CHAPTER VII.

Debates in Parliament on Economical Reform-Speech of Edmund Burke - Debate on the Limitation of the Power Motion on the Right of Parliament to RegList-Conflict of Parties - The "Gordon

of the Crown

ulate the Civil

Riots"- The Mob Predominant- Fearful Devastation in the Metropolis Burning of Newgate and the Fleet Prisons and Other Buildings - Promptitude of the King - Suppression of the Disturbances The Rioters Brought to Trial.

SELDOM have more interesting or more animated debates been listened to within the walls of St. Stephen's, than those which took place after the Christmas recess of 1779 and 1780. It was on the 8th of February that Sir George Savile presented to the House of Commons the famous "Yorkshire petition," signed by no fewer than eight thousand freeholders of that important county. In this document the petitioners entreated the House to inquire into the management and expenditure of the public money; to reduce all exorbitant emoluments, and to abolish all sinecure places and unmerited pensions whatsoever. Only three days after the presentation of the "Yorkshire petition," Burke brought before the House his celebrated plan of economical reform; the specific objects of which were the reduction.

of the national expenditure, and a diminution of the influence of the Crown. That noxious influence, said the illustrious orator, had not only taken away all vigour from our arms, and all wisdom from our counsels, but had stripped every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of the Constitution. Burke's speech on this occasion is said to have been grand almost beyond precedent; indeed, Lord North, in replying to him, admitted it to have been one of the best orations to which he had ever listened. It was a speech, he said, "such as no other member could have made." In conducting his favourite measure through Parliament, Burke, on more than one occasion, succeeded in leaving ministers in a minority, but eventually the bill was lost.

No less animated were the discussions which took place not long afterward, when Dunning brought forward a similar, and still bolder, motion for enforcing a more economical expenditure of the public money, and curbing the power of the Crown. In a speech, concise, eloquent, and breathing bitter invective against ministers, he accused them of having jesuitically approved of many of the propositions of his honourable friend, at the same time that they were insidiously intent on stripping it of all its excellence. The public, he said, must be satisfied there was at issue a point of the most vital importance; and accordingly he moved in a committee of the whole House his

famous resolution: "That it is the opinion of this committee that the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." To the consternation of the courtiers and place-hunters, this sweeping proposition was carried by a majority of eighteen.

Encouraged by this success, Dunning now moved a second resolution, to the effect that it was not less competent for the House of Commons to correct abuses in the management and expenditure of the civil list, than it was in every other branch of the legislature. This resolution was carried against government; as also were one or two others proposed by Charles Fox and Mr. Thomas Pitt. Thus, throughout the session, was the House constantly kept in a state of the highest excitement. Thus, too, were the downfall of ministers, and the unconditional surrender of the king, apparently on the eve of being accomplished, when the illness of the Speaker, Sir Fletcher Norton, compelled the House to adjourn from the 14th to the 24th of April. "I have not the slightest doubt," writes the king to Lord North, "that the Speaker has pleaded illness, to enable the opposition to pursue their amusement at Newmarket the next week." Unfortunately, when the House of Commons reassembled on the 24th, its temper proved to be changed. It was in vain that Dunning moved an address to the king praying him not to dissolve Parliament or prorogue the session, till after the

crying evils complained of had been remedied. Ministers collected all their forces to meet his attack, and triumphed by a majority of fifty-one.

That the king, at this exciting period, should have taught himself to believe that the radical resolutions moved by the opposition, and their violent attacks upon the royal prerogative, were fraught with peril to the state, was nothing more than might have been anticipated. His fears, indeed, however unreasonable they may have been, were certainly shared by the great majority of the wisest and best in the land. "A little time," writes the king to Lord North, "will open the eyes of several who have been led farther than they intended. It cannot be the wish of the majority to overturn the Constitution. Factious leaders and ruined men wish it, but not the bulk of the people. I shall therefore undoubtedly be assisted in preserving this excellent Constitution. Lord North shall see that there is at least one person willing to preserve unspoiled the most beautiful Constitution that ever was framed." The personal attacks levelled at himself in Parliament he could not but bitterly feel. To Lord North he writes, on the 7th of April: "The Resolutions can by no means be looked on as personal to him [Lord North]. I wish I did not feel at whom they were personally levelled." Again the king writes to Lord North: "However I am treated, I must love this country."

In the month of June, this year, took place in London those formidable popular disturbances familiarly known as the "Gordon Riots." About two years previously, certain acts of Parliament, which had long weighed heavily upon the Roman Catholics of England and Wales, had been gracefully repealed by the unanimous acquiescence of the king and both Houses of Parliament. Wise and liberal minds had begun to congratulate themselves on the approaching dawn of a more enlightened and tolerant age. Very different, however, was the state of public feeling on the other side of the Tweed. No sooner was it rumoured in Scotland that government contemplated introducing a similar relief bill into that country, than there burst forth a storm of fanatical indignation and alarm such as had not been equalled since John Knox had declared that a single mass was more frightful to him than the invasion of an army. In Edinburgh and Glasgow, not only were Roman Catholics grossly insulted in the streets, but they went about their daily business in peril of their lives. Their places of worship were demolished; their dwelling-houses broken into; and their property destroyed. Unhappily, this miserable spirit of bigotry gradually extended to England. There, too, the cry of "No popery" was as effectually raised, and thus sprang into existence that mischievous society, destined to be the cause of so many evils, the Protestant Association. How