of his vote. "The king, it seems, and the duke of Grafton are upon their knees to lord Granby not to resign," writes Temple to Chatham.* Chatham grieves that twenty-four hours' respite has been granted to a minister's entreaties. He was at last set at rest by Granby's resignation. But he regrets that the Chancellor had dragged the great seal for an hour at the heels of a desperate minister. His high office had been offered to Mr. Charles Yorke, the son of lord chancellor Hardwicke. It was a prize he had long coveted; but to accept it would be to desert his party. He declined. Three days after he went to the levée at St. James's; and, at the earnest entreaties of the king, he kissed the royal hand as Chancellor. Camden was dismissed. Yorke, borne down by agitation of mind, died, as was supposed by his own hand, on the 20th of January. On the 22nd there came on another great debate in the House of Lords on the State of the Nation, in which Chatham announced his cordial union with the party of Rockingham. It was on this occasion that Chatham recommended a specific plan of Parliamentary Reform. "The boroughs of this country have properly enough been called 'the rotten parts' of the Constitution. But in my judgment, my lords, these boroughs, corrupt as they are, must be considered as the natural infirmity of the Constitution. Like the infirmities of the body, we must bear them with patience, and submit to carry them about with us. The limb is mortified, but the amputation might be death. Let us try, my lords, whether some gentler remedies may not be discovered. Since we

* "Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii. p. 391.

+Ibid., p. 392.

Ibid., p. 398.

1770.]

RESIGNATION OF THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

305

cannot cure the disorder, let us endeavour to infuse such a portion of new health into the Constitution as may enable it to support its most inveterate diseases. The representation of the counties is, I think, still preserved pure and uncorrupted. That of the greatest cities is upon a footing equally respectable; and there are many of the larger trading towns which still preserve their independence. The infusion of health which I now allude to would be to permit every county to elect one member more, in addition to their present representation. The knights of the shires approach nearest to the constitutional representation of the country, because they represent the soil. It is not in the little dependent boroughs, it is in the great cities and counties, that the strength and vigour of the Constitution resides; and by them alone, if an unhappy question should ever arise, will the Constitution be honestly and firmly defended. It would increase that strength, because I think it is the only security we have against the profligacy of the times, the corruption of the people, and the ambition of the crown."

The continued debate on the State of the Nation was deferred till the 2nd of February. On the 28th of January, the duke of Grafton resigned. The king was not unprepared for this event. On the 23rd of January he thus wrote to lord North: "Lord Weymouth and lord Gower will wait upon you this morning to press you in the strongest manner to accept the office of First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. My mind is more and more strengthened in the rightness of the measure, which would prevent every other desertion. You must easily see that if you do not accept, I have no peer at present that I would consent to place in the duke of Grafton's employment." "The rightness of the measure was to be tested by twelve years of national calamity.

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