A violent party in the house of commons began to look upon Harley as a lukewarm tory, because he would not enter precipitately into all their factious measures; they even began to suspect his principles, when his credit was re-established by a very singular accident. Guiscard, the French partisan, of whom mention hath already been made, thought himself very ill rewarded for his services, with a precarious pension of four hundred pounds, which he enjoyed from the queen’s bounty. He had been renounced by St. John, the former companion of his pleasures; he had in vain endeavoured to obtain an audience of the queen, with a view to demand more considerable appointments. Harley was his enemy, and all access to her majesty was denied. Enraged at these disappointments, he attempted to make his peace with the court of France, and offered his services, in a letter to one Moreau, a banker in Paris. This packet, which he endeavoured to transmit by the way of Portugal, was intercepted, and a warrant issued out to apprehend him for high-treason. When the messenger disarmed him in St. James’s Park, he exhibited marks of guilty confusion and despair, and begged that he would kill him directly. Being conveyed to the cockpit, in a sort of frenzy, he perceived a penknife lying upon a table, and took it up without being perceived by the attendants. A committee of council was immediately summoned, and Guiscard brought before them to be examined. Finding that his correspondence with Moreau was discovered, he desired to speak in private with secretary St. John, whom in all probability he had resolved to assassinate. His request being refused, he said, “That’s hard! not one word!” St. John being out of his reach, he stepped up to Mr. Harley, and exclaiming, “Have at thee, then!” stabbed him in the breast with the penknife which he had concealed. The instrument broke upon the bone, without penetrating into the cavity; nevertheless he repeated the blow with such force that the chancellor of the exchequer fell to the ground. Secretary St. John, seeing him fall, cried out, “The villain has killed Mr. Harley!” and drew his sword. Several other members followed his example, and wounded Guiscard in several places. Yet he made a desperate defence, until he was overpowered by the messengers and servants, and conveyed from the council-chamber, which he had filled with terror, tumult, and confusion. His wounds, though dangerous, were not mortal; but he died of a gangrene occasioned by the bruises he had sustained. This attempt upon the life of Harley, by a person who wanted to establish a traitorous correspondence with France, extinguished the suspicions of those who began to doubt that minister’s integrity. The two houses of parliament, in an address to the queen, declared their belief that Mr. Harley’s fidelity to her majesty, and zeal for her service, had drawn upon him the hatred of all the abettors of popery and faction. They besought her majesty to take all possible care of her sacred person; and, for that purpose, to give directions for causing papists to be removed from the cities of London and Westminster. A proclamation was published, ordering the laws to be strictly put in execution against papists. When Harley appeared in the house of commons after his recovery, he was congratulated upon it by the speaker, in a florid and fulsome premeditated speech. An act was passed, decreeing, that an attempt upon the life of a privy-counsellor should be felony without benefit of clergy. The earl of Rochester dying, Harley became sole minister, was created baron of Wigmore, and raised to the rank of earl by the noble and ancient title of Oxford and Mortimer: to crown his prosperity, he was appointed lord-treasurer, and vested with the supreme administration of affairs.
DEATH OF THE EMPEROR JOSEPH.
The commons empowered certain persons to examine all the grants made by king William, and report the value of them, as well as the considerations upon which they were made. Upon their report a bill was formed and passed that house; but the lords rejected it at the first reading. Their next step was to examine the public accounts, with a view to fix an imputation on the earl of Godolphin. They voted that above five-and-thirty millions of the money granted by parliament remained unaccounted for. This sum, however, included some accounts in the reigns of king Charles and king William. One half of the whole was charged to Mr. Bridges, the pay-master, who had actually accounted for all the money he had received, except about three millions, though these accounts had not passed through the auditor’s office. The commons afterwards proceeded to inquire into the debts of the navy, that exceeded five millions, which, with many other debts, were thrown into one stock, amounting to nine millions four hundred and seventy-one thousand three hundred and twenty-five pounds. A fund was formed for paying an interest or annuity of six per cent, until the principal should be discharged; and with this was granted a monopoly of a projected trade in the South Sea, vested in the proprietors of navy-bills, debentures, and other public securities, which were incorporated for this purpose. Such was the origin of the South Sea Company, founded upon a chimerical supposition that the English would be permitted to trade upon the coast of Peru in the West Indies. Perhaps the new ministry hoped to obtain this permission, as an equivalent for their abandoning the interest of king Charles, with respect to his pretensions upon Spain. By this time the emperor Joseph had died of the small-pox without male issue; so that his brother’s immediate aim was to succeed him on the Imperial throne. This event was, on the twentieth day of April, communicated by a message from the queen to both houses. She told them that the states-general had concurred with her in a resolution to support the house of Austria; and that they had already taken such measures as would secure the election of Charles as head of the empire.
The house of commons, in order to demonstrate their attachment to the church, in consequence of an address from the lower house of convocation, and a quickening message from the queen, passed a bill for building fifty new churches in the suburbs of London and Westminster, and appropriated for this purpose the duty upon coals, which had been granted for the building of St. Paul’s, now finished. This imposition was continued until it should raise the sum of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. At the close of the session, the commons presented a remonstrance or representation to the queen, in which they told her that they had not only raised the necessary supplies, but also discharged the heavy debts of which the nation had so long and justly complained. They said that, in tracing the causes of this debt, they had discovered fraud, embezzlement, and misapplication of the public money; that they who of late years had the management of the treasury, were guilty of a notorious breach of trust and injustice to the nation, in allowing above thirty millions to remain unaccounted for; a purposed omission that looked like a design to conceal embezzlements. They begged her majesty would give immediate directions for compelling the several imprest accountants speedily to pass their accounts. They expressed their hope that such of the accountants as had neglected their duty in prosecuting their accounts, ought no longer to be intrusted with the public money. They affirmed, that from all these evil practices and worse designs of some persons, who had, by false professions of love to their country, insinuated themselves into her royal favour, irreparable mischief would have accrued to the public, had not her majesty, in her great wisdom, seasonably discovered the fatal tendency of such measures, and removed from the administration those who had so ill answered her majesty’s favourable opinion, and in so many instances grossly abused the trust reposed in them. They observed, that her people could with greater patience have suffered the manifold injuries done to themselves, by the frauds and depredations of such evil ministers, had not the same men proceeded to treat her sacred person with undutifulness and disregard. This representation being circulated through the kingdom, produced the desired effect of inflaming the minds of the people against the late ministry. Such expedients were become necessary for the execution of Oxford’s project, which was to put a speedy end to a war that had already subjected the people to grievous oppression, and even accumulated heavy burdens to be transmitted to their posterity. The nation was inspired by extravagant ideas of glory and conquest, even to a rage of war-making; so that the new ministers, in order to dispel those dangerous chimeras, were obliged to take measures for exciting their indignation and contempt against those persons whom they had formerly idolized as their heroes and patriots. On the twelfth day of June, the queen, having given the royal assent to several public and private bills, made an affectionate speech to both houses. She thanked the commons, in the warmest expressions, for having complied with all her desires; for having baffled the expectations of her enemies in finding supplies for the service of the ensuing year; in having granted greater sums than were ever given to any prince in one session; and in having settled funds for the payment of the public debts, so that the credit of the nation was restored. She expressed her earnest concern for the succession of the house of Hanover; and her fixed resolution to support and encourage the church of England as by law established. Then the parliament was prorogued.
PROCEEDINGS IN THE CONVOCATION.
Of the convocation which was assembled with the new parliament, the lower house chose Dr. Atterbury their prolocutor. He was an enterprising ecclesiastic, of extensive learning, acute talents, violently attached to tory principles, and intimately connected with the prime minister Oxford; so that he directed all the proceedings in the lower house of convocation in concert with that minister. The queen, in a letter to the archbishop, signified her hope that the consultations of the clergy might be of use to repress the attempts of loose and profane persons. She sent a license under the broad seal, empowering them to sit and do business in as ample a manner as ever had been granted since the reformation. They were ordered to lay before the queen an account of the excessive growth of infidelity and heresy, as well as of other abuses, that necessary measures might be taken for a reformation. The bishops were purposely slighted and overlooked, because they had lived in harmony with the late ministers. A committee being appointed to draw up a representation of the present state of the church and religion, Atterbury undertook the task, and composed a remonstrance that contained the most keen and severe strictures upon the administration, as it had been exercised since the time of the revolution. Another was penned by the bishops in more moderate terms; and several regulations were made, but in none of these did the two houses agree. They concurred, however, in censuring some tenets favouring Arianism, broached and supported by Mr. Whiston, mathematical professor in Cambridge. He had been expelled the university, and wrote a vindication of himself, dedicated to the convocation. The archbishop doubted whether this assembly could proceed against a man for heresy: the judges were consulted, and the majority of them gave in their opinion that the convocation had a jurisdiction. Four of them professed the contrary sentiment, which they maintained from the statutes made at the reformation. The queen, in a letter to the bishops, said, that as there was now no doubt of their jurisdiction, she expected that they would proceed in the matter before them. Fresh scruples arising, they determined to examine the book, without proceeding against the author, and this was censured accordingly. An extract of the sentence was sent to the queen; but she did not signify her pleasure on this subject, and the affair remained in suspense. Whiston published a work in four volumes, justifying his doctrine, and maintaining that the apostolical constitutions were not only canonical, but also preferable in point of authority to the epistles and the gospels.
ANNE, 1701—1714