The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

T >> Thomas Babington Macaulay >> The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

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It was now decided that there had been treason, but not who was
the traitor. Several keen debates followed. The Whigs tried to
throw the blame on Killegrew and Delaval, who were Tories; the
Tories did their best to make out that the fault lay with the
Victualling Department, which was under the direction of Whigs.
But the House of Commons has always been much more ready to pass
votes of censure drawn in general terms than to brand individuals
by name. A resolution clearing the Victualling Office was
proposed by Montague, and carried, after a debate of two days, by
a hundred and eighty-eight votes to a hundred and fifty-two.491
But when the victorious party brought forward a motion
inculpating the admirals, the Tories came up in great numbers
from the country, and, after a debate which lasted from nine in
the morning till near eleven at night, succeeded in saving their
friends. The Noes were a hundred and seventy, and the Ayes only a
hundred and sixty-one. Another attack was made a few days later
with no better success. The Noes were a hundred and eighty-five,
the Ayes only a hundred and seventy-five. The indefatigable and
implacable Wharton was on both occasions tellers for the
minority.492

In spite of this check the advantage was decidedly with the
Whigs; The Tories who were at the head of the naval
administration had indeed escaped impeachment; but the escape had
been so narrow that it was impossible for the King to employ them
any longer. The advice of Sunderland prevailed. A new Commission
of Admiralty was prepared; and Russell was named First Lord. He
had already been appointed to the command of the Channel fleet.

His elevation made it necessary that Nottingham should retire.
For, though it was not then unusual to see men who were
personally and politically hostile to each other holding high
offices at the same time, the relation between the First Lord of
the Admiralty and the Secretary of State, who had charge of what
would now be called the War Department, was of so peculiar a
nature that the public service could not be well conducted
without cordial cooperation between them; and between Nottingham
and Russell such cooperation was not to be expected. "I thank
you," William said to Nottingham, "for your services. I have
nothing to complain of in your conduct. It is only from necessity
that I part with you." Nottingham retired with dignity. Though a
very honest man, he went out of office much richer than lie had
come in five years before. What were then considered as the
legitimate emoluments of his place were great; he had sold
Kensington House to the Crown for a large sum; and he had
probably, after the fashion of that time, obtained for himself
some lucrative grants. He laid out all his gains in purchasing
land. He heard, he said, that his enemies meant to accuse him of
having acquired wealth by illicit means. He was perfectly ready
to abide the issue of an inquiry. He would not, as some ministers
had done, place his fortune beyond the reach of the justice of
his country. He would have no secret hoard. He would invest
nothing in foreign funds. His property should all be such as
could be readily discovered and seized.493

During some weeks the seals which Nottingham had delivered up
remained in the royal closet. To dispose of them proved no easy
matter. They were offered to Shrewsbury, who of all the Whig
leaders stood highest in the King's favour; but Shrewsbury
excused himself, and, in order to avoid further importunity,
retired into the country. There he soon received a pressing
letter from Elizabeth Villiers. This lady had, when a girl,
inspired William with a passion which had caused much scandal and
much unhappiness in the little Court of the Hague. Her influence
over him she owed not to her personal charms,--for it tasked all
the art of Kneller to make her look tolerably on canvass,--not to
those talents which peculiarly belong to her sex,--for she did
not excel in playful talk, and her letters are remarkably
deficient in feminine ease and grace--, but to powers of mind which
qualified her to partake the cares and guide the counsels of
statesmen. To the end of her life great politicians sought her
advice. Even Swift, the shrewdest and most cynical of her
contemporaries, pronounced her the wisest of women, and more than
once sate, fascinated by her conversation, from two in the
afternoon till near midnight.494 By degrees the virtues and
charms of Mary conquered the first place in her husband's
affection. But he still, in difficult conjunctures, frequently
applied to Elizabeth Villiers for advice and assistance. She now
implored Shrewsbury to reconsider his determination, and not to
throw away the opportunity of uniting the Whig party for ever.
Wharton and Russell wrote to the same effect. In reply came
flimsy and unmeaning excuses: "I am not qualified for a court
life; I am unequal to a place which requires much exertion; I do
not quite agree with any party in the State; in short, I am unfit
for the world; I want to travel; I want to see Spain." These were
mere pretences. Had Shrewsbury spoken the whole truth, he would
have said that he had, in an evil hour, been false to the cause
of that Revolution in which he had borne so great a part, that he
had entered into engagements of which he repented, but from which
he knew not how to extricate himself, and that, while he remained
under those engagements, he was unwilling to enter into the
service of the existing government. Marlborough, Godolphin and
Russell, indeed, had no scruple about corresponding with one King
while holding office under the other. But Shrewsbury had, what
was wanting to Marlborough, Godolphin and Russell, a conscience,
a conscience which indeed too often failed to restrain him from
doing wrong, but which never failed to punish him.495

In consequence of his refusal to accept the Seals, the
ministerial arrangements which the King had planned were not
carried into entire effect till the end of the session. Meanwhile
the proceedings of the two Houses had been highly interesting and
important.

Soon after the Parliament met, the attention of the Commons was
again called to the state of the trade with India; and the
charter which had just been granted to the Old Company was laid
before them. They would probably have been disposed to sanction
the new arrangement, which, in truth, differed little from that
which they had themselves suggested not many months before, if
the Directors had acted with prudence. But the Directors, from
the day on which they had obtained their charter, had persecuted
the interlopers without mercy, and had quite forgotten that it
was one thing to persecute interlopers in the Eastern Seas, and
another to persecute them in the port of London. Hitherto the war
of the monopolists against the private trade had been generally
carried on at the distance of fifteen thousand miles from
England. If harsh things were done, the English did not see them
done, and did not hear of them till long after they had been
done; nor was it by any means easy to ascertain at Westminster
who had been right and who had been wrong in a dispute which had
arisen three or four years before at Moorshedabad or Canton. With
incredible rashness the Directors determined, at the very moment
when the fate of their company was in the balance, to give the
people of this country a near view of the most odious features of
the monopoly. Some wealthy merchants of London had equipped a
fine ship named the Redbridge. Her crew was numerous, her cargo
of immense value. Her papers had been made out for Alicant: but
there was some reason to suspect that she was really bound for
the countries lying beyond the Cape of Good Hope. She was stopped
by the Admiralty, in obedience to an order which the Company
obtained from the Privy Council, doubtless by the help of the
Lord President. Every day that she lay in the Thames caused a
heavy expense to the owners. The indignation in the City was
great and general. The Company maintained that from the legality
of the monopoly the legality of the detention necessarily
followed. The public turned the argument round, and, being firmly
convinced that the detention was illegal, drew the inference that
the monopoly must be illegal too. The dispute was at the height
when the Parliament met. Petitions on both sides were speedily
laid on the table of the Commons; and it was resolved that these
petitions should be taken into consideration by a Committee of
the whole House. The first question on which the conflicting
parties tried their strength was the choice of a chairman. The
enemies of the Old Company proposed Papillon, once the closest
ally and subsequently the keenest opponent of Child, and carried
their point by a hundred and thirty-eight votes to a hundred and
six. The Committee proceeded to inquire by what authority the
Redbridge had been stopped. One of her owners, Gilbert Heathcote,
a rich merchant and a stanch Whig, appeared at the bar as a
witness. He was asked whether he would venture to deny that the
ship had really been fitted out for the Indian trade. "It is no
sin that I know of," he answered, "to trade with India; and I
shall trade with India till I am restrained by Act of
Parliament." Papillon reported that in the opinion of the
Committee, the detention of the Redbridge was illegal. The
question was then put, that the House would agree with the
Committee. The friends of the Old Company ventured on a second
division, and were defeated by a hundred and seventy-one votes to
a hundred and twenty-five.496

The blow was quickly followed up. A few days later it was moved
that all subjects of England had equal right to trade to the East
Indies unless prohibited by Act of Parliament; and the supporters
of the Old Company, sensible that they were in a minority,
suffered the motion to pass without a division.497

This memorable vote settled the most important of the
constitutional questions which had been left unsettled by the
Bill of Rights. It has ever since been held to be the sound
doctrine that no power but that of the whole legislature can give
to any person or to any society an exclusive privilege of trading
to any part of the world.

The opinion of the great majority of the House of Commons was
that the Indian trade could be advantageously carried on only by
means of a joint stock and a monopoly. It might therefore have
been expected that the resolution which destroyed the monopoly of
the Old Company would have been immediately followed by a law
granting a monopoly to the New Company. No such law, however, was
passed. The Old Company, though not strong enough to defend its
own privileges, was able, with the help of its Tory friends, to
prevent the rival association from obtaining similar privileges.
The consequence was that, during some years, there was nominally
a free trade with India. In fact, the trade still lay under
severe restrictions. The private adventurer found indeed no
difficulty in sailing from England; but his situation was as
perilous as ever when he had turned the Cape of Good Hope.
Whatever respect might be paid to a vote of the House of Commons
by public functionaries in London, such a vote was, at Bombay or
Calcutta, much less regarded than a private letter from Child;
and Child still continued to fight the battle with unbroken
spirit. He sent out to the factories of the Company orders that
no indulgence should be shown to the intruders. For the House of
Commons and for its resolutions he expressed the bitterest
contempt. "Be guided by my instructions," he wrote," and not by
the nonsense of a few ignorant country gentlemen who have hardly
wit enough to manage their own private affairs, and who know
nothing at all about questions of trade." It appears that his
directions were obeyed.

Every where in the East, during this period of anarchy, servant
of the Company and the independent merchant waged war on each
other, accused each other of piracy, and tried by every artifice
to exasperate the Mogul government against each other.498

The three great constitutional questions of the preceding year
were, in this year, again brought under the consideration of
Parliament. In the first week of the session, a Bill for the
Regulation of Trials in cases of High Treason, a Triennial Bill,
and a Place Bill were laid on the table of the House of Commons.

None of these bills became a law. The first passed the Commons,
but was unfavourably received by the Peers. William took so much
interest in the question that he came down to the House of Lords,
not in his crown and robes, but in the ordinary dress of a
gentleman, and sate through the whole debate on the second
reading. Caermarthen spoke of the dangers to which the State was
at that time exposed, and entreated his brethren not to give, at
such a moment, impunity to traitors. He was powerfully supported
by two eminent orators, who had, during some years, been on the
uncourtly side of every question, but who, in this session,
showed a disposition to strengthen the hands of the government,
Halifax and Mulgrave. Marlborough, Rochester and Nottingham spoke
for the bill; but the general feeling was so clearly against them
that they did not venture to divide. It is probable, however,
that the reasons urged by Caermarthen were not the reasons which
chiefly swayed his hearers. The Peers were fully determined that
the bill should not pass without a clause altering the
constitution of the Court of the Lord High Steward: they knew
that the Lower House was as fully determined not to pass such a
clause; and they thought it better that what must happen at last
should happen speedily, and without a quarrel.499

The fate of the Triennial Bill confounded all the calculations of
the best informed politicians of that time, and may therefore
well seem extraordinary to us. During the recess, that bill had
been described in numerous pamphlets, written for the most part
by persons zealous for the Revolution and for popular principles
of government, as the one thing needful, as the universal cure
for the distempers of the State. On the first, second and third
readings in the House of Commons no division took place. The
Whigs were enthusiastic. The Tories seemed to be acquiescent. It
was understood that the King, though he had used his Veto for the
purpose of giving the Houses an opportunity of reconsidering the
subject, had no intention of offering a pertinacious opposition
to their wishes. But Seymour, with a cunning which long
experience had matured, after deferring the conflict to the last
moment, snatched the victory from his adversaries, when they were
most secure. When the Speaker held up the bill in his hands, and
put the question whether it should pass, the Noes were a hundred
and forty-six, the Ayes only a hundred and thirty-six.500 Some
eager Whigs flattered themselves that their defeat was the effect
of a surprise, and might be retrieved. Within three days,
therefore, Monmouth, the most ardent and restless man in the
whole party, brought into the Upper House a bill substantially
the same with that which had so strangely miscarried in the
Lower. The Peers passed this bill very expeditiously, and sent it
down to the Commons. But in the Commons it found no favour. Many
members, who professed to wish that the duration of parliaments
should be limited, resented the interference of the hereditary
branch of the legislature in a matter which peculiarly concerned
the elective branch. The subject, they said, is one which
especially belongs to us; we have considered it; we have come to
a decision; and it is scarcely parliamentary, it is certainly
most indelicate, in their Lordships, to call upon us to reverse
that decision. The question now is, not whether the duration of
parliaments ought to be limited, but whether we ought to submit
our judgment to the authority of the Peers, and to rescind, at
their bidding, what we did only a fortnight ago. The animosity
with which the patrician order was regarded was inflamed by the
arts and the eloquence of Seymour. The bill contained a
definition of the words, "to hold a Parliament." This definition
was scrutinised with extreme jealousy, and was thought by many,
with very little reason, to have been framed for the purpose of
extending the privileges, already invidiously great, of the
nobility. It appears, from the scanty and obscure fragments of
the debates which have come down to us, that bitter reflections
were thrown on the general conduct, both political and judicial,
of the Peers. Old Titus, though zealous for triennial
parliaments, owned that he was not surprised at the ill humour
which many gentlemen showed. "It is true," he said, "that we
ought to be dissolved; but it is rather hard, I must own, that
the Lords are to prescribe the time of our dissolution. The
Apostle Paul wished to be dissolved; but, I doubt, if his friends
had set him a day, he would not have taken it kindly of them."
The bill was rejected by a hundred and ninety-seven votes to a
hundred and twenty-seven.501

The Place Bill, differing very little from the Place Bill which
had been brought in twelve months before, passed easily through
the Commons. Most of the Tories supported it warmly; and the
Whigs did not venture to oppose it. It went up to the Lords, and
soon came back completely changed. As it had been originally
drawn, it provided that no member of the House of Commons,
elected after the first of January, 1694, should accept any place
of profit under the Crown, on pain of forfeiting his seat, and of
being incapable of sitting again in the same Parliament. The
Lords had added the words, "unless he be afterwards again chosen
to serve in the same Parliament." These words, few as they were,
sufficed to deprive the bill of nine tenths of its efficacy, both
for good and for evil. It was most desirable that the crowd of
subordinate public functionaries should be kept out of the House
of Commons. It was most undesirable that the heads of the great
executive departments should be kept out of that House. The bill,
as altered, left that House open both to those who ought and to
those who ought not to have been admitted. It very properly let
in the Secretaries of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer;
but it let in with them Commissioners of Wine Licenses and
Commissioners of the Navy, Receivers, Surveyors, Storekeepers,
Clerks of the Acts and Clerks of the Cheque, Clerks of the Green
Cloth and Clerks of the Great Wardrobe. So little did the Commons
understand what they were about that, after framing a law, in one
view most mischievous, and in another view most beneficial, they
were perfectly willing that it should be transformed into a law
quite harmless and almost useless. They agreed to the amendment;
and nothing was now wanting but the royal sanction.

That sanction certainly ought not to have been withheld, and
probably would not have been withheld, if William had known how
unimportant the bill now was. But he understood the question as
little as the Commons themselves. He knew that they imagined that
they had devised a most stringent limitation of the royal power;
and he was determined not to submit, without a struggle, to any
such limitation. He was encouraged by the success with which he
had hitherto resisted the attempts of the two Houses to encroach
on his prerogative. He had refused to pass the bill which
quartered the judges on his hereditary revenue; and the
Parliament had silently acquiesced in the justice of the refusal.
He had refused to pass the Triennial Bill; and the Commons had
since, by rejecting two Triennial Bills, acknowledged that he had
done well. He ought, however, to have considered that, on both
these occasions, the announcement of his refusal was immediately
followed by the announcement that the Parliament was prorogued.
On both these occasions, therefore, the members had half a year
to think and to grow cool before the next sitting. The case was
now very different. The principal business of the session was
hardly begun: estimates were still under consideration: bills of
supply were still depending; and, if the Houses should take a fit
of ill humour, the consequences might be serious indeed.

He resolved, however, to run the risk. Whether he had any adviser
is not known. His determination seems to have taken both the
leading Whigs and the leading Tories by surprise. When the Clerk
had proclaimed that the King and Queen would consider of the bill
touching free and impartial proceedings in Parliament, the
Commons retired from the bar of the Lords in a resentful and
ungovernable mood. As soon as the Speaker was again in his chair
there was a long and tempestuous debate. All other business was
postponed. All committees were adjourned. It was resolved that
the House would, early the next morning, take into consideration
the state of the nation. When the morning came, the excitement
did not appear to have abated. The mace was sent into Westminster
Hall and into the Court of Requests. All members who could be
found were brought into the House. That none might be able to
steal away unnoticed, the back door was locked, and the key laid
on the table. All strangers were ordered to retire. With these
solemn preparations began a sitting which reminded a few old men
of some of the first sittings of the Kong Parliament. High words
were uttered by the enemies of the government. Its friends,
afraid of being accused of abandoning the cause of the Commons of
England for the sake of royal favour, hardly ventured to raise
their voices. Montague alone seems to have defended the King.
Lowther, though high in office and a member of the cabinet, owned
that there were evil influences at work, and expressed a wish to
see the Sovereign surrounded by counsellors in whom the
representatives of the people could confide. Harley, Foley and
Howe carried every thing before them. A resolution, affirming
that those who had advised the Crown on this occasion were public
enemies, was carried with only two or three Noes. Harley, after
reminding his hearers that they had their negative voice as the
King had his, and that, if His Majesty refused then redress, they
could refuse him money, moved that they should go up to the
Throne, not, as usual, with a Humble Address, but with a
Representation. Some members proposed to substitute the more
respectful word Address: but they were overruled; and a committee
was appointed to draw up the Representation.

Another night passed; and, when the House met again, it appeared
that the storm had greatly subsided. The malignant joy and the
wild hopes which the Jacobites had, during the last forty-eight
hours, expressed with their usual imprudence, had incensed and
alarmed the Whigs and the moderate Tories. Many members too were
frightened by hearing that William was fully determined not to
yield without an appeal to the nation. Such an appeal might have
been successful: for a dissolution, on any ground whatever,
would, at that moment, have been a highly popular exercise of the
prerogative. The constituent bodies, it was well known, were
generally zealous for the Triennial Bill, and cared comparatively
little about the Place Bill. Many Tory members, therefore, who
had recently voted against the Triennial Bill, were by no means
desirous to run the risks of a general election. When the
Representation which Harley and his friends had prepared was
read, it was thought offensively strong. After being recommitted,
shortened and softened, it was presented by the whole House.
William's answer was kind and gentle; but he conceded nothing. He
assured the Commons that he remembered with gratitude the support
which he had on many occasions received from them, that he should
always consider their advice as most valuable, and that he should
look on counsellors who might attempt to raise dissension between
him and his Parliament as his enemies but he uttered not a word
which could be construed into an acknowledgment that he had used
his Veto ill, or into a promise that he would not use it again.

The Commons on the morrow took his speech into consideration.
Harley and his allies complained that the King's answer was no
answer at all, threatened to tack the Place Bill to a money bill,
and proposed to make a second representation pressing His Majesty
to explain himself more distinctly. But by this time there was a
strong reflux of feeling in the assembly. The Whigs had not only
recovered from their dismay, but were in high spirits and eager
for conflict. Wharton, Russell and Littleton maintained that the
House ought to be satisfied with what the King had said. "Do you
wish," said Littleton, "to make sport for your enemies? There is
no want of them. They besiege our very doors. We read, as we come
through the lobby, in the face and gestures of every nonjuror
whom we pass, delight at the momentary coolness which has arisen
between us and the King. That should be enough for us. We may be
sure that we are voting rightly when we give a vote which tends
to confound the hopes of traitors." The House divided. Harley was
a teller on one side, Wharton on the other. Only eighty-eight
voted with Harley, two hundred and twenty-nine with Wharton. The
Whigs were so much elated by their victory that some of them
wished to move a vote of thanks to William for his gracious
answer; but they were restrained by wiser men. "We have lost time
enough already in these unhappy debates," said a leader of the
party. "Let us get to Ways and Means as fast as we can. The best
form which our thanks can take is that of a money bill."