On the 21st, the Duke of Bedford said he had been against the Bill, and was now against the repeal, which was an effect of the imbecility of the Administration. Lord Temple again spoke against it, and well. Lord Granville with humour turned the whole into ridicule; said he remembered many religious Bills in which religion had nothing to do; they were made or repealed from clamour. When the Schism Bill passed, Lord Harcourt, then not Chancellor was for it; afterwards against it, and then pleaded, that it was only a Bill to make school-mistresses take the Sacrament three times a year, and what was that to Government? The Uniformity Bill was rejected after being carried so high by party, that it was not regarded whether a man was for peace or for war, but whether he was for or against that Bill. That it had been afterwards brought in by the Whigs to gain a single Lord, Lord Nottingham; that when it was objected that a persecuting Bill was surely paying dear for one man, a grave Whig Lord replied, “It is true; but let our friends be persecuted sometimes, or they will not think they want us.” That undictated by religion as those Bills were, or the clamour against them, they breathed the very essence of it, compared to this Jew Bill, which, with its clamour, was the nothingness of a nothing. Lord Temple commended the Bench, but feared there might be Toryism lurking in some corner of it; and then painted the Bishop of London, who, he said, he had heard, was disposed to a repeal even of the Plantation Act. He would not suffer Jews even in that diocese[236] of his—he did not know whether he ought strictly to call it his diocese: the Plantations were subjected to his Lordship’s pastoral jurisdiction; but perhaps he had not taken out his patent; it might cost fourscore or an hundred pounds! He talked again of disaffection, and said he had been raking into the London Evening Post, that Augæan stable of filth and calumny—thus was Lord Temple at once a zealous Whig, and scandalized at libels! Whigs have not generally disliked libels, nor had he, but it was when he was less Whig. The Bishop of Oxford answered for his brother of London, and denied that he was averse to the Plantation Act. The Chancellor said, that the only imbecility of the Administration was in tolerating such libels; that the liberty of the Press could not give liberty to print what a man may not write; that what a man could not justify to do, he could not justify to print; that he thought the libels on this Bill ought to be prosecuted; that the Lords and Commons might trust themselves with looking into the licence of the Press.
22d.—On the third reading of the Bill, Lord Temple made a very bad obscure speech; tried to answer Lord Granville; tried to encourage the Tories to continue the clamour; tried to excuse his invective on the Bishop of London; but succeeded in none of those points, and the repeal passed.
In Ireland, the new parties from personalities turned to matters of government. A Bill had been prepared to enable them to dispose of an overplus of the Revenue for the benefit of the kingdom; and it was specified in the preamble that it was with the King’s consent. The Opposition refused to admit this preamble: the Castle were afraid to proceed to a division, and suppressed the preamble, but sent over the Bill, depending on the English Ministry not suffering such a diminution of the prerogative. The next day, on a trifling question about some words relating to Neville Jones, the Castle stood a division, and had a majority, though but of three votes. As the parties were so equally balanced, the animosities did not flag, but proceeded to great extremities, both in the English manner of abuse, and in the Irish of duels.
27th.—Lord Temple, after having mysteriously summoned the Lords to an affair, as he told them, of great importance, moved to have the Judges asked, if Jews could purchase land, and whether it would legally descend to their children. The Chancellor, Lord Cholmondeley, Lord Granville, and the Duke of Argyle opposing the Motion, and nobody supporting it, Lord Temple gave it up.
The same day the repeal was agitated in the other House; Northey proposed to have the words in the preamble, have taken occasion to raise clamour, altered to have raised clamour. He was seconded by Prowse, Lord Egmont, and Admiral Vernon. On the other side Nugent, Sir W. Yonge, Sir Richard Lloyd, Mr. Pelham, old Horace Walpole, and Mr. Pitt, who was just come abroad again after a year of sullen illness, defended the words and the repeal, and it passed by a majority of 150 to 60.
28th.—Letters came from Ireland with an account of the first Parliamentary victory obtained there by the Opposition over the Court. Neville Jones had been voted guilty of abuse in his office[237] by 124 to 116. The strangers in the gallery of the House huzzaed; the city was crowded by the triumphant mob. Lord Kildare, the popular hero, was an hour passing to his own house at eleven at night.
Dec. 4th.—A call of the House being appointed, Lord Harley and Sir James Dashwood moved for a repeal of the Plantation Act. Martin, the West Indian, opposed the Motion in a speech of wit. He said, this Act had been made thirteen years ago; had occasioned no clamour then, nor since. Foreigners would begin to think that there was no combustible matter left in England but these poor miserable Jews. One hundred and eighty-five have taken the benefit of the Act. He had been so idle, he said, as to read all the pamphlets and papers on the late Act, and must pronounce that no subject ever occasioned the spilling so much nonsense. That America can only be peopled by Foreigners, unless you would drain your own country, over and above those valuable colonists, the transported.
Sir Roger Newdigate spoke for the last moved repeal. Nugent ridiculed it, and said, that if once the principle was admitted, there would be no stopping. Why have 130 Jews been naturalized in Jamaica, and none in Barbadoes? because three parts of the former are desert, and no part of the latter. Would you drive them out of the desert? Spanish Jews are the most proper, because they can best support the climate. That noble pirate, the Knight of Malta, says, Make perpetual war with perpetual enemies: so says the Inquisition—imitate them—and you will only lose your Mediterranean trade. Then break with those who league with the enemies of your religion, as Spain does with Denmark[238]—but no; you have done what you meaned to do; stop here: a Christian knows no perpetual enmity. The most prosperous, happy man here has the best chance for the next world. They who made this clamour, now smile with us; if we gave way, would laugh at us.
Sir John Barnard made a short, bad speech, and went away. Mr. Pelham said, to repeal the Plantation Act would be to tell the people, We will repeal this law, not because it has, but because it ought to have made you uneasy. But it would be too serious to pay such attention even to clamour: who part with their wealth, part with their strength. Such a repeal would revive the principle of the Church, which has had such pernicious effects—but no encouragement must be given to that spirit, though it has been laboured by some who can only figure in a hot contest, and who can thunder out their ecclesiastic anathemas, but have nothing to say when they come to preach on morality. Pitt carried this still further; and though he did not act like, yet he affected to speak with the same spirit of Whiggism as his friend, Lord Temple. He had not expected, he said, that this would be the first return to Parliament for their condescension in repealing the late act. Here the stand must be made, or venit summa dies! we should have a Church spirit revived. He believed the late clamour was only a little election art, which was given way to genteelly; that the other Bill was not a toleration of, but a preference given to, Jews over other sects. That his maxim was, never to do more for the Church than it now enjoys: that now you would except the Jews in the opposite extreme. It is the Jew to-day, it would be the Presbyterian to-morrow: we should be sure to have a septennial Church clamour. That we are not now to be influenced by old laws enacted before the Reformation: our ancestors would have said, “A Lollard has no right to inherit lands.” But we do not fear indulging Jews; they will never be great purchasers of land; they love money, and trade with it to better advantage. This silly effort of old prejudices was baffled by 208 to 88. Not that even eighty-eight men were actuated by such monkish principles; some were obliged to espouse them to secure their approaching elections.
The heats in Ireland increased with the success of the Opposition. The Speaker was adored by the mob; they worshipped him under the name of Roger. They made bonfires of reproach before the door of the Primate: they stopped coaches, and made them declare for England or Ireland. The Hackney Chairmen distinguished their patriotism by refusing to carry any fare to the Castle. A Dr. Andrews of the Castle-faction, reproaching a Mr. Lambert at the door of the House of Commons, with forfeiting a promise of bringing him into Parliament, and proceeding to a challenge, Lambert said, “I will first go into the House, and vote against that rascal Neville Jones.” Dr. Andrews repeating the insult, Lambert went in and complained, and Andrews was ordered into custody; Carter, Master of the Rolls, saying, “What, would that man force himself into a seat here! and for what? only to prostitute his vote to a man,[239] the known enemy of this country! I need not name him, you all know whom I mean.” Malone’s brother, a rising young man, on Lord George’s imputing the prosecution of Neville Jones to the rage of party, said, “He did not believe there subsisted any such thing; but if there did, it was more laudable than threats, bribes, and promises, which that Noble Lord had used to procure a majority.” The accusation was not groundless; Sir James Hamilton, a very indigent member, refused an offer from the Castle of 2000l. and 200l. per annum for life. Satires and claret were successful arms even against corruption! The Money Bill was sent back from England, with the preamble re-instated, but was rejected in Ireland by a majority of five.