[Footnote 12:  The last resolution is approved by Mr. Hallam.  “If a few precedents were to determine all controversies of constitutional law, it is plain enough from the journals that the House has assumed the power of incapacitation.  But as such authority is highly dangerous and unnecessary for any good purpose, and as, according to all legal rules, so extraordinary a power could not be supported except by a sort of prescription that cannot be shown, the final resolution of the House of Commons, which condemned the votes passed in times of great excitement, appears far more consonant to first principles.”—­Constitutional History, iii., 357.]

[Footnote 13:  Adolphus, “History of England,” i., 484.]

[Footnote 14:  An idea of the license which the newspapers complained of had permitted themselves at this time may be derived from the manner in which one of them had introduced a speech of Mr. Jeremiah Dyson, M.P. for Weymouth, and a Commissioner of the Treasury:  “Jeremiah Weymouth, the d——­n of the kingdom, spoke as follows.”  And it may seem that the Opposition (for the affair was made a party question) can hardly be acquitted of a discreditable indifference to the dignity of the House in supporting a resolution of Colonel Barre, that “Jeremiah Weymouth, the d——­n of this kingdom, is not a member of this House.”  On which the previous question was moved by the ministers, and carried by 120 to 38.—­Parliamentary History, xvii., 78.  And an instance of rather the opposite kind, of the guarded way in which the most respectable publications were as yet accustomed to relate the transactions of Parliament, may be gathered from the account of the proceedings in the case of Wilkes, given in the “Annual Register” for 1770—­drawn up, probably, by Burke himself—­in which Lord Camden is only mentioned as “a great law lord;” Lord Chatham as “Lord C——­m;” Lord Rockingham as “a noble Marquis who lately presided at the head of public affairs;” the King as “the K——­;” Parliament as “P.;” and the House of Commons as the “H. of C.”—­Annual Register, 1770, pp. 59-67.]

[Footnote 15:  On more than one occasion there had been disturbances in the City, and in the streets adjacent to the Houses of Parliament, which were little short of riot.  One day the mob paraded effigies of the principal ministers, which, after hanging and beheading them, they committed to the flames with great uproar.  On another day Mr. Charles Fox (as yet a vehement Tory) complained to the House that the mob in Palace Yard had insulted him, breaking the glasses of his chariot, and pelting him with oranges, stones, etc.—­Parliamentary History, xvii., 163.]

CHAPTER II.

The Regency Bill.—­The Ministry of 1766 lay an Embargo on Corn.—­An Act of Indemnity is Passed.—­The Nullum Tempus Act concerning Crown Property; it is sought to Extend it to Church Property, but the Attempt fails.—­The Royal Marriage Act.—­The Lords amend a Bill imposing Export Duties, etc., on Corn.