The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

had cordially approved of

it, that it was the universal subject of conversation throughout

London, and that the impression made on the public mind seemed

likely to be durable.310


The Commons went into committee without delay, and voted to the

King, for life, the whole revenue enjoyed by his brother.311


The zealous churchmen who formed the majority of the House seem

to have been of opinion that the promptitude with which they had

met the wish of James, touching the revenue, entitled them to

expect some concession on his part. They said that much had been

done to gratify him, and that they must now do something to

gratify the nation. The House, therefore, resolved itself into a

Grand Committee of Religion, in order to consider the best means

of providing for the security of the ecclesiastical

establishment. In that Committee two resolutions were unanimously

adopted. The first expressed fervent attachment to the Church of

England. The second called on the King to put in execution the

penal laws against all persons who were not members of that

Church.312


The Whigs would doubtless have wished to see the Protestant

dissenters tolerated, and the Roman Catholics alone persecuted.

But the Whigs were a small and a disheartened minority. They

therefore kept themselves as much as possible out of sight,

dropped their party name, abstained from obtruding their peculiar

opinions on a hostile audience, and steadily supported every

proposition tending to disturb the harmony which as yet subsisted

between the Parliament and the Court.


When the proceedings of the Committee of Religion were known at

Whitehall, the King's anger was great. Nor can we justly blame

him for resenting the conduct of the Tories If they were disposed

to require the rigorous execution of the penal code, they clearly

ought to have supported the Exclusion Bill. For to place a Papist

on the throne, and then to insist on his persecuting to the death

the teachers of that faith in which alone, on his principles,

salvation could be found, was monstrous. In mitigating by a

lenient administration the severity of the bloody laws of

Elizabeth, the King violated no constitutional principle. He only

exerted a power which has always belonged to the crown. Nay, he

only did what was afterwards done by a succession of sovereigns

zealous for Protestantism, by William, by Anne, and by the

princes of the House of Brunswick. Had he suffered Roman Catholic

priests, whose lives he could save without infringing any law, to

be hanged, drawn, and quartered for discharging what he

considered as their first duty, he would have drawn on himself

the hatred and contempt even of those to whose prejudices he had

made so shameful a concession, and, had he contented himself with

granting to the members of his own Church a practical toleration

by a large exercise of his unquestioned prerogative of mercy,

posterity would have unanimously applauded him.


The Commons probably felt on reflection that they had acted

absurdly. They were also disturbed by learning that the King, to

whom they looked up with superstitious reverence, was greatly

provoked. They made haste, therefore, to atone for their offence.

In the House, they unanimously reversed the decision which, in

the Committee, they had unanimously adopted. and passed a

resolution importing that they relied with entire confidence on

His Majesty's gracious promise to protect that religion which was

dearer to them than life itself.313


Three days later the King informed the House that his brother had

left some debts, and that the stores of the navy and ordnance

were nearly exhausted. It was promptly resolved that new taxes

should be imposed. The person on whom devolved the task of

devising ways and means was Sir Dudley North, younger brother of

the Lord Keeper. Dudley North was one of the ablest men of his

time. He had early in life been sent to the Levant, and had there

been long engaged in mercantile pursuits. Most men would, in such

a situation, have allowed their faculties to rust. For at Smyrna

and Constantinople there were few books and few intelligent

companions. But the young factor had one of those vigorous

understandings which are independent of external aids. In his

solitude he meditated deeply on the philosophy of trade, and

thought out by degrees a complete and admirable theory,

substantially the same with that which, a century later, was

expounded by Adam Smith. After an exile of many years, Dudley

North returned to England with a large fortune, and commenced

business as a Turkey merchant in the City of London. His profound

knowledge, both speculative and practical, of commercial matters,

and the perspicuity and liveliness with which he explained his

views, speedily introduced him to the notice of statesmen. The

government found in him at once an enlightened adviser and an

unscrupulous slave. For with his rare mental endowments were

joined lax principles and an unfeeling heart. When the Tory

reaction was in full progress, he had consented to be made

Sheriff for the express purpose of assisting the vengeance of the

court. His juries had never failed to find verdicts of Guilty;

and, on a day of judicial butchery, carts, loaded with the legs

and arms of quartered Whigs, were, to the great discomposure of

his lady, driven to his fine house in Basinghall Street for

orders. His services had been rewarded with the honour of

knighthood, with an Alderman's gown, and with the office of

Commissioner of the Customs. He had been brought into Parliament

for Banbury, and though a new member, was the person on whom the

Lord Treasurer chiefly relied for the conduct of financial

business in the Lower House.314


Though the Commons were unanimous in their resolution to grant a

further supply to the crown, they were by no means agreed as to

the sources from which that supply should be drawn. It was

speedily determined that part of the sum which was required

should be raised by laying an additional impost, for a term of

eight years, on wine and vinegar: but something more than this

was needed. Several absurd schemes were suggested. Many country

gentlemen were disposed to put a heavy tax on all new buildings

in the capital. Such a tax, it was hoped, would check the growth

of a city which had long been regarded with jealousy and aversion

by the rural aristocracy. Dudley North's plan was that additional

duties should be imposed, for a term of eight years, on sugar and

tobacco. A great clamour was raised Colonial merchants, grocers,

sugar bakers and tobacconists, petitioned the House and besieged

the public offices. The people of Bristol, who were deeply

interested in the trade with Virginia and Jamaica, sent up a

deputation which was heard at the bar of the Commons. Rochester

was for a moment staggered; but North's ready wit and perfect

knowledge of trade prevailed, both in the Treasury and in the

Parliament, against all opposition. The old members were amazed

at seeing a man who had not been a fortnight in the House, and

whose life had been chiefly passed in foreign countries, assume

with confidence, and discharge with ability, all the functions of

a Chancellor of the Exchequer.315


His plan was adopted; and thus the Crown was in possession of a

clear income of about nineteen hundred thousand pounds, derived

from England alone. Such an income was then more than sufficient

for the support of the government in time of peace.316


The Lords had, in the meantime, discussed several important

questions. The Tory party had always been strong among the peers.

It included the whole bench of Bishops, and had been reinforced

during the four years which had elapsed since the last

dissolution, by several fresh creations. Of the new nobles, the

most conspicuous were the Lord Treasurer Rochester, the Lord

Keeper Guildford. the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, the Lord

Godolphin, and the Lord Churchill, who, after his return from

Versailles, had been made a Baron of England.


The peers early took into consideration the case of four members

of their body who had been impeached in the late reign, but had

never been brought to trial, and had, after a long confinement,

been admitted to bail by the Court of King's Bench. Three of the

noblemen who were thus under recognisances were Roman Catholics.

The fourth was a Protestant of great note and influence, the Earl

of Danby. Since he had fallen from power and had been accused of

treason by the Commons, four Parliaments had been dissolved; but

he had been neither acquitted nor condemned. In 1679 the Lords

had considered, with reference to his situation, the question

whether an impeachment was or was not terminated by a

dissolution. They had resolved, after long debate and full

examination of precedents, that the impeachment was still

pending. That resolution they now rescinded. A few Whig nobles

protested against this step, but to little purpose. The Commons

silently acquiesced in the decision of the Upper House. Danby

again took his seat among his peers, and became an active and

powerful member of the Tory party.317


The constitutional question on which the Lords thus, in the short

space of six years, pronounced two diametrically opposite

decisions, slept during more than a century, and was at length

revived by the dissolution which took place during the long trial

of Warren Hastings. It was then necessary to determine whether

the rule laid down in 1679, or the opposite rule laid down in

1685, was to be accounted the law of the land. The point was long

debated in both houses; and the best legal and parliamentary

abilities which an age preeminently fertile both in legal and in

parliamentary ability could supply were employed in the

discussion. The lawyers were not unequally divided. Thurlow,

Kenyon, Scott, and Erskine maintained that the dissolution had

put an end to the impeachment. The contrary doctrine was held by

Mansfield, Camden, Loughborough, and Grant. But among those

statesmen who grounded their arguments, not on precedents and

technical analogies, but on deep and broad constitutional

principles, there was little difference of opinion. Pitt and

Grenville, as well as Burke and Fox, held that the impeachment

was still pending Both Houses by great majorities set aside the

decision of 1685, and pronounced the decision of 1679 to be in

conformity with the law of Parliament.


Of the national crimes which had been committed during the panic

excited by the fictions of Oates, the most signal had been the

judicial murder of Stafford. The sentence of that unhappy

nobleman was now regarded by all impartial persons as unjust. The

principal witness for the prosecution had been convicted of a

series of foul perjuries. It was the duty of the legislature, in

such circumstances, to do justice to the memory of a guiltless

sufferer, and to efface