CHAPTER XXXII.
Order for reversal of judgment on the Quo Warranto, May, 1689.
The Convention having been converted by a formal Act into a true parliament (23 Feb.),[1654] one of the first motions put to the House was that a special committee should be appointed to consider the violations of the liberties and franchises of all the corporations of the kingdom, "and particularly of the city of London." The motion was lost by a majority of 24.[1655] The House nevertheless resolved to bring in a Bill for repealing the Corporation Act, and ten days later (5 March) the Grand Committee of Grievances reported to the House its opinion (1) that the rights of the city of London in the election of sheriffs in the year 1682 were invaded and that such invasion was illegal and a grievance, and (2) that the judgment given upon the Quo Warranto against the city was illegal and a grievance. The committee's opinion on these two points (among others) was endorsed by the House, and on the 16th March it ordered a Bill to be brought in to restore all corporations to the state and condition they were in on the 29th May, 1660, and to confirm the liberties and franchises which at that time they respectively held and enjoyed.[1656]
Further Report of Committee of Grievances, 29 May, 1689.
A special committee appointed (5 March) to investigate the nature of the city's grievances, and to discover who were the authors and advisers of them,[pg 542] presented, on the 29th May, a long report to the House,[1657] giving the whole story of the election of sheriffs in June, 1682, and of Pritchard's election to the mayoralty in the following September; of the fines that had been imposed on Pilkington, Shute, Bethell, Cornish and others for so-called riots whilst engaged in asserting the rights of the citizens; of Papillon having been cast in damages to the amount of £10,000 at the suit of Pritchard, and of other matters which led up to the proceedings under the Quo Warranto, when, as the committee had discovered, two of the justices of the King's Bench—Pemberton and Dolben—were removed from the court because their opinion was found to be in favour of the city. The committee refer to the City's Records in support of the claim of the lord mayor to elect one of the sheriffs, and say "that from the twenty-first of Edward the IIId unto the year 1641 the way of making sheriffs was that the lord mayor named one to be sheriff and presented him to the Common Hall, who did confirm him, and chose another to act with him; except in three or four years within that time, when the Common Hall chose both the sheriffs, the persons drank to in those years by the lord mayor having refused to hold and paid their fines." They capitulated to the House the various occasions on which the mayor exercised his prerogative unchallenged, and those when the Common Hall refused to confirm the mayor's nomination, down to 1682, when matters were brought to a crisis by Sir John Moore claiming to have elected Dudley North by drinking to him according to custom; and in conclusion[pg 543] they reported their opinion to be that Sir John Moore and Dudley North were among the "authors of the invasion made upon the rights of the city of London in the election of sheriffs for the said city in the year 1682."
Draft Bill for reversal of judgment submitted to Common Council, 24 May, 1689.
In the meantime the civic authorities themselves had not been idle. The Common Council had already (1 March) appointed a committee to take steps for obtaining a reversal of the judgment on the Quo Warranto with the assistance of the recorder and the city's representatives in parliament. Before the end of May a draft Bill had been prepared for the purpose and been submitted to the court for approval.[1658]
The Court of Orphans.