manoeuvres ; and he appealed to their Lordships, whether his intention, with respect to his vote, had not been openly and candidly avowed. Nothing was more justifiable or more common in Parliamentary practice, than for a member who strongly disapproved of any measure, to endeavour to clog it with conditions which would procure its rejection. He hoped that those noble Lords who had given a pledge that they would not vote for the bill with the divorce clause, would now redeem that pledge, and get rid of the bill altogether.Lord Lauderdale explained that he did not mean to use the words trick

and manoeuvre in any reproachful or unparliamentary sense.

Some trifling modifications in the terms of the bill were then discussed, and the House adjourned till the following day.

Next day (11th November) a good deal of desultory conversation took place, but without the possibility of bringing forth any thing new on so beaten a subject. The vote at length being loudly called for, the numbers appeared

For the third reading,
Against it,

Lake

Curzon

108

99

Orford

St Helens Northwicke

Bolton

Carrington

De Dunstanville

Rous

Saltersford (Courtown)

Shaftesbury

Cardigan

Stewart (Galloway)

Stewart (Moray)

Rosse

Douglas (Morton)

Nelson

Grenville

Powis

Northampton

Exeter

Headfort

Cornwallis Buckingham Lothian

Queensberry

Winchester

Duke Wellington

Middleton

Northumberland

Immediately after the vote, Lord Dacre put in a petition from the Queen, praying to be heard by counsel against the passing of the bill.

The Earl of Liverpool rose immediately, and said that he apprehended such a course would be rendered unnecessary by what he was about to state. He could not be ignorant of the state of public feeling with regard to this measure, and it appeared to be the opinion of the House that the bill should be read a third time only by a majority of 9 votes. Had the third reading been carried by as consider

able a number of Peers as the second, he and his noble colleagues would have felt it their duty to persevere with the bill, and to send it down to the other branch of the legislature. In the present state of the country, however, and with the division of sentiment so nearly balanced, just evinced by their Lordships, they had come to the determination not to proceed farther with it. It was his intention, accordingly, to move that the question do pass that the bill be put on this day six months.

Earl Grey entered into a vehement

invective against the conduct of ministers in the whole course of the bill. He charged the servants of the Crown with the grossest neglect of duty, in the first instance, in listening only to ex-parte evidence, and giving a willing credence to the most exaggerated and unfounded calumnies. They had thus for many months agitated the nation-they had produced a general stagnation of public and private business-and they had given a most favourable opportunity, were it desired, to the enemies of internal peace and tranquillity. They had betrayed their King, insulted their Queen, and had given a shock to the morals of society by the promulgation of the detestable and disgusting evidence, in the hearing of which the House had been so long occupied. The result had been, that, after inquiries, secret and open-after the grossest calumnies and the foulest libels had been made the subject of detail and debate for 50 days—after all the injury that it was possible to do the Queen had been accomplished, the bill was abandoned, not without reason, but assuredly without apology. Lord Erskine expressed the delight he felt, that, after all that had been threatened and performed, he had yet at length lived to see justice-tardy and reluctant justice-done to the Queen. It was the victory of right and innocence over wrong and malignity. The Duke of Montrose, on the other hand, declared his unaltered conviction, that the charge had been proved, and that he could never consider her as his Queen.

The motion, that the bill be read this day six months, was then carried unanimously.

The intelligence of this issue was received by the great body of the people with unbounded rejoicings. Nothing, it is true, could be substantially less brilliant, or satisfactory to

the royal personage. Several of the Lords who spoke against the bill, and even a part of those who protested against the second reading, declared their full conviction of her guilt; while others, only conceiving that there was still a doubt remaining, claimed for her, as for every accused, the benefit of that doubt. The friends of the Queen, however, were prudent enough not to look so narrowly into these particulars, but accepted this as a full and triumphant acquittal. The multitude indulged themselves without reserve in their usual tumultuary modes of displaying exultation. London was illuminated to a great extent during three successive nights. A prohibition to celebrate the event in Edinburgh in the same manner, was revenged by the mob, by breaking every window in several of the principal streets. Every city and township throughout the kingdom had its jubilee. A new series of addresses was entered upon, in which her Majesty was congratulated on the glorious issue of the proceedings against her, and by which her innocence was declared to have shone forth brighter than noon-day. The streets of the metropolis continued covered with successive processions of lightermen, watermen, bricklayers, glass-blowers, and other enlightened public bodies, proceeding to pay their homage at Brandenburgh House. Her Majesty's procession to St Paul's might be considered as the zenith of her triumph, after which this vast and continued tide of popularity began sensibly to ebb. It was soon observed that the acquittal, as it was called, had made no change in the feelings of the noble families of England, and that not a single female visitor of high rank had in consequence swelled the court of Brandenburgh House. At the same time, sober men, attached to the existing order of things, began to be

struck with alarm at the aspect which matters were assuming. The public mind appeared to be in a ferment altogether unprecedented: the press teemed with the most indecent personal attacks on the head of the state; and the Queen, by placing herself at the head of the faction most eager for innovation, appeared likely to give it a new importance. This part of the nation, which had hitherto viewed in a sort of inert and paralyzed attitude the torrent of strange events, began now to bestir itself. The course pursued was, to evade all mention of, or opinion upon, recent proceedings, and to confine themselves to general professions of loyalty, of attachment to his Majesty's person, and of horror at the anarchical principles which were now afloat. In the universities, the Scotch county meetings, and other aristocratic and corporate bodies, resolutions of this tenor were carried easily, and by great majorities. In the towns, however, it usually happened, after the sober and steady persons, whose presence was alone desired, had taken their seats, that an unbidden and unwished-for crowd rushed in, and either negatived the proposed address, or appended to the

general professions of loyalty some fatal clause, giving to the whole a character directly the reverse of what had been contemplated. occasions, secession was often the resource of the original party; and at last it became the system to get on foot two rival addresses, which were eagerly hawked about, and names, by every expedient, collected by their supporters. In London a singular phenomena took place; the Court of Aldermen having presented an address replete with loyalty, while the Common Council followed next day, with one which might be considered as a personal insult on the Sovereign. In the English counties, bodies containing a large confusion of popular elements, the struggles were eager, and the events various. Upon the whole, however, a gradual change took place in the public mind; the enthusiasm in favour of one side of the Royal House suffered a remarkable abatement; while the other, from being the object of perpetual satire and lampoon, began to advance towards that personal popularity which soon after expressed itself so strongly, and has ever since continued without abatement.

THE French Legislative Chambers met on the 29th November 1819. Every thing portended a stormy session, though not storms so terrible as those which actually ensued. Hitherto the system adopted by the King at his last return to power had proceeded in a tolerably smooth and successful tenor. His object had been to form a centre or middle party between the fierce conflicting elements of the ultra royalists on the one side, and the extreme liberals on the other. Amid the lessons taught by recent events, and amid that moderation which usually sways public bodies on their first entry upon their functions, a considerable body in both Chambers were led on principle to approve and adopt this system. These members, joined to others who were secured by the influence of the crown, enabled the ministry to maintain a steady, though somewhat narrow majority, over the two opposite sides, even when they united against the centre as a common enemy. Moderation, however, in political bodies, is a circumstance usualÎy of very ephemeral duration. In the course of successive debate and conflict, the passions on each side were continu

ally roused; personal enmities were superadded to political contentions; and each threw himself farther into the extreme of the party to which he had attached himself. Thus, at every election, and in the course of every successive session, the opposite sides of the Chamber gained continual accessions, and pressed closer and closer upon the narrowing majority in the middle. It became at length evident that this last would soon lese almost all those who were attached to it from principle, and would be confined to such as the influence of the Crown could command; in short, that it would be converted into a minority. In this urgency, it was only by some bold and decisive measure that ministers could hope to preserve their political existence. The course upon which they determined, was one liable to manifest objections. It was no other than to introduce a new principle of election, by which the nomination of the Chamber of Deputies should be thrown more into the hands of men of large property, who, it was expected, would adhere to the existing administration. Without entering into the abstract merits of the