QUARRELS BETWEEN THE LORDS AND COMMONS.
Ministers were still pressed by the opposition concerning the lingering negociations with Spain, and the incompleteness of their preparations for war. In the house of lords, the Duke of Manchester descanted in strong terms on the defenceless condition of Gibraltar, Minorca, and Jamaica. In the midst of his harangue Lord Gower desired that the house might be cleared of all persons except those who had a right to sit there. When motions like this, he said, were brought on by surprise, no one should be allowed to hear the debate except peers, inasmuch as in a crowded house, emissaries from the court of Spain and other powers might be present. He added that there was another reason why the house should be cleared. Persons, he said, had been admitted who took note of what was said, for he had in his pocket a paper which contained a speech recently made by a noble lord! This, he asserted, was contrary to a standing order, which standing order, No. 112, was produced and read. The Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Chatham warmly opposed such a step, but their voices were drowned by shouts of “Clear the house! Clear the house!” The Earl of Chatham, with eighteen peers, indignantly left the house, and the party who remained then insisted that all the members of the house of commons present should be turned out sans cérémonie! These members represented that they were there in the discharge of their duty, for that they were there attending with a bill. The bill was demanded, and they had no sooner delivered it, than they were hooted out of the house. A strong protest was made against these proceedings by members of both houses;—and on the same day, Mr. George Onslow moved in the lower house that it should be cleared—“peers and all.” This motion was made merely from pique at the treatment of the commons by the lords, and not with a view of encouraging the notion that debates ought to be open, reported, and published. A better motion was made by Mr. Dunning, who moved for a committee “to inspect the journals of the house of lords of that day, as to what proceedings and resolutions were therein, with relation to the not permitting any persons to be present in any part of the said house during the sitting thereof.” This motion was negatived; but no vote passed either in the house of lords or that of the commons could remove the stain which the ministers had brought upon their characters by these tumultuous proceedings, or allay the desire which the people entertained for the publication of parliamentary debates; and the opposition did what they could to render their conduct more odious than it really was The Earl of Chatham recommended that search should be made by the commons in the journals, and that a conference should be demanded with the lords. Acting upon this advice, Lord George Germaine moved in the house of commons for such a conference, but though he was ably supported by Lord George Cavendish, Burke, Dunning, and Barré, all of whom dealt in humour as well as argument, the motion was negatived. Lord Germaine then moved that the speaker should write to such eldest sons and heirs apparent of peers, king’s sergeants, and masters in chancery, as were members, and to the attorney and solicitor-general, and request them to be in their places every day at two o’clock, to assist in carrying bills to the house of lords; but the only result of this motion was a duel between the mover and Governor Johnstone, in Hyde-park, in consequence of some remarks which the latter had made in the course of the debate.