The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 Part 3

At all events, the intelligence of these new taxes, though only import duties, found the Colonists in a humor to resist any addition of any kind to their financial burdens. The events of the last two years had taught them their strength. It was undeniable that the repeal of the Stamp Act had been extorted by the riots in Boston and other places, and the success of this system of intimidation could not fail to encourage its repet.i.tion. Accordingly, the news of this fresh attempt at taxation was met by a unanimous determination to resist it. Newspaper writers and pamphleteers denounced not only the duties but the ministry which imposed them. Pet.i.tions from almost every State were sent over to England, addressed to the King and to the Parliament; but the violent temper of the leaders of the populace was not content to wait for answers to them. a.s.sociations were at once formed in Boston and one or two other cities, where resolutions were adopted in the spirit of retaliation (as their framers avowed), to desist from the importation of any articles of British commerce, and to rely for the future on American manufactures. The princ.i.p.al Custom-house officers at Boston were badly beaten, and others were compelled to seek refuge in a man-of-war which happened to be in the harbor.

It would be painful, and at the present day useless, to trace the steps by which these local disturbances gradually grew into one general insurrection. The spirit of resistance was undoubtedly fanned by a party which from the first contemplated a total separation from England as its ultimate result,[46] if, indeed, they had not conceived the design even before Grenville had given the first provocation to discontent. But the Colonists were not without advocates in England, even among the members of the government. The Duke of Grafton, while he remained Prime-minister, was eager to withdraw all the duties of which they complained; but he was overruled by the majority of his colleagues. He prevailed, however, so far that Lord Hillsborough, the Secretary of State, was authorized to write a circular-letter to the governors of the different provinces, in which he disowned, in the most distinct language possible, "a design to propose to Parliament to lay any farther taxes upon America for the purpose of raising a revenue," and promised for the next session a repeal of all the taxes except that on tea; and when the Duke retired from the Treasury, and was succeeded by Lord North, that statesman himself brought forward the promised repeal in an elaborate speech,[47] in which he explained that the duty on tea, which he alone proposed to retain, had been originally a boon to the Americans rather than an injury, as being accompanied by the removal of a far heavier tax. But he admitted that even that consideration was not the one which influenced him in his opinion that that duty should be maintained, so greatly was the perception that the real object of those who complained of it was, not the redress of a grievance, but the extinction of a right which was an essential part of "the controlling supremacy of England."

The fact that the right to tax had been denied made it a positive duty on the part of the English minister to exert that right. "To temporize would be to yield, and the authority of the mother country, if now unsupported, would be relinquished forever." And he avowed his idea of the policy proper to be pursued to be "to retain the right of taxing America, but to give it every relief that might be consistent with the welfare of the mother country." He carried his resolution, though the minority--which on this occasion was led by Mr. Pownall, who had himself been Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, and who moved an amendment to include tea in the list of taxes proposed to be repealed--was stronger than usual.[48] But the concession failed to conciliate a single Colonist; it had become, as Burke said four years afterward, a matter of feeling,[49]

and the irritation fed on itself, till, in 1773, a fresh act, empowering the East India Company to export tea to the Colonies direct from their own warehouses without its being subject to any duty in England--which Lord North undoubtedly intended as a boon to the Colonists--only increased the exasperation. The ships which brought the tea to Boston were boarded and seized by a formidable body of rioters disguised as native savages, and the tea was thrown into the sea. The intelligence was received in England with very different feelings by the different parties in the state. The ministers conceived themselves forced to a.s.sert the dignity of the crown, and proposed bills to inflict severe punishment on both the City of Boston and the whole Province of Ma.s.sachusetts. The Opposition insisted on removing the cause of these disturbances by a total repeal of the tea-duty. The minister prevailed by a far larger majority than before, but his success only increased the exasperation in the Colonies; and it was an evil omen for peace that the leaders of the resistance began to search the records of the English Long Parliament "for the revolutionary precedents and forms of the Puritans of that day."[50] The next year saw fresh attempts to procure the repeal of the obnoxious tax rejected by the House of Commons; but, before the news of this division reached America, blood had already been shed.[51] Civil war began. The next year the Colonies, now united in one solid body, a.s.serted their Independence, taking the t.i.tle of the United States; and, though the government at home made more than one effort to recall the Colonists to their allegiance, and sent out commissioners of high rank, with large powers of concession; and though in one remarkable instance the mission of Mr. Penn, in the summer of 1775, with the pet.i.tion to the King known as "the Olive Branch," seemed to show a desire for a maintenance of the union on the part of the Colonial Congress,[52] from the moment that the sword was drawn all hope of preserving the connection of the Colonies must have been seen by all reasonable men to be at an end.

It is beside our present purpose to recapitulate the military operations of the war, though they verified another of Burke's warnings, that, supposing all moral difficulties to be got over, the ocean remained--that could not be dried up; and, as long as it continued in its present bed, so long all the causes which weakened authority by distance must continue. In fact, distance from England was one of the main circ.u.mstances which decided the contest. The slowness of communication--almost inconceivable to the present generation--rendered impossible that regularity in the transport of re-enforcements and supplies which was indispensable to success; and, added to the strange absence of military skill shown by every one of the British generals, soon placed the eventual issue of the war beyond a doubt. But one measure by which Lord North's government endeavored to provide for the strengthening of the army employed in America was so warmly challenged on const.i.tutional grounds, that, though the fortunate separation of Hanover from Great Britain has prevented the possibility of any recurrence of such a proceeding, it would be improper to pa.s.s it over.

In his speech at the opening of the autumnal session of 1775, the King announced to the Houses that, in order to leave a larger portion of the established forces of the kingdom available for service in North America, he "had sent a part of his Electoral troops to the garrisons of Gibraltar and Port Mahon." And the announcement aroused a vehement spirit of opposition, which found vent in the debates of both Houses on the address, and in two substantive motions condemning the measure as a violation of the const.i.tution as established by the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement. It was strenuously maintained that both these statutes forbade the raising or keeping on foot a standing army in the kingdom in time of peace, and also the introduction of foreign troops into this kingdom, without the previous consent of Parliament, on any pretence whatever; and that "the fact that Gibraltar and Minorca were detached from these islands did not exclude them from the character of forming a part of the British dominion." And on these grounds Lord Shelburne, who supported Lord Rockingham on an amendment to the address, did not hesitate to denounce this employment of the Hanoverian regiments, as "fundamentally infringing the first principles of our government," and to declare it "high-treason against the const.i.tution."

He asked, "if there were a settled plan to subdue the liberties of this country, what surer means could be adopted than those of arming Roman Catholics and introducing foreign troops?"[53] and compared the measure under discussion to the case of the Dutch regiments of William III., "which the Parliament wisely refused to allow him to retain." In the House of Commons, the Opposition was led by Sir James Lowther and Governor Johnstone, the latter of whom "appealed to the clause in the Act of Settlement which enacted that no person born of other than English parents should enjoy any office or place of trust, civil or military, within the kingdom;" and argued that to employ foreign officers in the protection of a British fortress was to place them in an "office of great military trust."

The discussion brought to light strange divisions and weakness in the ministry. The ministerial lawyers differed on the grounds on which they relied, the Attorney-general, Thurlow, denying that the expression "this kingdom" in the Bill of Rights included the foreign dependencies of the crown[54] (a narrowing of its force which the Chancellor, Lord Bathurst, wholly repudiated), while the argument on which he himself insisted most strongly, that the existence of rebellion in America put end to all conditions which supposed the kingdom to be at peace, could not obtain the support of any one of his colleagues. But a plea urged by an independent member, Lord Denbigh, was regarded by some of the speakers with greater favor; his contention being that neither the Bill of Rights nor the Act of Settlement had been violated, since both those great statutes must be interpreted with reference to the time at which they were framed, and to the recent acts of James II. and William III., the recurrence of which they had been designed to prevent, acts to which the present proceeding bore no resemblance.

A stronger justification, however, might have been found in very recent precedents. In 1745 the ministers had brought over six thousand Dutch troops to re-enforce the army of the Duke of c.u.mberland, and their act had been subsequently approved by Parliament. And in 1756, at the commencement of the seven years' war, when the loss of Minorca had led to such a distrust of our fleets that a French invasion was very generally apprehended, both Houses presented addresses to George II., begging him to bring over some Hanoverian regiments; and, in the course of the next year, other addresses to thank him for compliance with their entreaty.

Looking at the strict law of the question, few lawyers doubt that the expression "this kingdom" in the Bill of Rights includes the entire dominions of the crown, or that that great statute was undoubtedly intended to protect the privileges of all their inhabitants, whether within the four seas or in foreign settlements. But it also seems that the clause against raising and keeping on foot a standing army without the consent of Parliament was not more violated by keeping a mixed garrison in Gibraltar and Port Mahon than garrisons consisting of native soldiers only; and undoubtedly the keeping of an armed force in both these fortresses had been sanctioned by Parliament. Nor could the colonel of a foreign regiment in garrison under the command of a British governor be fairly said to be in an office of great military trust. So far, therefore, the charge against the ministry may be thought to have failed. But the accusation of having transgressed the clause which prohibits "the introduction of foreign troops into this kingdom without the previous consent of Parliament on any pretence whatever," must, on the other hand, be regarded as proved. And, indeed, Lord North himself may be taken to have shown some consciousness that it was so, since he justified his conduct in omitting to procure that previous consent by the necessity of the case, by the plea that, as Parliament was in vacation, the time which would have been consumed in waiting for its sanction would have neutralized the advantage desired from the employment of the Hanoverians, since the regiments which they were to replace at Gibraltar and Port Mahon could not, after such delay, have reached America in time to be of service; and since he also consented eventually to ask Parliament for an Act of Indemnity, the preamble of which affirmed the existence of doubts as to the legality of the step which had been taken. And the fate of this act afforded a still more striking proof of the divisions in the ministry, since, after Lord North himself had proposed it in the House of Commons, and it had been pa.s.sed there by a large majority, it was rejected in the House of Lords, where his own colleagues, Lord Gower, Lord Suffolk, and Lord Weymouth, spoke and voted against it as needless, because, in their judgment, no doubt of the state of the law on the subject could exist.

From a statesman-like point of view, the employment of the Hanoverians seems abundantly defensible, if force were still to be employed to bring back the Colonists to their obedience. The circ.u.mstance of their being subjects of our sovereign in his other character of Elector of Hanover, clearly distinguished it from the hiring of the Hessian and Brunswick mercenaries, which has been deservedly condemned. And, as the entire number fell short of two thousand,[55] Lord Shelburne's expression of fear for the liberties and religion of Englishmen was an absurd exaggeration. Moreover, the warm approval which, less than twenty years before, Parliament had given to the introduction of a far larger body of the same troops into England itself, justified the antic.i.p.ation that a similar sanction would now be cheerfully given. That sanction--which, indeed, might have been thought to be invited by the announcement of the measure in the King's speech--was undoubtedly requisite. And, if it was, a Bill of Indemnity for having acted without it was equally necessary.

But, as has been seen in the last chapter, for an administration, on urgent occasions, to take action on its own responsibility, and then to apply for indemnity, is a course in strict harmony with the practice of the const.i.tution; and if in this instance the ministers are in any respect blamable, their error would seem to have been limited to their abstaining from instantly calling Parliament together to sanction their act, and being contented to wait for the ordinary time of the Houses meeting.

The war, therefore, went on. The a.s.sertion of their independence by the Colonies divided, and, so far, weakened, the advocates of their cause in Parliament, one section of whom, led by Lord Chatham, regarded any diminution of our dominion as not only treasonable, but ruinous; on the other hand, it procured them the alliance of France and Spain. But it cannot be said that either of these incidents produced any practical effect on the result of the war. Lord Chatham's refusal to contemplate their independence could not r.e.t.a.r.d its establishment; and the alliance of France and Spain, which brought nothing but disaster to those countries, could not accelerate it by a single moment. For nearly six years the war continued with alternations of success, the victories gained by the British arms being the more numerous, the triumphs of the Americans being incomparably the more important, involving as they did the surrender of two entire armies, the latter of which, that of Lord Cornwallis, in 1781, did, in fact, terminate the war, and with the war the existence of the ministry which had conducted it. A singularly rapid succession of new administrations ensued--so rapid that the negotiations for peace which the first, that of Lord Rockingham, opened, were not formally completed till the third,[56] known as the Coalition Ministry, was on the point of dismissal. It would be beside our purpose to enter into the details of the treaty which const.i.tuted the United States, as they were now called, a nation by our formal recognition of their independence. Even in that recognition, which was the most important article of the treaty, no const.i.tutional principle was involved, though it affords the only instance in our history which can seem to throw a doubt on our inheritance of that capacity for government which the Roman poet claimed as, in ancient times, the peculiar attribute of his own countrymen. It presents the only instance of a loss of territory peopled by men who came of our blood, and who still spoke our language. It was a stern and severe lesson; and yet, fraught with discredit and disaster as it was, it nevertheless bore fruit in a later age which we may be excused for regarding as an example of the generally predominating influence of sober practical sense in our countrymen, when not led away by the temporary excitement of pa.s.sion, as shown in our capacity to take home to ourselves and profit by the teachings of experience. The loss of the American Colonies was caused by the submission of the Parliament and nation to men of theory rather than of practice; ideologists, as Napoleon called them; doctrinaires, to use the modern expression; men who, because Parliament had an abstract right of universal legislation, regarded it as a full justification for insisting on its exercise, without giving a thought to the feelings, or prejudices, or habits of those who might be affected by their measures. Abstractedly considered, Lord Chatham and Lord Camden were undoubtedly wrong in denying the power of Parliament to tax the Colonies; but there was better judgment in their counsels, though founded on false premises, than in those of Grenville and Townsend, though theirs was the more correct view of the const.i.tutional power of legislation. The two peers were wrong in their principle; the two Chancellors of the Exchequer were unwise in their application of their principle; and the practical error was the more disastrous one.

It is now generally admitted that the true statesman-like course toward the Colonies was that adopted by Lord Rockingham and his colleagues in 1765--to avoid weakening the supreme power of Parliament by any disavowal of the right to tax but to avoid imperilling the sovereign authority of the King by a novel exertion of it. As much of our common English law is made up of precedent, so, in a still greater degree, are our feelings and ideas of our rights and privileges regulated by precedent. And we lost America because in 1764 and 1767 neither minister nor Parliament took men's feelings and prejudices into account. The loss of the United States, therefore, was a lesson not undeserved; and by our statesmen since that day it has been taken in the right spirit of profiting by its teaching as a guide to their own conduct. Since that day the enterprise of our people has planted our flag in regions far more distant, and has extended the dominion of our sovereign over provinces far more extensive than those which we then lost. And on some of the administrations of the present reign the duty has fallen of framing schemes of government for those new acquisitions, as also for some of those previously possessed. In how different a spirit from that which actuated the early ministers of George III.[57] those to whom the task was committed by Queen Victoria applied themselves to their task may be seen in a maxim laid down by the present Lord Grey, when he presided at the Colonial Office (1846-1852), that "the success of free inst.i.tutions in any country depends far less upon the particular form of those inst.i.tutions than upon the character of the people on whom they are conferred." But how he and others in the same office carried out that principle must be reserved for a later chapter.

Besides the numerous motions which were brought forward by the Opposition respecting the continuance and conduct of the war, there were several also which were indirectly prompted by it. The Opposition claimed to be on this subject not only the champions of the real interests of the nation, but also its spokesmen, who expressed the opinions and feelings of all the thinking and independent portion of the people. That their efforts were overborne they attributed to the subservience of the Parliament to the ministers, and of the ministers to the crown.[58] And consequently several motions were made by members of that party, the object of which was, in one way or another, to diminish what they regarded as the undue influence of the crown. In one instance, and that the most successful, a direct denunciation of that influence was employed, but the earlier and more frequent proposals were directed to the purification of the House of Commons, and to the strengthening of its independence. It is remarkable that of these the two which related to a subject of which the Commons are usually most especially and most rightly jealous, the interference of peers in elections, had the worst fortune. In 1780 complaints were made and substantiated that the Duke of Bolton and the Duke of Chandos (who was also Lord-lieutenant of the county) had exerted themselves actively in the last election for Hampshire. And, in support of motions that these peers "had been guilty of a breach of the privileges of the House, and an infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of Great Britain," a case was adduced in which Queen Anne had dismissed the Bishop of Worcester from the office of Almoner for similar interference. Nor did Lord Nugent, a relative of the Duke of Chandos, deny the facts alleged; on the contrary, he avowed them, and adopted a line of defence which many must have thought an aggravation of the charge, since it a.s.serted that to prevent such interference was impossible, and therefore the House would but waste its time in trying. However, on this occasion the House took the view which he thus suggested to it, postponing all farther consideration of the matter for four months; and the charge the Duke of Bolton was shelved in a somewhat similar manner.

Even had these peers and such practices been censured with the very greatest severity, the censures could have had but a very limited effect. But it was on measures of a wider scope, embracing what began to be called a Reform of Parliament, that the more zealous members of the Opposition placed their chief reliance. As far as our records of the debates can be trusted, Lord Chatham, ten years before, had given the first hint of the desirableness of some alteration of the existing system. On one occasion he denounced the small boroughs as "the rotten part of the const.i.tution," thus originating the epithet by which they in time came to be generally described; but more usually he disavowed all idea of disfranchising them, propounding rather a scheme for diminishing their importance by a large addition to the county members. However, he never took any steps to carry out his views, thinking, perhaps, that it was not in the Upper House that such a subject should be first broached.

But he had not been long in the grave, when a formal motion for a reform of a different kind was brought forward by one of the members for the City of London, Alderman Sawbridge,[59] who, in May, 1780, applied for leave to bring in "a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments."

His own preference he avowed to be for annual Parliaments; but his suspicion that the House would think such a measure too sweeping had induced him to resolve to content himself with aiming at triennial Parliaments. As leave was refused, the bill proposed to be introduced may, perhaps, be thought disent.i.tled to mention here, were it not that the circ.u.mstance that proposals for shortening the duration of Parliaments are still occasionally brought forward seems to warrant an account of a few of the arguments by which those who took the leading parts in the debate which ensued resisted it. The minister, Lord North, declared that the Alderman had misunderstood the views of our ancestors on the subject; as their desire had been, not that Parliament should be elected annually, but that it should sit every year, an end which had now been attained. Fox, on the other hand, while avowing that hitherto he had always opposed similar motions, declared his wish now to see not only triennial but annual Parliaments, as the sole means of lessening the influence of the crown. "If any of his const.i.tuents were to ask him to what our present misfortunes were ascribable, he should say the first cause was the influence of the crown; the second, the influence of the crown; and the third, the influence of the crown." But it was replied by Burke, who usually exhausted every question he took in hand, that such a bill would rather tend to augment that influence, since "the crown, by its constant stated power, influence, and revenue, would be able to wear out all opposition at elections; that it would not abate the interest or inclination of ministers to apply that interest to the electors; on the contrary, it would render it more necessary to them, if they desired to have a majority in Parliament, to increase the means of that influence, to redouble their diligence, and to sharpen dexterity in the application. The whole effect of the bill would, therefore, be to remove the application of some part of that influence from the elected to the electors, and farther to strengthen and extend a court interest already great and powerful in boroughs. It must greatly increase the cost of a seat in Parliament; and, if contests were frequent, to many they would become a matter of expense totally ruinous, which no fortunes could bear. The expense of the last general election was estimated at 1,500,000; and he remembered well that several agents for boroughs said to candidates, 'Sir, your election will cost you 3000 if you are independent; but, if the ministry supports you, it may be done for 2000, and even less.'" And he adduced the case of Ireland, where formerly, when "a Parliament sat for the King's life, the ordinary charge for a seat was 1500; but now, when it sat for eight years, four sessions, the charge was 2500 and upward." Such a change as was proposed would cause "triennial corruption, triennial drunkenness, triennial idleness, etc., and invigorate personal hatreds that would never be allowed to soften. It would even make the member himself more corrupt, by increasing his dependence on those who could best support him at elections. It would wreck the fortunes of those who stood on their own private means. It would make the electors more venal, and injure the whole body of the people who, whether they have votes or not, are concerned in elections." Finally, it would greatly impair the proper authority of the House itself. "It would deprive it of all power and dignity; and a House of Commons without power and without dignity, either in itself or its members, is no House of Commons for this const.i.tution."

The applicability of some of his arguments--those founded on the disorders at times of election--has been greatly diminished, if not destroyed, at the present day, by the limitation of the polling to a single day. The disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the smaller boroughs has neutralized others; but the expense of a general election is not believed to have diminished, and that alone seems a strong objection to a system which would render them more frequent than they are at present. Mr. Sawbridge could not obtain the support of a third of his hearers.[60] But his notions had partisans in the other House who were not discouraged by such a division; and three weeks later the Duke of Richmond brought forward a Reform Bill on so large a scale that, as the "Parliamentary History" records, "it took him an hour and a half to read it," and which contained provisions for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage. But he met with even less favor than the Alderman, and his bill was rejected without a division.

Still the subject was not allowed to rest. Even after Lord North had been replaced by Lord Rockingham, the demand for Parliamentary Reform was continued; the young Mr. Pitt making himself the mouth-piece of the Reformers, and founding a motion which he made in May, 1782, on "the corrupt influence of the crown; an influence which has been pointed at in every period as the fertile source of all our miseries; an influence which has been subst.i.tuted in the room of wisdom, of activity, of exertion, and of success; an influence which has grown up with our growth and strengthened with our strength, but which, unhappily, has not diminished with our diminution, nor decayed with our decay." He brought forward no specific plan, but denounced the close boroughs, and asked emphatically whether it were "representation" for "some decayed villages, almost dest.i.tute of population, to send members to Parliament under the control of the Treasury, or at the bidding of some great lord or commoner." He, however, was defeated, though by the small majority of twenty. And it is remarkable that when, the next year, he revived the subject, developing a more precise scheme--akin to that which his father had suggested, of increasing the number of county members, and including provisions for the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of boroughs which had been convicted of systematic corruption--he was beaten by a far larger majority,[61]

the distinctness of his plan only serving to increase the numbers of his adversaries. A kinsman of Pitt's, Lord Mahon, made an equally futile attempt to diminish the expenses of elections, partly by inflicting very heavy penalties on parties guilty of either giving or receiving bribes,[62] and partly by prohibiting candidates from providing conveyances for electors; and more than one bill for disfranchising revenue-officers, as being specially liable to pressure from the government, and to prevent contractors from sitting in Parliament, was brought forward, but was lost, the smallness of the divisions in their favor being not the least remarkable circ.u.mstance in the early history of Reform. It was made still more evident that as yet the zeal for Reform was confined to a few, when, two years afterward, Pitt, though now invested with all the power of a Prime-minister, was as unable as when in opposition to carry a Reform Bill, which in more than one point foreshadowed the measure of 1832; proposing, as it did, the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of thirty-six small boroughs, which were to be purchased of their proprietors nearly on the principle adopted in the Irish Union Act, and on the other hand the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of copyholders; but it differed from Lord Grey's act in that it distributed all the seats thus to be obtained among the counties, with the exception of a small addition to the representatives of London and Westminster.

However, his supporters very little exceeded the number who had divided with him in 1783, and Lord North, who led the Opposition in a speech denouncing any change, had a majority of seventy-four. After this second defeat, Pitt abandoned the question, at all events for the time; being convinced, to quote Earl Stanhope's description of his opinion on the subject, "that nothing but the pressure of the strongest popular feeling, such as did not then exist, could induce many members to vote against their own tenure of Parliament, or in fact against themselves."[63] What, perhaps, weighed with him more, on deciding to acquiesce in this vote as final, was the perception that as yet the question excited no strong interest out-of-doors; and when, a few years later, some who sought to become leaders of the people endeavored to raise an agitation on the subject, their teachings were too deeply infected with the contagion of the French Revolution to allow a wise ruler to think it consistent with his duty to meet them with anything but the most resolute discouragement.

But, concurrently with the first of these motions for Parliamentary Reform, two more direct attacks on the royal influence, and on what was alleged to be the undue exertion of it, were made in the session of 1780. The first was made by Burke, who brought forward a measure of economical reform, demonstrating, in a speech of extraordinary power, a vast ma.s.s of abuses, arising from corrupt waste in almost every department of the state, and in every department of the royal household, without exception, and proposing a most extensive plan of reform, which dealt with royal dignities, such as the Duchy of Lancaster and the other princ.i.p.alities annexed to the crown; with the crown-lands, a great portion of which he proposed to sell; with the offices of the royal household, a sufficient specimen of the abuses on which was furnished by the statement, that the turnspit in the King's kitchen was a member of Parliament; and with many departments of state, such as the Board of Works and the Pay-office, etc. He was studiously cautious in his language, urging, indeed, that his scheme of reform would "extinguish secret corruption almost to the possibility of its existence, and would destroy direct and visible influence equal to the offices of at least fifty members of Parliament," but carefully guarding against any expressions imputing this secret corruption, this influence which it was so desirable to destroy, to the crown. But his supporters were less moderate; and Mr. Thomas Townsend declared that facts which he mentioned "contained the most unquestionable presumptive evidence of the influence of the crown; he meant the diverting of its revenues to purposes which dared not be avowed, in corrupting and influencing the members of both Houses of Parliament;" and he a.s.serted that "the principle and objects of the bill were the reduction of the influence of the crown." The bill was not opposed by the ministers on its principle; but Lord North, even while consenting to its introduction, "did not pledge himself not to oppose it in some or other of its subsequent stages;" and, in fact, his supporters resisted it in almost every detail, some of them utterly denying the right of the House to interfere at all with the expenditure of the civil list; others contesting the propriety of alienating the crown-lands; and a still greater number objecting to the abolition of some of the offices which it was proposed to sweep away, such as that of the "third Secretary of State, or Secretary for the Colonies," that of "Treasurer of the Chamber," and others of a similar character. And, as the minister succeeded in defeating him on several, though by no means all, of these points, Burke at last gave up the bill, Fox warning the House at the same time that it should be renewed session after session, and boasting that even the scanty success which it had met with had been worth the struggle.

The other direct attack was made by Mr. Dunning, who, perhaps, did not then foresee that he himself was destined soon to fill one of the offices which had come under the lash of Burke's sarcasm, and who a few days afterward, in moving that it was necessary to declare "that the influence of the crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished" rested no small portion of his argument on the treatment that Burke's bill had received. He affirmed that, though Lord North had declared that "the influence of the crown was not too great," the divisions on that bill, and on many other measures which had been under discussion, were irrefragable proofs of the contrary. He quoted Hume and Judge Blackstone as testifying to the existence and steady increase of that influence, and "could affirm of his own knowledge, and pledge his honor to the truth of the a.s.sertion, that he knew upward of fifty members in that House who always voted in the train of the n.o.ble lord in the blue ribbon,[64] but who reprobated and condemned, out of the House, the measures they had supported and voted for in it." Mr. T. Pitt even instanced "the present possession of office by Lord North as an indubitable proof of the enormous influence of the crown."

It was not strange that Lord North opposed a resolution supported by such arguments with all the power of the government, basing his own opposition chiefly on the wisdom "of maintaining the rule long since established by Parliament, never to vote abstract propositions." But he presently saw that he was in a minority, and was forced to be content with adopting and carrying an amendment of Mr. Dundas, one of the members for Edinburgh, who flattered himself that by the insertion of _now_ he converted a general a.s.sertion into a temporary declaration, which might at a future time be disavowed as no longer applicable. A majority of eighteen[65] affirmed the resolution; and when the mover followed it up by a second, declaring that "it is competent to this House to examine into and to correct abuses in the expenditure of the civil list revenues, as well as in every other branch of the public revenue, whenever it shall seem expedient to the wisdom of this House to do so," though the minister, with what was almost an appeal _ad misericordiam_, "implored the House not to proceed," he did not venture to take a division, and that resolution also, with one or two others designed to give instant effect to them, were adopted and reported by the committee to the House in a single evening.[66] The first resolution did, in fact, embody a complaint, or at least an a.s.sertion, which the Rockingham party had constantly made ever since the close of the Marquis's first administration. In a speech which he had made only a few weeks before,[67] Lord Rockingham himself had declared that "it was early in the present reign promulgated as a court axiom that the power and influence of the crown alone was sufficient to support any set of men his Majesty might think proper to call to his councils." And Burke, in his "short account" of his administration of 1765, had not only imputed both its formation and its dismissal to the "express request"

and "express command of their royal master," but in the sentence, "they discountenanced and, it is to be hoped, forever abolished, the dangerous and unconst.i.tutional practice of removing military officers for their votes in Parliament," condemned with unmistakable plainness some acts of the preceding ministry which were universally understood to have been forced upon it by the King himself. General Conway had been deprived of the colonelcy of his regiment; Lord Rockingham himself, with several other peers, had been dismissed from Lord-lieutenancies, as a punishment for voting against the ministry; such dismissals being a flagrant attempt to put down all freedom of debate in Parliament, which of all its privileges is the one most essential to its usefulness, if not to its very existence. But, as Burke said, the practice had been abandoned, and the first resolution, therefore, as Lord North said, involved no practical result. It is the second resolution that confers a const.i.tutional character and importance on this debate. And it is not too much to say that no vote of greater value had been come to for many years. It might have been considered almost as the a.s.sertion of a truism included in the power of granting supplies, to declare that the Parliament has the right and authority to examine into and correct abuses in the expenditure, if it had not been denied by more than one speaker on the ministerial side, though not by the Prime-minister himself. But that denial made the a.s.sertion of the right an imperative duty; for certainly the exclusive right of authorizing a levy of money would lose half its value, if unaccompanied by the other right of preventing the waste of the revenue thus raised.

It may likewise be said that another principle of the parliamentary const.i.tution is, by implication, contained in Mr. Dunning's second resolution, and that the words, "it is competent to this House to examine into and to correct abuses in the expenditure," were meant to imply a denial of the competency of the other House to inst.i.tute, or even to share in, such an examination. Even if that were the object of its framer, it only coincided with the view of the peers themselves, a very considerable majority[68] of whom had, a few weeks before, rejected a motion made by Lord Shelburne for the appointment of "a committee of members of both Houses to examine without delay into the public expenditure," princ.i.p.ally on the ground urged by the Secretary of State, Lord Stormont, and by several other peers, that "to inquire into, reform, and control the public expenditure" would be an improper interference with the privileges of the Commons; the Chief-justice, Lord Mansfield, even going the length of warning his brother peers that such interference might probably lead the Commons "to dispute in their turn the power of judicature in the last resort exercised by the peers." Lord Camden, on the contrary, affirmed, as a proposition which "no n.o.ble lord present would deny, that that House had a right to inquire so far as the disposal of public moneys came under their cognizance as a deliberative body." And in the Lower House itself, Burke, in his speech in favor of his Bill for Economical Reform, went even farther than Lord Camden, and blamed the House of Lords for rejecting Lord Shelburne's motion on such a ground. "They had gone," he said, "farther in self-denial than the utmost jealousy of the Commons could have required. A power of examining accounts, of censuring, correcting, and punishing the Commons had never, that he knew of, thought of denying to the Lords. It was something more than a century ago that the Commons had voted the Lords a useless body.

They had now voted themselves so." And it would seem that the Lords themselves, to a certain extent, retracted this, their self-denying vote, when, before the end of the same session, they discussed Burke's Bill for Economical Reform, and pa.s.sed it, though it was a money-bill, "containing extraneous enactments," and as such contravened one of their own standing orders which had been pa.s.sed in the beginning of Queen Anne's reign, when the system of "tacking," as it was called, had excited great discontent, which was not confined to themselves. The propriety of rejecting the bill on that ground was vigorously urged by the only two lawyers who took part in the debate, the Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, and Lord Loughborough, whose object was avowedly thus to give a practical proof that the Lords "had not voted themselves useless." But even those who disregarded their advice fully a.s.serted the right of the peers "to exercise their discretion as legislators." We have noticed this matter on a previous occasion. The privilege claimed by the Commons, both as to its origin and its principle, has been carefully examined by Hallam, who has pointed out that in its full exclusiveness it is not older than Charles II., since the Convention Parliament of 1660 "made several alterations in undoubted money-bills, to which the Commons did not object."[69] And, though his attachment to Whig principles might have inclined him to take their part in any dispute on the subject, he nevertheless thinks that they have strained both "precedent and const.i.tutional a.n.a.logy" in their a.s.sertion of this privilege, which is "an anomaly that can hardly rest on any other ground of defence than such a series of precedents as establish a const.i.tutional usage." The usage which for two centuries was established in this case by the good-sense of both parties clearly was, that the Lords could never originate a money-bill, nor insert any clause in one increasing or even altering the burden laid by one on the people, but that they were within their right in absolutely rejecting one. But such a right has a tendency to lapse through defect of exercise; and we shall hereafter see that "the disposition to make encroachments," which in this matter Hallam imputes to the Commons, has led them in the present reign to carry their pretensions to a height which at a former period had been practically ignored by the one House, and formally disclaimed by the other.

It may be remarked that Mr. Dunning's success in carrying his first resolution did in itself, to a certain extent, disprove the truth of that resolution, since, if the influence of the crown had been such as he represented it, it must have been sufficient to insure its rejection.

But that resolution, and a new statute, of which in a previous session he had been one of the princ.i.p.al promoters, are reckoned by Lord Stanhope as among the chief causes of the disgraceful riots of 1780. In the summer of 1778 he had seconded and supported with great eloquence the repeal of some of the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics which had been pa.s.sed in the reign of William III. It was the first blow at that system of religious intolerance which for nearly a century had been one of the leading principles, as it had been also the chief disgrace, of the const.i.tution; and it was pa.s.sed with scarcely any opposition by both Houses. As, however, the statute which it repealed had been enacted before the Scotch Union, the repeal did not extend to Scotland, and it was necessary, therefore, to bring in a separate measure for that kingdom. But the intelligence that such a proceeding was in contemplation excited great wrath among the Scotch Presbyterians, who, in the hope of defeating it, established a Protestant a.s.sociation for the defence of what they called the Protestant interest, and elected as its president Lord George Gordon, a young n.o.bleman whose acts on more than one occasion gave reason to doubt the soundness of his intellect.

Against any relaxation whatever of the restrictions on the Roman Catholics the a.s.sociation sent up pet.i.tions to the House and to the King, couched in language the wildness of which was hardly consistent with the respect due to Parliament or to the sovereign. Apparently in the hope of mitigating its opposition, the Houses the next year pa.s.sed an act, similar in principle, to relax some of the restrictions still imposed on Protestant dissenting ministers by some of the subscriptions which were required of them. But, as in the reign of Charles II., the Presbyterian hatred of the Roman Catholics was too uncompromising to be appeased in such a manner. And when Lord George found the House of Commons itself acknowledging the danger with which the const.i.tution was threatened by the influence of the crown, he saw in their vote a justification for all his alarms, since he had adopted as one of his most settled opinions the belief that George III. was himself a Papist at heart; and, under the influence of this strange idea, he drew up a pet.i.tion to Parliament which he invited all the members of the a.s.sociation to accompany him to present. His summons was received with enthusiasm by his followers. The number who, in obedience to it, mustered in St. George's Fields, which he had appointed as the place of rendezvous, was not reckoned by any one at less than fifty thousand, and some calculations even doubled that estimate. Whatever the number may originally have been, it was speedily swelled by the junction of large bands of the worst characters in the metropolis, who soon began to display their strength by every kind of outrage. They commenced by attacking some of the Roman Catholic chapels, which they burnt; and, their audacity increasing at the sight of their exploits, they proceeded to a.s.sault the houses of different members of Parliament who had voted for the measures which had offended them. Because the Chief-justice, Lord Mansfield, had lately presided at a trial where a Roman Catholic had been acquitted, they sacked and burnt his house, and tried to murder himself. The magistrates, afraid of exposing themselves to the fury of such a mob, kept for the most part out of the way; and though the troops had been put under arms, and several regiments from the rural districts had been brought up to London in haste, the military officers were afraid to act without orders. Left to work their pleasure almost without resistance, the rioters attacked the different prisons, burnt Newgate and released all the prisoners, and made more than one attack on the Bank of England, where, however, fortunately the guard was strong enough to repel them. But still no active measures were taken to crush the riot. The belief was general that the soldiers might not act at all, or, at all events, not fire on rioters, till an hour after the Riot Act had been read and the mob had been warned to disperse; and no magistrate could be found to brave its fury by reading it. There seemed no obstacle to prevent the rioters from making themselves masters of the whole capital, had it not been for the firmness of the King himself, who, when all the proper authorities failed, showed himself in fact as well as in name the Chief Magistrate of the kingdom.[70] He summoned a Privy Council, and urged the members to adopt instant measures of repression; and, when some of the ministers seemed to waver, he put the question himself to the Attorney-general whether the interpretation put on the Riot Act, which seemed to him inconsistent with common-sense, were justified by the law. Wedderburn unhesitatingly replied that it was not; that "if a mob were committing a felony, as by burning dwelling-houses, and could not be prevented by other means, the military, according to the law of England, might and ought to be immediately ordered to fire upon them, the reading of the Riot Act being wholly unnecessary under such circ.u.mstances."[71] The King insisted on this opinion being instantly acted on; a proclamation was issued, and orders were sent from the Adjutant-general's office that the soldiers were to act at once without waiting for directions from the civil magistrates. A few hours now sufficed to restore tranquillity. The Chief-justice, in his place in the House of Lords, subsequently declared Wedderburn's opinion, and the orders given in reliance upon it, to be in strict conformity with the common law, laying down, as the principle on which such an interpretation of the law rested, the doctrine that in such a case the military were acting, "not as soldiers, but as citizens; no matter whether their coats were red or brown, they were legally employed in preserving the laws and the const.i.tution;"[72] and Wedderburn, who before the end of the year became Chief-justice of the Common Pleas, repeated the doctrine more elaborately in a charge from the Bench. It was a lesson of value to the whole community. It was quite true that the const.i.tution placed the army in a state of dependence on the civil power. But, when that doctrine was so misunderstood as to be supposed to give temporary immunity to outrage, it was most important that such a misconstruction should be corrected, and that it should be universally known that military discipline does not require the soldier to abstain from the performance of the duty inc.u.mbent on every citizen, the prevention of crime.

Notes:

[Footnote 33: It is worth while to preserve the amount, if for no other reason, for the contrast that the expenditure and resources of the kingdom a hundred years ago present to those of the present day. The supply required in 1764 was in round numbers 7,712,000; in 1755, before the war broke out, 4,073,000, and even that included a million for the augmentation of the army and navy. In 1761, when the war was at its height, the sum voted was 19,616,000.]

[Footnote 34: The report in the "Parliamentary History," xvi., 37, says: "This act (the Stamp Act) pa.s.sed the Commons almost without debate; two or three members spoke against it, but without force or apparent interest, except a vehement harangue from Colonel Barre (date, March 6, 1765)."]

[Footnote 35: Lord Stanhope ("History of England," v., 131) quotes a letter of Dr. Franklin to one of his friends in America, in which, after deploring the impossibility of preventing the act from being pa.s.sed, he expresses a hope that "frugality and industry will go a great way toward indemnifying us." And he complied with Mr. Grenville's request to select a person to act as Distributor of Stamps in Pennsylvania whom he thought likely to be generally acceptable.]

[Footnote 36: These statements and arguments of Franklin are taken from different parts of his examination before the House of Commons, as preserved in the "Parliamentary History," xvi., 137-160.]

[Footnote 37: In the a.s.sembly of Virginia, one of the members--Patrick Henry--after declaiming with bitterness against the supposed arbitrary measures of the present reign, exclaimed, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I. his Oliver Cromwell, and George III.--" A cry of "Treason!"

was uttered. The Speaker called Mr. Henry to order, and declared he would quit the chair unless he were supported by the House in restraining such intemperate speeches.--Adolphus, _History of England_, i., 188.]

[Footnote 38: On this point the law has been affirmed by a judge of high reputation to be still what Lord Rockingham and his colleagues a.s.serted.

In 1868, on the trial of Governor Eyre for an indictment arising out of disturbances in Jamaica, Judge Blackburne laid it down "that, although the general rule is that the Legislative a.s.sembly has the sole right of imposing taxes in the colony, yet, when the Imperial Legislature chooses to impose taxes, according to the rule of English law they have a _right_ to do it."]

[Footnote 39: See his speech on American taxation in April, 1774.]

[Footnote 40: The chief divisions were: in the Commons, 275 to 167; in the Lords, 105 to 71.]

[Footnote 41: "History of England," vol. v., c. xlv., p. 218, ed. 1862.]

[Footnote 42: "Lives of the Chancellors," c. cxliii., life of Lord Camden.]

[Footnote 43: Every political student will recollect Burke's description of it as "a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified mosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement--here a bit of black stone, there a bit of white--patriots and courtiers, King's friends and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies,"

etc.--_Speech on American Taxation_.]

[Footnote 44: In a debate in the year 1776, on some measures adopted for the conduct of the war, the Duke of Grafton said: "In that year (1767), when the extraordinary expenses incurred on account of America were laid before the House of Commons, the House rose as one man and insisted that that country should contribute to the burdens brought on by the military establishment there, and a motion was made for bringing in a bill for that purpose. I strenuously opposed the measure, as big with the consequences it has since, unfortunately, produced. I spoke to my friends upon the occasion, but they all united in the opinion that the tide was too strong to expect either to stem or turn it, so as to prevent whatever might be offered in that shape from pa.s.sing into a law.

Finding that all my efforts would be vain, I was compelled to submit, but was resolved, as far as lay in my power, to prevent the effect; and, while I gave way, to do it in such a manner as would cause the least harm. I accordingly proposed the tea-duty as the most palatable; because, though it answered the main purpose of those with whom taxation was a favorite measure, it was doing America an immediate benefit, for I procured the shilling a pound duty to be taken off, and threepence to be laid on in lieu thereof; so that, in fact, it was ninepence a pound saved to America. However, the attempt was received in America as I expected it would be--it immediately caused disturbances and universal dissatisfaction."--_Parliamentary History_, xviii., 134.]

[Footnote 45: This unpopularity had been aggravated by another measure which was among the last acts of Mr. Grenville's ministry. The Mutiny Act in the Colonies was renewed for two years at a time, and, at its renewal in the spring of 1765, a clause was added which required the Colonists to furnish the troops with "fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, utensils for cooking, and liquors, such as beer, cider, and rum." The a.s.semblies of several States pa.s.sed resolutions strongly condemning this new imposition; but, as the dissatisfaction did not lead to any overt acts of disturbance, it seems to have been unnoticed in England at the time, or the clause would probably have been repealed by Lord Rockingham; and eventually the a.s.sembly of New York seems to have withdrawn its objections to it, presenting an address to Sir H. Moore, the Governor, in which "they declared their intention of making the required provision for the troops."--Lord E. Fitzmaurice, _Life of Lord Shelburne_, ii., 61.]

[Footnote 46: The "Memoirs of Judge Livingstone" record his expression of opinion as early as 1773, that "it was intolerable that a continent like America should be governed by a little island three thousand miles distant." "America," said he, "must and will be independent." And in the "Memoirs of General Lee" we find him speaking to Mr. Patrick Henry, who in 1766 had been one of the most violent of all the denouncers of the English policy (see _ante_, p. 63), of "independence" as "a golden castle in the air which he had long dreamed of."]

[Footnote 47: See the whole speech, "Parliamentary History," xvi., 853.

Many of the taxes he denounced as so injurious to the British manufacturers, "that it must astonish any reasonable man to think how so preposterous a law could originally obtain existence from a British Legislature."]

[Footnote 48: The division was: for the amendment, 142; against it, 204.]

[Footnote 49: The words of the "preamble," on which Burke dwelt in 1774, were: "Whereas it is expedient that a revenue should be raised in your Majesty's dominions in America for making a more certain and adequate provision for defraying the charge of the administration of justice and support of civil government in such provinces where it shall be found necessary, and toward farther defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing: the said dominions, be it enacted," etc.]

[Footnote 50: "Memoirs and Correspondence of Jefferson." Quoted by Lord Stanhope, "History of England," vi., 14.]

[Footnote 51: At Lexington, April 19, 1775.]

[Footnote 52: Lord Stanhope, however, has reason on his side when he calls the words of this pet.i.tion "vague and general," though "kindly and respectful;" and when he points to the language of extreme bitterness against England indulged in by Franklin at the very time that this pet.i.tion was voted. He, however, expresses a belief that even then "the progress of civil war might have been arrested," which seems doubtful.

But it is impossible not to agree with his lordship in condemning the refusal by the ministry to take any notice of the pet.i.tion, on the ground that the Congress was a self-const.i.tuted body, with no claim to authority or recognition, and one which had already sanctioned the taking up arms against the King.--_History of England_, vi., 93, 95, 105.]

[Footnote 53: It is probable, however, that the greater part of the Hanoverian soldiers were Protestants.]