The Court was not less triumphant in Ireland, where the Parliament had at last been suffered to meet. Lord Townshend during its long vacation, had employed such effectual corruption, that when the Opposition injudiciously contested an usual address to the King to thank him for their Lord-Lieutenant (the more likely to pass as no money was asked), the Court had a majority of twenty-five votes. Next morning, a body of weavers rose and assaulted the complaisant peers,[162] on which the Lords would not report the address, but sent to the Lord-Lieutenant to demand guards, that their members might attend and vote in safety. The like address having passed the Commons, Mr. Ponsonby, their Speaker, resigned the chair, rather than carry it to the other House. This step was imputed to a panic he was believed to have felt, from an idea that Lord Townshend had got evidence of his having instigated the tumult, though he himself ascribed it to the Viceroy’s having reflected on the House of Commons the last year. Lord Townshend not having interest enough to name a Speaker to his mind, was forced to prefer Perry to a more obnoxious man, though Perry was a very able man, not well-disposed to the Court, but thoroughly attached to the interests of Ireland. These clouds obliged the Lord-Lieutenant,—though he had declared the Parliament was called to carry on private business, not for the purpose of giving money,—to determine that it should rise in a fortnight. As the King of France was more despotic, he at this time annihilated the Parliament of Paris, and established six superior councils in its room.
Dowdeswell, on the 7th, moved for a bill to ascertain the duty of juries, but Dunning and others of his own party opposed it, apprehending danger from meddling with that great palladium of liberty; so that, except General Conway, who out of candour said a few words, not a man in the Administration spoke, and the motion was rejected by 160 to 40.
On the 12th of March six more printers were denounced to the House of Commons for printing their debates; and two more were committed to the Black Rod by the peers, for reflections on the Lords of the Bedchamber, by whose votes Lord Pomfret had carried a cause on an appeal. It was for a considerable estate which had been given against him in Yorkshire by a jury of the most unbiassed and reputable gentlemen of the county, who had transported themselves to the spot, and examined all circumstances with scrupulous exactness. The Earl, who was in truth little better than a lunatic, had treated their decision with the utmost indecency and violence, and trusting to his favour with the King, for whom he was a kind of Don Quixote, had brought an appeal to the House of Lords. That judicature was of signal reputation in cases of property, though almost always led by the two or three law Lords of their own body: yet in Lord Pomfret’s case, though the Ministers said not a word, and though Lord Camden spoke against him, the cause was given for the Earl by the notorious partiality of the Court Lords. The badness of the cause was so flagrant, that Dunning, who pleaded for Lord Pomfret, having persuaded the Duke of Manchester, a peer in Opposition, and one or two more, to decree for the Earl, confessed he was shocked at having convinced them.[163] The Earl himself treated the lawyers with great virulence; and as if his intellects recommended him, or the hardship of his case called for still farther protection, the King, during the litigation, made him a Privy Councillor. The Lords committed Woodfall, the printer, to Newgate, and fined him 100l.
The House of Commons was more refractory, and sat till five in the morning on the commitment of the printers, the Opposition battling on every individual, and moving after every question to adjourn; so that, after three and twenty divisions, they wearied out the patience of the Ministers, who at last yielded to order the printers to attend on the 14th. This perseverance was the work of Charles Turner[164] of Yorkshire, the two Burkes, the Aldermen Townshend and Oliver, and five more of the Opposition, who alone remained in the House against seventy courtiers.
But delay was not the only defensive weapon used by the offenders. John Wheble, one of the printers, had been ordered to attend the House of Commons by a messenger sent to his house. He paid no obedience to the summons, but taking counsel of Robert Morris, a lawyer and warm member of the Bill of Rights, who alleged many informalities and invalidity against the warrant, which was not even signed by the Speaker, Wheble sent a contemptuous answer to the Speaker, both on the warrant, and on a proclamation for apprehending him, which by strange negligence had appeared for three days in the Gazette without being signed, which, in the opinion of the generality of the law, made it to be deemed of no force.
On the 14th the Commons sat again till half an hour after four in the morning, when after being teazed by thirteen more divisions, the Ministers were glad to let off the printers after reprimanding them on their knees.
On the 15th, Wheble was apprehended on the strength of the proclamation by a person tempted by the reward, who carried him before Wilkes, then sitting alderman; but Wilkes instantly discharged him and bound him over to prosecute his accuser, though giving the apprehender a certificate to entitle him to the reward from the Lords of the Treasury.
The same evening, Miller, printer of the London Evening Post, against whom another proclamation had been issued, was taken into custody by a messenger of the House of Commons; but refusing to attend the messenger, was seized by him by the arm; on this, Miller sent for a constable, and gave him charge of the messenger for assaulting him in his own house. The constable carried the messenger before the Lord Mayor, and a hearing of the cause was had before the Mayor and the Aldermen Wilkes and Oliver.
In the meantime, the Serjeant of the House of Commons being informed of the transaction, went and demanded the bodies of the messenger and Miller. The Mayor asked him if he had applied to a magistrate to back the warrant, or to any peace officer to assist him, to which he answered, No. The Mayor said no power had a right to seize a citizen of London without authority from him or some other magistrate, nor should while he held that office; and that he thought both the warrant and seizure illegal, and therefore declared Miller to be at liberty. The assault on Miller being proved, the Lord Mayor told the messenger he must give bail, or be committed to prison. At first he refused, but the commitment being made out, and signed by the Mayor and the two Aldermen, the Serjeant-at-arms offered bail for the messenger, and he and his sureties were bound for his appearance at Guildhall at the next session.
Such high attacks on their authority roused the House of Commons, and startled the Ministers. A junto of seven was held at Lord North’s, when the ruling spirit was moderation. At a larger meeting the next night, the same temper or fear appeared in most of the assembly, particularly in Rigby, who had not forgotten that his loss of a former place had dated from the contest on general warrants; but Sir Gilbert Elliot, the oracle or mouth of the secret Cabal, pressed for firmness and penal measures. The elder Onslow, as he told me himself, offered at that council to prevail on his cousin to drop the prosecution of the printers; but though the Ministers would not enjoin them to proceed, they assured the elder that they would support him and his cousin, if they went on with the complaint. On this encouragement,—