In Spain, the interest of Great Britain was so warmly espoused, and so powerfully supported by Mr. Wall, who had been resident in England, that the French party, though countenanced by the queen-mother, and sustained with all the influence of the marquis de la Ensenada, the prime minister, was totally defeated. The king being convinced that it would be for the interest of his subjects to live on good terms with England, and well apprized of Ensenada’s intrigues, ordered that minister to be arrested and confined, and bestowed upon Mr. Wall the best part of his employments. Nevertheless, the Spaniards in the West Indies continued to oppress the subjects of Great Britain, employed in cutting logwood in the bay of Honduras; and representations on this head being made to the court of Madrid, the dispute was amicably adjusted between Mr. Wall and sir Benjamin Keene, the British ambassador. While the interest of Britain thus triumphed in Spain, it seemed to lose ground at the court of Lisbon. His Portuguese majesty had formed vast projects of an active commerce, and even established an East India company; in the meantime he could not help manifesting his chagrin at the great quantities of gold which were yearly exported from his dominions, as the balance due from his subjects on English commodities. In his endeavours to check this traffic, which he deemed so detrimental to his subjects, he inflicted hardships on the British merchants settled at Lisbon: some were imprisoned on frivolous pretences; others deprived of their property, and obliged to quit the kingdom. He insisted upon laying an imposition of two per cent, on all the Portuguese gold that should be exported; but the profits of the trade would not bear such an exaction. Meanwhile, there being a scarcity of corn in Portugal, the kingdom was supplied from England; and the people having nothing but gold to purchase this necessary supply, the king saw the necessity of conniving at the exportation of his coin, and the trade reverted into its former channel.
SESSION OPENED.
On the fourteenth day of November, the king of Great Britain opened the session of parliament with an harangue, which intimated nothing of an approaching rupture. He said, that the general state of affairs in Europe had undergone very little alteration since their last meeting; that he had lately received the strongest assurances from his good brother the king of Spain, of friendship and confidence, which he would cultivate with harmony and good faith. He declared his principal view should be to strengthen the foundation, and secure the duration of a general peace; to improve the present advantages of it for promoting the trade of his good subjects, and protecting those possessions which constituted one great source of their wealth and commerce. Finally, he exhorted them to complete their plan for appropriating the forfeited estates in the highlands to the service of the public. He probably avoided mentioning the encroachments of France, that he might supply no handle for debates on the address, which was carried in both houses almost without opposition. The government seemed determined to humble the insolence of the French councils; and this disposition was so agreeable to the people in general, that they grudged no expense, and heartily concurred with the demands of the ministry.
The commons granted for the service of the ensuing year, four millions seventy-three thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine pounds; one million of that sum expressly given to enable his majesty to augment his forces by land and sea. Thirty-two thousand pounds were allotted as a subsidy to the king of Poland, and twenty thousand to the elector of Bavaria. These gratifications met with little or no opposition in the committee of supply; because it was taken for granted, that, in case of a rupture, France would endeavour to avail herself of her superiority by land, by invading his Britannic majesty’s German dominions; and therefore it might be necessary to secure the assistance of such allies on the continent. That they prognosticated aright, with respect to the designs of that ambitious power, will soon appear in the course of this history; which will also demonstrate how little dependence is to be placed upon the professed attachment of subsidiary princes. The supplies were raised by the standing branches of the revenue, the land-tax and malt-tax, and a lottery for one million; one hundred thousand pounds of it to be deducted for the service of the public, and the remaining nine hundred thousand to be charged on the produce of the sinking-fund, at the rate of three per cent, per annum, to commence from the fifth day of January, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six. The civil transactions of this session were confined to a few objects. Divers new regulations were made for encouraging and improving the whale and white herring fishery, as well as for finishing and putting in a proper state of defence a new fort, lately built at Anamabo on the coast of Africa.
BILL IN BEHALF OF CHELSEA PENSIONERS.
Mr. Pitt, the paymaster-general of the forces, brought in a bill, which will ever remain a standing monument of his humanity. The poor disabled veterans who enjoyed the pension of Chelsea hospital, were so iniquitously oppressed by a set of miscreants, who supplied them with money per advance, at the most exorbitant rates of usury, that many of them, with their families, were in danger of starving; and the intention of government in granting such a comfortable subsistence, was in a great measure defeated. Mr. Pitt, perceiving that this evil originally flowed from the delay of the first payment, which the pensioner could not touch till the expiration of a whole year after he had been put upon the list, removed this necessity of borrowing, by providing in the bill, that half a year’s pension should be advanced half a year before it is due; and the practice of usury was effectually prevented by a clause, enacting, that all contracts should be void by which any pension might be mortgaged. This humane regulation was unanimously approved, and having passed through both houses with uncommon expedition, received the royal assent.
Notwithstanding the unanimity manifested by the commons, in every thing relating to the measures for acting vigorously against the common enemy of the nation, they were remarkably disturbed and divided by a contested election of members for Oxfordshire. In the course of this dispute, the strength and influence of what they called the old and new interest, or, to speak more intelligibly, of the tories and whigs in that county, were fully displayed. The candidates sustained on the shoulders of the old interest, were lord viscount Wenman and sir James Dashwood: their competitors, whom the new interest supported, and of consequence the ministry countenanced, were lord Parker and sir Edward Turner. Never was any contention of this kind maintained with more spirit and animosity, or carried on at a greater expense. One would have imagined that each side considered it as a dispute which must have determined whether the nation should enjoy its ancient liberty, or tamely submit to the fetters of corruption. Noblemen and gentlemen, clergymen and ladies, employed all their talents and industry in canvassing for either side, throughout every township and village in the county. Scandal emptied her whole quiver of insinuation, calumny, and lampoon; corruption was not remiss in promises and presents: houses of entertainment were opened; and nothing was for some time to be seen but scenes of tumult, riot, and intoxication. The revenue of many an independent prince on the continent, would not have been sufficient to afford such sums of money as were expended in the course of this dispute. At length they proceeded to election, and the sheriff made a double return of all the four candidates, so that not one of them could sit, and the county remained without a representative until this ambiguous affair could be decided in the house of commons. About the middle of November, petitions being presented by the four candidates, as well as by the gentlemen, clergy, and other freeholders of the county, complaining of an undue election, and double return, the matter of these petitions was heard at the bar of the house on the third day of December. The counsel for lord Wenman and sir James Dashwood alleged that they had the majority of votes upon the poll, and this circumstance was admitted by the counsel on the other side; then they proceeded to prove by evidence, that, after closing the poll, the sheriff declared the majority of votes to be in favour of these two candidates, and adjourned the court from the twenty-third day of April to the eighth of May; so that the scrutiny demanded and granted on the behalf of lord Parker and sir Edward Turner could not be discussed before the last day of the month, when the writ was returnable; that the scrutiny did not begin till the ninth day of May, when the time was protracted by disputes about the manner in which it should be carried on; that lord Parker and sir Edward Turner were allowed to object, through the whole poll, to the votes on the other side, on pretence that their competitors should be permitted to answer these objections, and, in their turn, object through the whole poll to the voters for lord Parker and sir Edward Turner, who should, in the last place, have leave to answer: that lord Wenman and sir James Dashwood had disapproved of this method, because they apprehended it might induce their competitors to make such a number of frivolous objections, that they should not have time to answer one half of them, much less to make objections of their own before the writ should be returned: that they foresaw such a number of frivolous objections were made, as engrossed the attention of the court till the twenty-seventh day of May; so that they could not begin to answer any of these objections till the twenty-eighth; and on the thirtieth, the sheriff, having closed the scrutiny, made the double return. The proof being exhibited, the counsel insisted, that as they had established a majority on the poll, and demonstrated that this majority neither was nor could be overthrown by such an unfinished scrutiny, it was incumbent on the other side to proceed upon the merits of the election, by endeavouring to overthrow that majority of which their clients were in possession. A question in the house being carried to the same purpose, lord Wenman and sir James Dashwood objected to five hundred and thirty voters on the other side, whom they proposed to disqualify. Their counsel examined several witnesses, to prove the partiality of the sheriff in favour of lord Parker and sir Edward Turner, and to detect these candidates in the practice of bribery; for which purpose they produced a letter in their own handwriting.
1755