DESERTION FROM THE WHIG PARTY. rious sections of opposition, untaught by the experience of the last ten years, were still engaged in cultivating jealousies among themselves, and in detaching partizans not from the Court but from each other.a Ch. 15. 1771 91 Wedderburn. Men of ambition and ability can hardly be Defection of blamed for deserting the fortunes of an Opposition so hopeless as this. Wedderburn, one of the most rising men at the bar, as well as in the House of Commons, had been hitherto opposed to the Court; but he now saw plainly that his choice lay between advancement on the one side, and on the other, adherence to an Opposition which could never be a Government. Wedderburn, therefore, accepted the office of SolicitorGeneral. His defection, however, was remarkable. He had distinguished himself eminently on the popular side on the great question of electoral rights. He had been obliged, in consequence of the part he took in that controversy, to resign his seat in Parliament, which he owed to a patron who took the opposite part. At a great dinner of the Opposition, at the Thatched House, in May, 1769, he had received the honors of martyrdom. Among the one-and-twenty toasts given on that occasion, none was received with greater a For example, the Duke of Richmond, writing to Lord Rockingham, December, 1770, reports that Camden is dissatisfied with Chatham; and thinks that with a little management we shall have him.' Rock. Cor. ii. 197. The private correspondence of the period, abounds with proofs of these miserable intrigues. 92 BATHURST AND THURLOW. Ch. 15. applause than 1771 The Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds - Mr. Wedderburn.' Lord George Cavendish, on the part of the Whigs, proposed this toast. Beckford presented him with the freedom of the city in a gold box. Several seats in Parliament were offered him, and when Parliament met, he was returned for Bishop's Castle, by Lord Clive, the Indian hero. Almost up to the day of his taking office, he was in close correspondence with the Opposition leaders. Wedderburn's predecessor in office, a greater lawyer and an abler man, took a more dignified course. There can be no doubt that Dunning might have had the Great Seal, as the reward of his desertion to the Court. But he preferred the honourable obscurity of the outer barb to a scandalous elevation. Thurlow became AttorneyGeneral; and the Great Seal, which had been kept in commission since the death of Yorke, was bestowed upon Bathurst, a puisne judge of the Common Pleas, a man of no political note and hardly of any professional distinction. Lord Sandwich, the last of the Bedford party, was promoted to the head of the Board of Admiralty. Lord Halifax resumed the office of Secretary of State, which he had held in Bute's administration. b Dunning had not the permanent rank of a king's counsel; therefore, when he resigned the office of Solicitor-general, he had to leave his place within the bar, and resume the stuff gown of a junior barrister. Lord Mansfield, however, gave him the preaudience of that class. PARLIAMENTARY REPORTS. 1771 The Opposition beheld these arrangements by Ch. 15. which the ministry was so much strengthened, with impotent anger and dismay. But the Whigs, if they could not come into power themselves, were content that the Court should triumph, rather than that the popular party should obtain an advantage. 1771. exclude 93 The session of 1771 commenced with a new Session of quarrel between the House of Commons and the Attempt to country. The standing order for the exclusion parliamentary ¦ of strangers, which had long existed (and which reporters. still exists), was seldom enforced, except when it was thought desirable that a question should be debated with closed doors. It was now attempted by means of this order, to prevent the publication of the debates, and proceedings of the House. It had long been the practice of the newspapers, and some other periodical journals, to publish the debates of Parliament, under various thin disguises, and with more or less fulness and accuracy, from speeches furnished at length by the speakers themselves, to loose and meagre notes of more or less authenticity. One of the most attractive features of the Gentleman's Magazine, a monthly publication of respectability, which has survived to the present day, was an article which purported to be a report of the debates in Parliament. This report was, for nearly three years, prepared by Dr. Johnson, who never attended the galleries himself, and derived his information from persons who could seldom give him more than the 94 Ch. 15. 1771 DR. JOHNSON'S REPORTS. names of the speakers, and the side which each of them took in the debate. The speeches were, therefore, the composition of Johnson himself; and some of the most admired oratory of the period was avowedly the product of his genius.c Attempts were made from time to time, both within and without the walls of Parliament, to abolish, or at least to modify, the standing order for the exclusion of strangers, by means of which the license of reporting had been restricted; for there was no order of either House specifically prohibiting the publication of its debates. But such proposals had always been resisted by the leaders of parties, who thought that the privilege was one which might be evaded, but could not safely be formally relinquished. The practice of reporting, therefore, was tolerated on the understanding, that a decent disguise should be observed; and that no publication of the proceedings of parliament should take place during the session. There can be little doubt, however, that the public journals would have gone on, with the tacit connivance of the parliamentary chiefs, until they had practically established a right of reporting regularly the proceedings of both Houses, had not the presumptuous folly of inferior members provoked a conflict with the press upon this ground of privilege, and in the result, driven Parliament reluctantly to yield BOSWELL'S Life, vol. i. The great moralist, in after years, expressed his contrition for this fraud upon the public. COLONEL ONSLOW'S MOTION. what they would otherwise have quietly conceded. Ch. 15. 1771 95 It was Colonel Onslow, member for Guildford, Col. Onslow's motion against who rudely agitated a question which wiser men reporters. had been content to leave unvexed; and by his rash meddling, precipitated the very result which he thought he could prevent. He complained that the proceedings of the House had been inaccurately reported; and that the newspapers had even presumed to reflect on the public conduct of honourable members. He began by moving, that two sessional orders of 1728 and 1738, which prohibited the publication of the debates, should be read by the clerk. This passed without observation; and the newspapers having expressed their intention to persevere, some of them with many terms of contempt and abuse in regard to Onslow, Sir James Turner, another foolish member, moved the standing order for the exclusion of strangers. as a motion of course; not, some remonstrance, and an such a proceeding was quite unusual, except when matters connected with the right of election were about to be debated. A division, however, took place in a subsequent motion, that two of the printers, Wheble and Thompson, should be ordered to attend at the bar. This also passed The House of Commons were very unwilling to be dragged into this controversy. They had already incurred sufficient odium by their attempt |