It being carried by 163 to 40, that he should be brought on his knees, he was called in. He entered with an air of confidence, composed of something between a martyr and a coxcomb. The Speaker called out, “Your obeisances! Sir, your obeisances!”—and then—“Sir, you must kneel.” He replied, “Sir, I beg to be excused; I never kneel but to God.” The Speaker repeated the command with great warmth. Murray answered, “Sir, I am sorry I cannot comply with your request, I would in anything else.” The Speaker cried, “Sir, I call upon you again to consider of it.” Murray answered, “Sir, when I have committed a crime, I kneel to God for pardon; but I know my own innocence, and cannot kneel to any body else.” The Speaker ordered the Serjeant to take him away, and secure him. He was going to reply; the Speaker would not suffer him. The Speaker then made a representation to the House of his contemptuous behaviour, and said, “However you may have differed in the debate, I hope you will be unanimous in his punishment! Pray consider on it; if he may with impunity behave thus, there is an end of the dignity and power of this House!”
Sir George Oxenden said he had foreseen this refusal, and had not voted for bringing him on his knees, and was not answerable for the consequences—a fine consolation in their dilemma! Mr. Harding quoted three precedents where persons, and some of them members, had received their sentence on their knees. Mr. Pelham proposed a committee to search for precedents how to treat him, and that they should give their opinion upon it. Mr. Cooke went out, and tried to persuade him to submit; but he said he would sooner cut his throat. Mr. Fox went so far as to mention a place of confinement in the Tower, called Little Ease; but Mr. Pelham declared against such severe corporal punishment. Sir William Yonge proposed the closest confinement in Newgate without being visited, (a triumph which the Tories meditated for him,) and without pen, ink, and paper. This opinion was afterwards taken up by Lord George Sackville, and agreed to, though Vyner urged that he would be punished twice if they adhered to the former sentence after his submission. Alderman Jansen moved in vain to adjourn. W. Pitt hinted at a bill to be passed against him if he would not comply. Admiral Vernon made such an outrageous speech against these proceedings, desiring to have Magna Charta referred to the committee, that he was several times taken to order by the Speaker, Sir John Mordaunt, and Mr. Pelham, and was on the brink of falling under the sentence of the House. The Speaker himself proposed the question on Murray’s contempt, which Sir John Cotton tried to prevent being inserted in the votes, but it passed, with the order for his closer confinement; and then, after naming the committee, the House, at near two o’clock in the morning, adjourned over the next day.
At five in the morning, Mr. Murray was carried in a hackney-coach strictly guarded to Newgate. He sung ballads all the way; but on entering the gaol burst into tears, kissed the Serjeant, said he was very ill, and must have a physician. In two days the House was mollified, permitted him to be ill, and gave leave for his brother to visit him with a physician and an apothecary; and in five days more, their compassion grew so tender as to indulge him with the company of his sister, a nurse, and his own servant.
11th.—The staff was opposed by Lord Egmont, Dr. Lee, Nugent, Potter, and Bathurst; defended by Mr. Fox, Mr. Pelham, Sir William Yonge, Lord George Sackville, Lord Barrington, and General Mordaunt, and carried by 205 to 88. In the night, new Queries[40] abusing the House of Commons for their proceedings on the Westminster affair were dispersed at several doors, but no notice was taken of them. The Commons were not eager to have more prisoners to nurse!
12th.—Sir George Vandeput’s and the Westminster petitions were withdrawn. Some of the independents had tried to prevent it; and, at a meeting on the 9th, thirty-seven divided for going on with them against thirty-one: but Sir George declaring he would withdraw his, and he, Lord Carpenter, and Sir Thomas Clarges leaving the meeting, it was agreed to drop both petitions.
13th.—Sir William Yonge acquainted the House, that the committee of which he was chairman was ready with their report on Mr. Murray’s case; but as the prisoner was ill, they desired to postpone it to the following Monday. Mr. Cooke presented a petition from Gibson the upholsterer, who had not caught the infection of heroism from his fellow captive, but begged for enlargement, which was granted, and he was ordered to attend on the morrow, when he was reprimanded on his knees, and discharged.
The same day Mr. Pelham opened the Ways and Means, in which he generally shined, and did not disgrace his master, Sir Robert Walpole, though the latter had gathered his chief laurels from his knowledge and perspicuity in that service. Sir John Cotton piddled with a little opposition to the land-tax of three shillings, but it was carried by 106 to 43, and on the report by 229 to 28. They could not conjure up a spirited division now on the most popular points: if they were not new, they would scarce furnish a debate.
Sir John Cotton had wit, and the faithful attendant on wit, ill-nature, and was the greatest master of the arts of the House, where he seldom made but short speeches, having a stammering in his elocution, which, however, he knew how to manage with humour.[41] In the end of Queen Anne’s reign he was in place;[42] during Sir Robert Walpole’s administration constantly and warmly in opposition, and was so determined a Jacobite, that though on the late coalition he accepted a place in the Household, and held it two years, he never gave a vote with the Court, which argued nice distinction, not only in taking the oaths to the King (for that all the Jacobites in Parliament do), but in taking his pay, and yet obstructing his service: and as nice in the King’s Ministers, who could discover the use of making a man accept a salary without changing his party. When the Duke of Bedford, with all my Lord Russel’s integrity of Whiggism, was involved in a Jacobite opposition, he had been so suspicious, as to mistrust Sir John’s principles, till my Lord Gower quieted his uneasiness by assuring him, “Cotton is no more a Jacobite than I am.”
18th.—Sir William Yonge read the report of the committee appointed to search for precedents on Murray’s case. It concluded with proposing to send for him again to the bar of the House: but as gentler counsels, and a candour that might have been equitable before his contempt, though absurd now, prevailed, Sir William only moved to have the report lie on the table, saying, that if Murray should not submit this session, he should move in the next to resume the sentence. Mr. Pelham spoke much for moderate proceedings—more moderate indeed it would have been difficult to pursue after the lengths themselves and Murray had gone; but they who wanted to extort a submission from him for offences which he had not acknowledged, were ready to release him after an outrage which he gloried in, and had no ways atoned. Mr. Fox read a paragraph from the Whitehall Evening Post, by which it appeared that Murray had had the use of pen, ink, and paper, and had been writing an apology for some part of his private conduct;[43] the greatest part of which his future historian may be glad to colour over with the varnish of martyrdom. Mr. Fox, on this apparent recovery of the prisoner’s nerves, moved to order the physician and apothecary to attend that day se’nnight with an account of Mr. Murray’s state of health, which was agreed to.
On the 19th, 20th, and 21st, the Mutiny Bill was debated each day for several hours. This Bill, which formerly had passed as quietly as the Malt Act, had, for the two or three last years, constantly afforded the longest contests. Lord Egmont[44] had gained his greatest reputation by opposing it; and he was not a man to forget, or to let any body else forget where his strength lay. His great talent was indefatigable application, which he loved rather than wanted, for his parts were strong, and manly, and quick: his heart rather wanted improvement than his head; though when his ambition and lust of Parliament were out of the question, he was humane, friendly, and as good-humoured as it was possible for a man to be who was never known to laugh; he was once indeed seen to smile, and that was at chess. He did not dislike mirth in others, but he seemed to adjourn his attention till he could bring back the company to seriousness. He was personally very brave, as brave as if he were always in the right.