voted to the king, for life, the whole revenue enjoyed by his brother.*

The zealous churchmen, who formed the majority of the flouse, seem to have been of opinion that the promptitude with which they had met the wish of James touching the revenue entitled them to expect some concession on his part. They said that much had been done to gratify him, and that they must now do something to gratify the nation. The House, therefore, resolved itself into a committee of religion, in order to consider the best means of providing for the secu rity of the ecclesiastical establishment. In that committee, two resolutions were unanimously adopted. The first expressed fervent attachment to the Church of England. The second called on the king to put in execution the penal laws against all persons who were not members of that church.t

The Whigs would doubtless have wished to see the Protestant dissenters tolerated, and the Roman Catholics alone persecuted. But the Whigs were a small and a disheartened minority. They therefore kept themselves as much as possible out of sight, dropped their party name, abstained from obtruding their peculiar opinions on a hostile audience, and steadily supported every proposition tending to disturb the harmony which as yet subsisted between the parliament and

the court.

When the proceedings of the committee of religion were known at Whitehall, the king's anger was great. Nor can we justly blame him for resenting the conduct of the Tories. If they were disposed to insist on the rigorous execution of the penal code, they clearly ought to have supported the Exclusion Bill. For to place a Papist on the throne, and then to insist on his persecuting to the death the teachers of that faith in which alone, on his principles, salvation could be found, was monstrous. In mitigating by a lenient administration the severity of the bloody laws of Elizabeth, the king violated no constitutional principle. He only exerted a power which has always belonged to the crown. Nay, he only did what was afterwards done by a succession of sovereigns zealous for the doctrines of the Reformation, by William, by Anne, and by the princes of the House of Brunswick. Had he suffered Roman Catholic priests, whose lives he could save without

+ Journals, May 26, 27. Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs.

infringing any law, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, for discharging what he considered as their first duty, he would have drawn on himself the hatred and contempt even of those to whose prejudices he had made so shameful a concession; and, had he contented himself with granting to the members of his own church a practical toleration by a large exercise of his unquestioned prerogative of mercy, posterity would have unanimously applauded him.

The Commons probably felt on reflection that they had acted absurdly. They were also disturbed by learning that the king, to whom they looked up with superstitious reverence, was greatly provoked. They made haste, therefore, to atone for their offence. In the House they unanimously reversed the decision which in the committee they had unanimously adopted, and passed a resolution importing that they relied with entire confidence on his majesty's gracious promise to protect that religion which was dearer to them than life itself.*

Three days later the king informed the House that his brother had left some debts, and that the stores of the navy and ordnance were nearly exhausted. It was promptly re solved that new taxes should be imposed. The person on whom devolved the task of devising ways and means was Sir Dudley North, younger brother of the lord keeper. Dudley North was one of the ablest men of his time. He had early in life been sent to the Levant, where he had been long engaged in mercantile pursuits. Most men would, in such a situation, have allowed their faculties to rust. For at Smyrna and Constantinople there were few books and few intelligent companions. But the young factor had one of those vigorous understandings which are independent of external aids: In his solitude he meditated deeply on the philosophy of trade, and thought out by degrees a complete and admirable theory, substantially the same with that which, a hundred years later, was expounded by Adam Smith. After an exile of many years Dudley North returned to England with a large fortune, and commenced business as a Turkey merchant in the city of London. His profound knowledge, both speculative and practical, of commercial matters, and the perspicuity and liveliness with which he explained his views, speedily introduced him to the notice of statesmen. The government found in him al

* Commons' Journals, May 27, 1685.

once an enlightened adviser and an unscrupulous slave. For with his rare mental endowments were joined lax principles and an unfeeling heart. When the Tory reaction was in full progress, he had consented to be made sheriff for the express purpose of assisting the vengeance of the court. His juries had never failed to find verdicts of guilty; and, on a day of judicial butchery, carts, loaded with the legs and arms of quartered Whigs, were, to the great discomposure of his lady, driven to his fine house in Basinghall Street for orders. His services had been rewarded with the honor of knighthood, with an alderman's gown, and with the office of commissioner of the customs. He. had been brought into parliament for Banbury, and, though a new member, was the person on whom the lord treasurer chiefly relied for the conduct of financial business in the Lower House.*

Though the Commons were unanimous in their resolution to grant a further supply to the crown, they were by no means agreed as to the sources from which that supply should be drawn. It was speedily determined that part of the sum which was required should be raised by laying an additional impost, for a term of eight years, on wine and vinegar; but something more than this was needed. Several absurd schemes were suggested. Many country gentlemen were disposed to put a heavy tax on all new buildings in the capital. Such a tax, it was hoped, would check the growth of a city which had iong been regarded with jealousy and aversion by the rural aristocracy. Dualey North's plan was, that additional duties should be imposed, for a term of eight years, on sugar and tobacco. A great clamor was raised. Colonial merchants, grocers, sugar-bakers, and tobacconists, petitioned the House and besieged the public offices. The people of Bristol, who were deeply interested in the trade with Virginia and Jamaica, sent up a deputation which was heard at the bar of the Commons. Rochester was for a moment staggered; but North's ready wit and perfect knowledge of trade prevailed, both in the Treasury and in the parliament, against all opposition. The old members were annoyed at seeing a man who had not been a fortnight in the House, and whose life had been chiefly passed in foreign Countries, assume with confidence,

Koger North's Life of Sir Dudley North; Life of I ord Guildford, 166; M'Culloch's Literature of Political Economy

and discharge with ability, all the functions of a chancellor of the Exchequer.*

His plan was adopted; and thus the crown was in possession of a clear income of about nineteen hundred thousand pounds, derived from England alone. Such an income was then more than sufficient for the support of the government in time of peace.t

Of the

The Lords had, in the mean time, discussed several important questions. The Tory party had always been strong among the peers. It included the whole bench of bishops, and had been reënforced, during the four years which had elapsed since the last dissolution, by several fresh creations. new nobles, the most conspicuous were the Lord Treasurer Rochester, the Lord Keeper Guildford, the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, the Lord Godolphin, and the Lord Churchill, who, after his return from Versailles, had been made a baron of England.

The peers early took into consideration the case of four members of their body who had been impeached in the late reign, but had never been brought to trial, and had, after a long confinement, been admitted to bail by the Court of King's Bench. Three of the peers who were thus under recogni zances were Roman Catholics. The fourth was a Protestant of great note and influence, the Earl of Danby. Since he had fallen from power and had been accused of treason by the Commons, four parliaments had been dissolved; but he had been neither acquitted nor condemned. In 1679 the Lords had considered, with reference to his situation, the question, whether an impeachment was or was not terminated by a dissolution. They had resolved, after long debate and full examination of precedents, that the impeachment was still pending. That resolution they now rescinded. A few Whig nobles protested against this step, but to little purpose. The Commons silently acquiesced in the decision of the Upper Ilouse. Danby again took his seat among his peers, and became an active and powerful member of the Tory party.

The constitutional question on which the Lords thus, in the short space of six years, pronounced two diametrically opposite decisions, slept during more than a century, and was at length

*Life of Dudley North, 176; Lonsdale's Memoirs; Van Citters, June 4, 1685.

† Commons' Journals, March 1, 1689.

Lords' Journals, March 18, 19, 1679, May 22, 1685.

revived by the disso ution which took place during the long trial of Warren Hastings. It was then necessary to determine whethe: the rule laid down in 1679, or the opposite rule laid down in 1685, was to be accounted the law of the land The point was long debated in both Houses; and the best legal and parliamentary abilities which an age preeminently fertile both in legal and in parliamentary ability could supply were employed in the discussion. The lawyers were not unequally divided. Thurlow, Kenyon, Scott, and Erskine, maintained that the dissolution had put an end to the impeachment The contrary doctrine was held by Mansfield, Camden, Loughborough, and Grant. But among those statesmen who grounded their arguments, not on precedents and technical analogies, but on deep and broad constitutional principles, there was little difference of opinion. Pitt and Grenville, as well as Burke and Fox, held that the impeachment was still pending. Both Houses by great majorities set aside the decision of 1685, and pronounced the decision of 1679 to be in conformity with the law of parliament.

Of the national crimes which had been committed during the panic excited by the fictions of Oates, the most signal had been the judicial murder of Stafford. The sentence of that unhappy nobleman was now regarded by all impartial persons as unjust. The principal witness for the prosecution had been convicted of a series of foul perjuries. It was the duty of the legislature, under such circumstances, to do justice to the memory of a guiltless sufferer, and to efface an unmerited stain from a name long illustrious in our annals. A bill for reversing the attainder of Stafford was passed by the Upper House, in spite of the murmurs of a few peers who were unwilling to admit that they had shed innocent blood. The Commons read the bill twice without a division, and ordered it to be committed. But, on the day appointed for the comnittee, arrived news that a formidable rebellion had broken out in the west of England. It was consequently necessary to postpone much important business. The reparation due to the memory of Stafford was deferred, as it was supposed, only for a short time. But the misgovernment of James in a few months completely turned the tide of public feeling. During several generations the Roman Catholics were in no condition to demand reparation for injustice, and accounted themselves happy if they were permitted to live unmolested in obscurity and silence. At length, in the reign of King George the