XL. 1771. fell a borough by auction, and had refufed CHA P. to hear the Lord Mayor of London in • defence of the laws of England; that their expunging, by force, the entry of a recog• nizance, was the act of a mob, not of a Parliament; that their daring to affume a power of ftopping all profecutions by their 6 vote, ftruck at once at the whole system of the laws: that it was folely to the mea⚫ fures of government, equally violent and abfürd, that Mr. WILKES owed all his importance; that the King's Ministers, fupported by the flavifh concurrence of the House of Commons, had made him a person of the greatest consequence in the kingdom; that they had made him an • Alderman of the city of London, and Reprefentative of the county of Middlefex; and now they will make him Sheriff, and, in due courfe, Lord Mayor of London; that the proceedings of the House of Commons, in regard to this gentleman • made the very name of Parliament ridiculous; that after repeated refolutions, by ⚫ which they had declared him amenable to their jurifdiction, they had fhamefully abandoned the point at laft; and, in the • face CHAP. < XL. 1771 face of the world, acknowledged him to be their mafter. That there remained • but one poffible remedy for the disorders, with which the Government of this country was notorioufly infected; that to fave the name and inftitution of Parliaments ⚫ from contempt, this House of Commons must be diffolved. This, he hoped, might refore good government on one fidegood humour and tranquillity on the ' other; yet that this was rather a hope in him than any fanguine expectation. He feared that it might prove only a tempo 6 rary and partial remedy; that to resist the 'enormous influence of the Crown, fome ftronger barriers must be erected in defence of the conflitution. That formerly • the inconveniencies of fhortening the • duration of Parliaments had great weight with him; but now it was no longer a queftion of convenience; the Summa Rerum is at flake; your whole constitution is giving way; and, therefore, with the moft deliberate and folemn conviction of his understanding, he now declared himfelf a Convert to Triennial Parliaments. His Lordship concluded with defiring that the CHAP. 1771 the House might be fummoned for next XL day, declaring his intention to move an • Address for the diffolution of the present · Parliament.—The motion was negatived.' the King to diffolve the Accordingly, on Wednesday the first of Toaddrefs May, which was next day, his Lordship Parliament moved, "That an humble Address be prefented to his Majesty, most dutifully and earnestly befeeching his Majefty, that under the late violations of the rights of the Electors of Great Britain, in the election for Middlesex, ftill unredreffed, and in the pre fent conflict which has fo unhappily arisen between the claims of the House of Commons on one fide, and those of the people on the other, his Majefty will, in his paternal wisdom, deign to open the way to compose this alarming warfare; and that, in order to prevent the faid House, and the Nation, from being involved in intemperate discussions of undefined powers, which in the extreme may endanger the constitution, and tend to shake the tranquillity of the kingdom, his Majefty will be graciously pleased to recur to the recent sense of his people, by diffolving, after the end of this 1 VOL. II. A a feffion, XL. CHAP. feffion, the present Parliament, and calling, with convenient dispatch, a new Parliament.' 1771. Having gone through all the arguments ⚫ which had been formerly used on this subject, he faid, towards the conclusion of his fpeech, that though no man prided • himself more on his attachments to his • native country, yet the proceedings of those people who called themselves its ⚫ governors, had rendered it so disagreeable to him, that was he but ten years younger, he would spend the remainder of his days in a country (meaning America) which • had already given fuch earnests of its independent spirit; nor fhould my advanced age (continued he) even now prevent me, • did not confiderations of the last confequence (my bodily infirmities) interfere.' -The motion was negatived. The feffion ended on the 8th of May, 1771. CHAP. CHAP. XLI. TWO INTERESTING ANECDOTES OF THE DURING the two fuccceding feffions CHAP. XLI. Lord CHATHAM did not attend Par-m liament. Recent experience had convinced him, that his eloquence, his fagacity, his penetration, were of no eftimation, in an affembly, where arguments more tangible than words, had made fo deep an impreffion upon the majority, that no language, no sense of honour or of danger, had power to awaken them to a juft conception of their own difgrace and fervility. 1772. 1773. In the year 1774, the affairs of America 1774brought him forward again. Nothing else A a 2 could. |