A new Parliament, 31 Oct., 1780.
Whilst the riots brought a respite to Parliament from the importunity of associations, their suppression brought temporary support to the king, who embraced the opportunity of dissolving Parliament before the court party lost ground.[486] Parliament was accordingly prorogued on the 8th July, and on the 1st September, was dissolved, another being summoned to meet on the last day of October. Only two of the old city members were re-elected. These were Bull and Hayley. The places of Sawbridge and Oliver were taken by two other aldermen, namely, Kirkman—who commanded the light horse volunteers during the riots—and Nathaniel Newnham. Sawbridge, however, recovered his seat upon Kirkman's death, which occurred within a few days after his election. A year later (Sept., 1781) Hayley died, and Lord George Gordon, whom a jury had recently acquitted of high treason, made some show of contesting the seat. He soon, however, discovered that the City would have none of him, and withdrew before the election came on. The seat was won, after a severe contest, by Sir Watkin Lewes the outgoing lord mayor.[487]
The City's Committee of Correspondence dissolved, 15 March, 1781.
The late riots had somewhat cooled the ardour of the associations. Many of them, according to Walpole,[488] had been formed chiefly with a view to the coming Parliamentary elections, and now that these were over, the various committees became less active. The City's Committee of Correspondence was dissolved, and the civic authorities after some wavering refused to allow country associations the use of the Guildhall for fear of renewed disturbances.[489]
Proceedings of Common Hall, 6 Dec., 1781.
The news of the capitulation of Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown which reached London on Sunday, the 25th November (1781), induced the livery to urge the king once more to put an end to the war. A Common Hall was summoned by special request to meet on Thursday, the 6th December. Alderman Bull being too ill to attend and to consult his constituents as he wished, contented himself with addressing a letter to the "Gentlemen of the Livery" calling upon them to continue to be an example to the nation, as they always had been. With their assistance he hoped to see a change effected which should put an end to the evils from which the country was suffering. This letter having been read to the livery they proceeded to consider the terms of a new remonstrance, which was produced ready cut and dried. After expressing concern at the king's recent speech in Parliament, declaring his intention to persevere in a system of measures which had already proved so disastrous, the document plainly told the king that he had been deluded by his ministers, and the consequences of that delusion had been the almost total extinction of trade and commerce, and the annihilation of public and private credit. "Your majesty's fleets"—it went on to say—"have lost their wonted superiority. Your armies have been captured. Your dominions have been lost." The petitioners expressed a desire publicly to declare not only to the king, but to Europe and to America itself, their abhorence of the continuation of the unnatural and unfortunate war, which could only tend to the alienation of the American colonies with whom they still hoped to live on terms of intercourse and friendship so necessary to the commercial prosperity of the kingdom; and they concluded by imploring his majesty to dismiss his present advisers as a pledge to the world of his determination to abandon a system incompatible with the interests of his crown and the happiness of his people.[490]
The remonstrance was ordered to be presented by the lord mayor, the city members, the Court of Aldermen [not the Common Council], the sheriffs and ten of the livery—the number permitted by Stat. 13, Chas. II, c. 5—attended by the Recorder and city officers; and notwithstanding all previous objections on the part of the king it was resolved that the sheriffs should enquire when his Majesty would be pleased to receive it on the throne. The result was such as might have been, and no doubt was, expected. When those "fellows in fur,"[491] as George called the sheriffs, attended at court to deliver their message, the king told them he would consider the matter, and would let them know; and in due course Lord Hertford addressed (10 Dec.) the following letter to the mayor:—"It is well known to be the settled custom for the King to receive upon the Throne an address from the City of London only in their corporate capacity, and the same was signified by a letter written by me, in obedience to His Majesty's command, on the eleventh of April, 1775, to the then Lord Mayor. In consequence thereof I am commanded by His Majesty to acquaint you that His Majesty will receive at the levée on Friday the 14th inst. the Address, Petition and Remonstrance of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Livery in Common Hall assembled. I have, etc." To this the mayor replied by referring the lord chamberlain to Wilkes's letter of the 2nd May, 1775, as to the question of custom. With regard to the present address, petition and remonstrance he contented himself with representing to his lordship that as the resolution of the livery was that it should be presented to the king on the throne, the persons directed by the said resolution to present it could not dispense therewith by presenting it in any other mode.[492] The remonstrance was in consequence never presented, although Walpole believed it to have been presented at the levée.[493]
Resolutions of Common Hall, 31 Jan., 1782.
Thus baulked in their design the livery proceeded at another special Common Hall (31 Jan., 1782) to pass a number of resolutions condemning the king's advisers and maintaining the necessity of shorter parliaments and fairer representation. They declared that the Committee of Correspondence appointed by the Common Council in February, 1780 (and since abolished) had "proved themselves firm friends to the people," and they resolved to appoint a similar committee from among themselves, and to petition the Common Council to grant the use of their new council chamber[494] to the committee for the purpose of occasionally meeting therein.[495] When the petition was laid before the Court on the 5th February it was refused, but in the following April it was granted, and the Committee of Correspondence was permitted to meet in the council chamber, or in any other part of the Guildhall that might be most convenient.[496]
The fall of North's ministry, 20 March, 1782.