At this juncture the men of Kent manifested their old public spirit by sending in a petition, praying the House to endeavour to rise above their party squabbles, and to combine for the furtherance of the public business. The whole community were beginning to grow disgusted with the dissensions, which had evidently more of party rancour than patriotism at their bottom. This petition had been got up and signed by grand jurors, magistrates, and freeholders of the county, assembled at Maidstone, and confided to Sir Thomas Hales, one of their members. But Sir Thomas, on looking over it, was so much alarmed that he handed it to the other member, Mr. Meredith. Meredith, in his turn, was so impressed with the hazardous nature of the petition that, on presenting it, he informed the House that some of the supporters of it, five gentlemen of fortune and distinction, were in the lobby, and ready to attest their signatures. They were called in accordingly, and owned their signatures, when they were ordered to withdraw, and the petition was read. It concluded by saying, "that the experience of all ages made it manifest that no nation can be great or happy without union. We hope that no pretence whatever shall be able to create a misunderstanding amongst ourselves, or the least distrust of His Most Sacred Majesty, whose great actions for this nation are writ in the hearts of his subjects, and can never, without the blackest ingratitude, be forgot. We most humbly implore this honourable House to have regard to the voice of the people, that our religion and safety may be effectually provided for, that your addresses may be turned into Bills of Supply, and that His Most Sacred Majesty, whose propitious and unblemished reign over us we pray God long to continue, may be able powerfully to assist his allies before it is too late."

CAPTAIN KIDD BEFORE THE BAR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. (See p. [524].)

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In proportion to the excellence of the advice was the indignation with which it was received by the angry Commons. When men are conscious that they are acting from private motives of no very respectable kind under the mask of patriotism, the discovery that they are seen through invariably exasperates them. Accordingly, the House was furious at this very seasonable petition. Some of the members went out to the petitioners, and called upon them to make a proper submission to the affronted House; but they strongly refused, maintaining that they had only done their duty, whereupon the House voted that the petition was scandalous, insolent, seditious, and tending to the destruction of the Constitution; and they ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to take the petitioners into custody. But the stout men of Kent were not secured without a vigorous resistance. They were then sent to the Gatehouse prison; but their treatment only damaged the Commons, for the public were greatly of the same opinion. Similar petitions were soon preparing in different quarters, and these gentlemen were much visited in their confinement, which continued till the prorogation. It was, moreover, much questioned whether the Commons had not greatly outstripped their real authority, and infringed the statute of the 13th of Charles II., which guarantees the right of petition.

The Tory party in the Commons then returned to their prosecutions of the late Whig Ministers. But the day of strange things seemed to have arrived. One day Harley, the Speaker of the Commons, received a packet from the hands of a poor woman as he entered the House. Such an incident could not take place now, the Commons having protected themselves from such irregular missives by making it necessary that all petitions should have the names of the places, as well as the persons whence they came, clearly stated, and be confided to the care of a member in good time for him to note its character and contents. This, however, turned out to be no petition, but a command. "The enclosed memorial," it was stated in a letter accompanying, "you are charged with in behalf of many thousands of the good people of England. There is neither Popish, Jacobite, seditious, Court, or party, interest concerned in it, but honesty and truth. You are commanded by two hundred thousand Englishmen to deliver it to the House of Commons, and to inform them that it is no banter, but serious truth, and a serious regard to it is expected. Nothing but justice and their duty is required; and it is required by them who have both a right to require, and power to compel it—namely, the people of England. We could have come to the House strong enough to oblige you to hear us, but we have avoided any tumults, not desiring to embroil, but to serve, our native country. If you refuse to communicate it to them, you will find cause in a short time to repent it."

This strange memorial, which is known to have been written by Defoe, was signed "Legion," and charged the House with unwarrantable practices under fifteen heads. A new claim of right was arranged under seven heads. Amongst the reprehensible proceedings of the Commons were stated to be, the voting of the Partition Treaty fatal to Europe, because it gave too much of the Spanish dominions to France, and not concerning themselves to prevent them from taking possession of them all. Deserting of the Dutch when the French were almost at their doors, and till it was almost too late to help them, it declared to be unjust to our treaties, unkind to our confederates, dishonourable to the English nation, and negligent of the safety of both our neighbours and ourselves. Addressing the king to displace his friends on base surmises, before the legal trial or any article proven, was pronounced illegal, contrary to the course of law, and putting execution before judgment. It also declared the delaying of proceedings on impeachments to blast the reputations of the accused without proving the charges, to be illegal, oppressive, destructive of the liberties of Englishmen, and a reproach to Parliaments. In the same strain it criticised the attacks on the king's person, especially those of that "impudent rascal John Howe," who had said openly that his Majesty had made a "felonious treaty," insinuating that the Partition Treaty was a combination to rob the king of Spain, when it was quite as just as to blow up one man's house to save that of his neighbour. The Commons were admonished to mend their ways, as shown to them in the memorial, on pain of incurring the resentment of an injured nation; and the document concluded thus, "for Englishmen are no more to be slaves to Parliament than to kings—our name is Legion, and we are many."

No sooner was this paper read than the blustering Commons were filled with consternation. They summoned all the members of the House by the Sergeant-at-Arms; anticipations of sedition and tumult were expressed, and an address to his Majesty was drawn up in haste, calling on him to take measures for the public peace. Howe, one of the noisiest men in the House, and accustomed to say very bold things, and other Tory members, declared their lives in danger; others got away into the country, believing that "Legion" was on the point of attacking the Parliament. A Committee was appointed to sit permanently in the Speaker's chamber, to take every means for averting a catastrophe, with power to call before them all persons necessary for throwing light on the danger, and to examine papers. At length, however, as "Legion" did not appear, and all remained quiet, the House began to recover its senses; it began at the same time to dawn upon their apprehensions that they had been hoaxed by some clever wag. This wag, as we have said, was none other than the inimitable author of "Robinson Crusoe," one of the shrewdest political writers of the time.

The Lords now demanded that the trial of Somers and the other noblemen should proceed without any further delay, but the Commons proposed that it should be conducted before a Committee of both Houses. This they did to bar the way of the trial, for they appeared rather to desire to destroy the characters of the accused than to proceed to extremities. They were aware that the accused nobles had a majority in their favour in their own House, and that to impeach them there was to fail. They, therefore, passed an unjustifiable address to the King, praying him to dismiss the five peers from his Council, even before the impeachments were heard. For the same reasons the Lords refused to admit the Commons to a share in the trial, because in their House there was a majority the other way. They replied, therefore, that such Committees were contrary to custom in cases of impeachment for misdemeanour; that the only exception was that in the case of the Earl of Danby and the five Popish lords, and that the fate of it was sufficient warning to avoid such a precedent, for the Committee could not proceed for altercations, and the affair could only be got rid of by dissolving Parliament. The Commons still argued for it, the Lords persisted in their refusal, and at this moment the dispute was interrupted by the king calling on both Houses to attend to the ratification of the new Succession Bill.

After this the contest regarding the mode of trial of the impeached nobles was renewed with unabated acrimony. In one of the conferences on the subject Lord Haversham declared his opinion that the Commons themselves really believed the accused lords innocent; "for there are," he said, "various other lords implicated in the very same business, and yet the Commons make no charge against them, but leave them at the head of affairs, near the King's person, to do any mischief they are inclined to, and impeach others, when they are all alike guilty, and concerned in the same facts." This was a hard hit, for it was the simple truth, and the delegates of the Commons, as they could not deny it, could only affect to take violent offence at it. There was fresh correspondence, but the Lords cut the matter short by deciding that there should be no Committee of both Houses for regulating the trials of the impeached nobles. The Commons, however, on the 14th of June sent up their charges against the Earl of Halifax, declining to proceed against Portland, as they said, out of respect to his Majesty.