PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
The house of lords having prepared a bill for the more effectual punishment of forgery, which was passed into a law, and ordered the judges to bring in another on the report of a committee appointed to consider the case of imprisoned debtors, at length deliberated upon the state of the nation, particularly the positive demand made by the court of Spain for the restitution of Gibraltar, grounded in a letter written by the late king to his catholic majesty. From a copy of the letter laid before the house, it plainly appeared that king George I. had consented to this restitution. A motion being made for a resolution, importing, that for the honour of his majesty, and the preservation and security of the trade and commerce of the kingdom, effectual care should be taken in the present treaty that the king of Spain should renounce all claim and pretension to Gibraltar and Minorca, in plain and strong terms; a debate ensued, and the question being put, passed in the negative, though not without a protest. Then the majority resolved, that the house did entirely rely upon his majesty, that he would, for maintaining the honour and securing the trade of this kingdom, take effectual care in the present treaty to preserve his undoubted right to Gibraltar and Minorca. When the house examined the papers relating to the Spanish depreciations, many severe reflections were uttered against the conduct of the ministry; and a motion was made, to resolve that Hosier’s expedition was an unreasonable burden on the nation; but this too was rejected, and occasioned another protest. Nor did the clause in the corn-bill, for granting one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds to his majesty, pass through the house of peers without warm opposition. Divers lords alleged, that, instead of a deficiency in the civil list revenues, there was a considerable surplus; that this was a new grant, and a new burden on the people; that the nation was loaded, not to complete but to augment the surplus designed for the civil list; and this at a time when the public debts were increased; when the taxes were heavily felt in all parts of the country; when the foreign trade of Britain was encumbered and diminished; when her manufactures were decayed, her poor multiplied, and she was surrounded by many other national calamities. They observed, that if the produce of the civil list revenue should not amount to the yearly sum of eight hundred thousand pounds, the deficiency must be made good to his majesty by the public; whereas no provision was made, by which, if the produce of these revenues should exceed that sum, the surplus could accrue to the benefit of the public; that, by this precedent, not only real deficiencies were to be made good, but also supplies were to be given for arrears standing out at the end of the year, which should come on before the supplies could be granted, though the supply given to make good arrears in one year would certainly increase the surplusages in another; that the revenues of the civil list were variable in their own nature, and even when there is a deficiency in the produce, there might be arrears in the receipt; these might be easily increased by the management of designing ministers, by private directions to receivers, and by artful methods of stating accounts. All these arguments, and other objections equally strong and plausible, against this unconsionable and unparliamentary motion, served only to evince the triumph of the ministry over shame and sentiment, their contempt of public spirit, and their defiance of the national reproach.*
* The peers that distinguished themselves in the opposition were Beaufort, Strafford, Craven, Foley, Litchfield, Scarsdale, Grower, Mountjoy, Plymouth, Bathurst, Northampton, Coventry, Oxford and Mortimer, Willoughby de Broke, Boyle, and Warrington.
1729