During 1779 North's government lost ground; the ministers were known to be divided in opinion, and various parliamentary inquiries into the conduct of the war revealed much maladministration. Even the king said that Germain was "of no use in his department," and Fox's vote of censure on the admiralty was supported by a minority of 170. Some changes in the ministry failed to strengthen it. In 1778 Jenkinson succeeded Barrington as secretary at war; he lived to prove himself a man of ability, but in his new office he, like his predecessor, had merely to carry out the orders of others. Gower, a strong advocate of American coercion in 1775, changed his opinions, resigned the presidentship of the council in November, 1779, and made a violent attack on the government. He was succeeded by Lord Bathurst the ex-chancellor. Suffolk died and was succeeded as southern secretary by Lord Stormont, and Weymouth, the northern secretary, by Hillsborough. North still urged the king to accept his resignation. George, conscious of the shortcomings of the ministry, gave Thurlow authority to treat with Shelburne, as head of the Chatham party, with a view to the formation of a strong administration, composed of men of different parties, to be formed without North, and independently of the existing ministry. Grafton persuaded Shelburne not to act apart from the Rockingham whigs. The united opposition would have insisted on a complete change of measures as well as of men, which would have implied the surrender of America. To this George would not consent, and North was again persuaded to remain in office. On the meeting of parliament in November, 1779, the ministers carried the address by 233 to 134, a majority which bore out the assertion of the king's speech that parliament was with him, and the speech added "my people at large".
Yet though the declaration of war by Spain called forth a loyal address, unanimously voted by the commons, assuring the king of their help against the Americans, many held that it would be well to withdraw the troops from America and use the whole strength of the country against its foreign enemies. The expenses of the war were heavy; additions were made to the public debt of £6,000,000 in 1778, of £7,000,000 in 1779, and of £12,000,000 in 1780, and many new taxes were imposed. At the same time large sums were expended on maintaining useless offices, a crowd of pensioners, and other abuses, the means by which the king kept his hold on parliament. The whigs determined to take advantage of the demands made on the nation to strike at the root of that corrupt influence by insisting on public economy. The attack was begun unsuccessfully in the lords by Richmond and Shelburne, and in December Burke gave notice that he would lay a plan of economical reform before the commons. The whigs sought to bring pressure to bear on parliament by an appeal to the people and met with a ready response. A county meeting at York, presided over by Sir George Savile, sent a petition to the commons for public economy, and formed an association to promote that object and the restoration of the independence of parliament. Twenty-five other counties and some cities and towns sent similar petitions and most of them formed associations. On February 11, 1780, Burke introduced his plan in a speech of remarkable ability. He proposed a reform of the king's civil establishment, the abolition of a crowd of court offices, a reform of certain public departments, the limitation of pensions, the sale of the crown lands, and the abolition of the jurisdictions of Wales, Cornwall, Chester, and Lancaster. His bills were destroyed piecemeal in committee, and the only result of his scheme which, if fully carried out, would, he calculated, have saved the nation over £1,000,000 a year, was the abolition of the board of trade.
Meanwhile a sharp struggle went on in the commons. A proposal for an account of patent places was agreed to, but another for submitting a list of pensions was lost by two votes. A crowded meeting was held at Westminster on April 5 and was addressed by Fox who, with vehement eloquence, recommended annual parliaments and an addition of 100 county members as a means of freeing parliament from the influence of the crown. Government apprehended an attempt to overawe parliament and stationed soldiers in the neighbourhood of Westminster Hall. This step enraged the opposition, and on the 6th Dunning proposed a resolution in the commons that "the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished". This resolution was carried, with a trifling addition, by 233 to 215, and another that the house was competent to correct abuses in the civil list was adopted without a division. On the 10th, however, a resolution that certain officers of the household should be disqualified from sitting in the house of commons was carried by two only. So far did pressure from without combined with the near prospect of a general election carry the commons, but the majority did not desire reform and would go no further than general resolutions. An address to the king, praying that he would not dissolve nor prorogue parliament until measures had been taken to diminish the influence of the crown, was rejected by a majority of fifty-one. The struggle was over, and Fox vented his rage and disappointment in a speech of unmeasured invective. Throughout the session much heated language was used in parliament, and both Shelburne and Fox fought duels in consequence of words uttered by them in debate. On June 2 Richmond, ultra-democratic as a democratic noble is wont to be, specially on questions not affecting his own order, was urging annual parliaments and manhood suffrage on the lords when he was interrupted by an outbreak of mob violence, a bitter answer to his arguments.
THE GORDON RIOTS.
The earlier half of the reign saw an increase in religious tolerance. Though the whig movement for relieving dissenting ministers from subscription to the articles was defeated by the lords in 1772 and 1773, a bill supported by both parties granted them relief in 1779, the year in which the Irish dissenters were relieved from the test act. The whigs, as we have seen with reference to the Quebec act, were opposed to any measure of relief being granted to Roman catholics, who were by law liable to cruel oppression. The judges, indeed, and specially the great chief-justice, Mansfield, did all they could to mitigate the rigour of the law, yet catholics lived in insecurity, and so late as 1767 a priest was condemned to imprisonment for life, and was actually imprisoned for four years, for exercising his office. Whig prejudices gave way, and in 1778 Sir George Savile brought in a bill enabling catholics who abjured the temporal jurisdiction of the pope to purchase and inherit land, and freeing their priests from liability to imprisonment. The bill, which only affected England, was passed without a division in either house, and the government proposed to bring in a like bill for Scotland the next year. Violent protestant riots took place in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and such strong feeling was generally manifested in Scotland against the proposed measure that it was abandoned. The relief act excited discontent in England, and protestant fanatics, encouraged by the success of their party in Scotland, agitated for its repeal. A protestant association was formed, a crack-brained member of parliament, Lord George Gordon, was made president, and a petition for the repeal of the act was signed by nearly 120,000 persons.
On June 2, 1780, some 60,000 persons marched under Gordon's leadership to Westminster with their monster petition. They violently assaulted many peers and compelled members of both houses to cry No popery! and to put blue cockades in their hats. Gordon addressed them, and named Burke and other members as specially hostile to their cause. The commons refused to give the petition immediate consideration; the lobbies were thronged by the mob, and North sent for the lifeguards to protect parliament. On their arrival the mob left palace-yard and partially destroyed the chapels of the Sardinian embassy in Duke street, Lincoln's inn Fields and the Bavarian embassy in Warwick street, Golden square. The next day was fairly quiet, but on Sunday, the 4th, finding that no measures were taken to enforce order, they sacked other catholic chapels and some houses. By Monday the riots assumed a more dangerous character; the mob passed out of the leadership of religious fanatics and was bent on plunder and destruction. East of Charing Cross London was almost at its mercy. There was no efficient police force; military officers and soldiers had learnt the risk they would incur by firing on a mob without the order of the civil power, and the magistrates were for the most part timid and inactive. Wilkes was an honourable exception, and showed courage and firmness in dealing with the rioters. Virtually unchecked, the mob sacked chapels and houses, plundered shops, and burnt Savile's furniture before his door. During the next two days Newgate was partly burnt and the prison broken open, the other principal prisons either destroyed or damaged and the prisoners set at liberty. Some magistrates' houses were plundered and burnt. Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury square was sacked and his splendid library, pictures, plate, and furniture destroyed. By Wednesday night thirty-six fires were blazing in different parts; volumes of flame were rising from the King's bench and Fleet prisons, the new Bridewell, and the toll gates on Blackfriars bridge, and the lower end of Holborn was burning fiercely. A great distillery in Holborn was wrecked; men and women killed themselves by drinking the unrectified spirits which were brought into the streets, and others who were drunk perished in the flames or were buried in the ruins. Attacks were made on the Bank of England and the Pay Office. Both were guarded by soldiers, and the rioters were repulsed with heavy loss.
THE KING'S PERSONAL INTERVENTION.
By that time the general paralysis of authority was ended by the king's personal intervention. As his ministers seemed afraid of incurring responsibility, George summoned a meeting of the council by special command on Wednesday morning. Finding that the council hesitated to recommend the employment of troops, he said that if they would not give him advice he would act without it, and that he could answer for one magistrate who would do his duty. He bade Wedderburn, the attorney-general, declare the law on the subject. Wedderburn replied that the king in council could order soldiers to suppress a riot without the authority of a magistrate. George at once ordered the military to act, and by Thursday morning the riots were quelled. Seventy-two houses and four gaols had been destroyed. Of the rioters, 285 were reported as killed and 173 wounded, but many more lost their lives during the riots. The trials of the rioters were conducted with moderation; of the 139 who were tried, fifty-nine were capitally convicted, and of these only twenty-one were executed. The Surrey prisoners were tried before Wedderburn, who was made chief-justice of the common pleas and created Lord Loughborough. Lord George Gordon was acquitted; he was imprisoned for a libel in 1787, and died in Newgate after having become a jew. When the lords, who adjourned on the 6th, again assembled, the great jurist Mansfield, who in his seventy-sixth year retained his mastery of constitutional law and his facility of expression, authoritatively declared that soldiers equally with civil persons might, and if required by a magistrate must, assist in suppressing riots and preventing acts of treason and felony, and that the red coat of a soldier neither disqualified him from performing the duty of a citizen nor would protect him if he transgressed it. The riots seem to have improved the position of the government, for the appeal to popular feeling and the formation of associations by which the whigs brought pressure on parliament were discredited by them, and for the moment common danger allayed political animosity.
FOOTNOTES:
[135] Parl. Hist., xix., 368-70, 409, 411, 509-12.