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there prevailed were wholly independent of the CHAP. will and example of the Sovereign, and for their amendment needed no less than Burke's great measure of Economical Reform. Notwithstanding all the efforts of Opposition, the House of Commons agreed, not only to discharge these arrears, but with the view of guarding against such arrears for the future, to grant to the Crown, by Bill, a further yearly sum of 100,000l.

This Bill, entitled "For the better Support of "the Royal Household," was of itself invidious, and unhappily became the more so from the circumstances of its passing. The Speaker, Sir Fletcher Norton, having now some private grudges against the Government, had determined to indulge them. It became his duty to present this Bill to the King, seated on the Throne, and surrounded by the chief officers of State. It became his privilege, if he pleased, on that occasion to address his Sovereign. "Sir," said Mr. Speaker, "in a time of public distress, full of difficulty and danger, their constituents labouring under bur"dens almost too heavy to be borne, your faithful "Commons postponed all other business, and with "as much despatch as the nature of their proceedings would admit, have not only granted to your "Majesty a large present supply, but also a very great additional revenue- -great beyond example

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great beyond your Majesty's highest wants!" Afterwards, in printing, the last word was corrected by the Speaker to "expenses." It may easily be

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CHAP. imagined how much gratification this speech afforded to one side of the House, and how much resentment it called forth on the other. A vote approving it was proposed by the Opposition, and of course much disrelished by the Ministry; but, being most consistent with form and quiet, was, after some debate, allowed to pass.

It was certainly felt on all hands, as the Speaker had, with no great respect, implied, that the appeal in behalf of the Civil List, however unavoidable, was most ill-timed. It was made in a year when the charges for the navy rose to upwards of four millions, and the charges for the army nearly approached the same sum; when it was deemed requisite to impose a tax on male servants, a further stamp on deeds, and an auction duty; and when, notwithstanding these aids, it became necessary to add five millions to the funded debt.*

The public would no doubt have borne this increase of its burdens with still more dissatisfaction, had the public known how rotten at this period was our whole system of commissaries and contractors how ill, in fact, the money raised in England was applied abroad. To this charge I will summon as my witness Lord North's own Solicitor-General. Thus, in 1777, did Mr. Wedderburn write respecting our army in America to a confidential friend: "The peculation in every

* Parl. Hist. vol. xix. pp. 241. 271. In the debate on the Budget, Lord North observed that there were some persons who kept thirty or more male servants.

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profitable branch of the service is represented to CHAP. "be enormous, and, as usual, it is attended with a shocking neglect of every comfort to the troops. "The hospitals are pest-houses, and the provisions "served out are poison; those that are to be bought are sold at the highest prices of a "monopoly."*

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Another measure, which was met by considerable opposition, and not carried without some amendments, was a partial suspension of the Habeas Corpus-a Bill empowering His Majesty to secure and detain persons charged with or suspected of the crime of high treason committed in North America, or on the high seas, or the crime of piracy. "The thing is this," said Lord North; "there have been during the present war in Ame"rica many prisoners made who were in actual "commission of the crime of high treason; and "there are persons guilty of that crime who might "be taken, but from want of evidence could not "be kept in gaol." Our own liberties are in danger!—such was the reply of Dunning, Wilkes, and Fox. "Who knows," cried Fox, "but the Ministers, in the fulness of their malice, may "take it into their heads that I have served on

Long Island, under General Washington? What "would it avail me in such an event to plead an "ALIBI; to assure my old friends that I was

* Letter to William Eden, printed from the MS. in Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 118.

CHAP. "during the whole of the autumn American cam

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paign in England; that I was never in America, nor on any other sea but between Dover and "Calais; and that all my acts of piracy were com"mitted on the mute creation? All this All this may be

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very true, says a Minister or a Minister's understrapper, but you are for the present suspected; "that is sufficient; this is no time for proofs. "I know you are fond of Scotland; I will send you under this Sign Manual to study the Erse language in the Isle of Bute. As soon as the operation of the Bill is spent, you will be at liberty to return whither you please; and then you may, if you like, call on your accusers to prove their charges of treason in America, or on "the high seas, or of piracy. But they will laugh "in your face, and tell you they never charged "you, they only suspected you!"

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While thus, within the walls of Parliament, imaginary apprehensions passed for arguments, there were out of doors strong proofs of other and more real dangers resulting from the partisans or the emissaries of America. On the 7th of the preceding December, a considerable building in the Dockyard at Portsmouth, called the Rope-house, had been consumed by fire. Through great exertions the further progress of the flames had been arrested, and their origin was ascribed to accident, until several weeks afterwards, when some combustibles were found concealed in another large building of the same establishment-the Hemp

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house. Happily, notwithstanding the vast stores CHAP. of hemp, these last combustibles had failed in their effect, but their appearance made it plain that in all probability, not accident, but design, had caused the first calamity. Suspicion fell upon a moody, sullen artisan, whose name had not been known, but who, from his calling, had borne the surname of John the Painter. This fellow, it was now remembered, had been seen on the day of the fire loitering about both the Rope-house and the Hemp-house, and by some chance, on the preceding night, had been locked into the former. A reward was offered for his apprehension, but all trace of him was gone, and on searching through Portsmouth and its neighbourhood no such person could be found. In the mean time other incendiary attempts were made in various places. At Plymouth the design was wholly frustrated, and the perpetrator nearly seized. Bristol, also, the villain failed in an attempt to set fire to some vessels, and found so strict a watch kept on them afterwards, that he was obliged to change his plan of operations. He succeeded in setting fire to some warehouses which stood upon the quay, close upon a crowded mass of shipping;

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and six or seven of these houses were consumed while the shipping narrowly escaped. In another house of the same city fresh combustibles were found, and there was general panic, but great variety of surmises. The one party ascribed these things to American and Republican principles in