MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
The animus of opposition was exhibited in an unequivocal manner on the reassembling of parliament. On the 22nd of January, Sir Phillip Jennings Clarke moved for an account of the number of troops raised by private subscription, with the names of the commanding-officers. In the debate which followed this motion, ministers were accused of having incorporated 15,000 troops without consent of parliament, and represented their conduct in accepting their aid as most unconstitutional and inimical to the liberties of the country. Lord North, who agreed to the motion, in reply, argued that these spontaneous exertions proved that the people felt the insults and injuries offered to their king and country; and, also, that the country was not in that impoverished state which a jealous and impatient faction had asserted it was. Still the opposition hoped to obtain a vote of censure. In the house of lords the Earl of Abingdon moved that the twelve judges should be consulted as to the legality of raising troops without the authority of parliament. This motion was not pressed to a division; but, on the 4th of February, the same noble lord made another motion more specific, in order to cast blame upon government. He moved for a resolution that the grant of money in private aids or benevolences, without the sanction of parliament, for the purpose of raising armies, was against the spirit of the constitution and the letter of the law; and that, to obtain money by subscription was not only unconstitutional and illegal, but a direct infringement of the rights, and a breach of the privileges of parliament. This motion, after a warm debate, was negatived by ninety to thirty. On the same day in the commons, some money being demanded for the uniforms of these new troops, a still warmer discussion arose upon the subject. The new levies were treated with much discourtesy by the opposition; the two Scotch regiments, especially, being designated vile mercenaries, and willing tools of despotism. The opposition also maintained that such a practice of raising troops was contrary to the oath of coronation, and that all who subscribed were abettors of perjury. Lord North justified himself by precedents: he showed that independent regiments had been raised in 1745, and again in 1759, when Chatham was minister. On the latter occasion, he said, that Chatham had publicly and solemnly thanked those who raised such troops for the honour and service of their country. Yet, “that great oracle with a short memory,” on the very night on which Lord North reminded the lower house of this notable fact, declaimed in the upper house in support of the Earl of Abingdon’s motion against the practice Later in the session Wilkes renewed this subject, but the motion which he made relative to it was negatived by seventy-two against forty.