"A table" to be provided for Oliver at City's expense, 26 March, 1771.
On Tuesday (26 March) a Common Council sat, summoned by Trecothick, who had been appointed (12 March), to act as locum tenens of the lord mayor during his "absence or illness." After transacting several matters of business, the court resolved unanimously "that during the confinement of Mr. Alderman Oliver in the Tower of London a table be provided for him at the expense of this city, under the direction and management of the committee appointed at the last court to assist the lord mayor and the Aldermen Wilkes and Oliver in their defence on the charge brought against them by the House of Commons."[289]
Chatham's opinion on Oliver's committal.
The committal of Oliver was only one of a series of blunders of which Parliament had been guilty since the arrest of the printers. The position of affairs was clearly defined in letters written by Chatham at the time. "The state of the business seems to me clearly this: the discharge of Miller, taken under the Speaker's warrant, I think contrary to the established jurisdiction of the House, with regard to printers of their proceedings and debates; but I hold also as fully, that in a conflict of jurisdiction, the lord mayor and city magistrates, acting under an oath of office and their charter, cannot be proceeded against criminally by the House, without the highest injustice and oppression." Again:—"the House becomes flagrantly unjust and tyrannical, the moment it proceeds criminally against magistrates standing for a jurisdiction they are bound to maintain, in a conflict of respectable rights." He goes on to say that "nothing appears to me more distinct, than declaring their right to jurisdiction, with regard to printers of their proceedings and debates, and punishing their member, and in him his constituents, for what he has done in discharge of his oath and conscience as a magistrate."[290]
The opinion of Junius.
This view was also strenuously supported by Junius,[291] who was emphatic that "as magistrates," Crosby and Oliver "had nothing to regard but the obligation of their oaths, and the execution of the laws. If they were convinced that the Speaker's warrant was not a legal authority to the messenger, it necessarily followed that, when he was charged upon oath with a breach of the peace, they must hold him to bail. They had no option."
Crosby again attends the House, 27 March, 1771.
On Wednesday (27 March), Crosby again attended in his place, as directed, to hear the decision of the House in his case. He was accompanied as before by an "amazing number of people" anxious to learn the issue; "guards, both horse and foot, were ordered to be in readiness, in case any tumult should arise. The city was all in motion; and by its acclamations testified its satisfaction with his conduct." Although he arrived at the House early in the afternoon, it was past eight o'clock in evening before the House was ready to take his business into consideration. Meanwhile the approaches to the House were in the hands of the mob who threatened many of the members with violence. Lord North, in particular, was made the object of a violent attack. His coach was demolished and he himself narrowly escaped being killed. Others, and among them Charles Fox, who had made himself especially obnoxious to the citizens by speaking of Oliver as an "assassin of the constitution," were also insulted, but not so outrageously.[292] The justices confessed to the House their inability to read the Riot Act, and declared that the constables were powerless. The sheriffs of London—William Baker and Richard Martin—being members of the House,[293] were thereupon desired to go themselves and endeavour to disperse the crowd,[294] and at their intervention peace was at length restored.
Is committed to the Tower.
The House being now prepared to proceed with the chief business of the day, a motion was made for committing the lord mayor to the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, instead of sending him to the gloomier quarters of the Tower, on account of his ill-health. Crosby, however, at once desired that no such favour might be shown him; he was quite prepared, he said, to join his honourable friend in the Tower. An amendment was accordingly moved that he should be committed to the Tower, and this was carried by 202 votes to 39.[295] It was now past midnight. Crosby returned to the Mansion House for a short rest, and at four o'clock in the morning sent for a hackney coach and drove to the Tower.