on the proposed amendment-138 voted for it, and 254 against it, or a majority for the Government of 116. "Thus ends the mighty bluster of petitions," wrote Walpole. Not quite yet though, even so far as this episode was concerned; only just beginning, so far as petitioning generally was concerned, and all that was now becoming associated with Petitions, namely, public meetings and Platformings. The crucial debate over, the Government struck hard and sharp. The Lord Chancellor was dismissed, also the Marquis of Granby, the Commander of the Forces, and a host of smaller place-holders. "Every day produced some new ousting or resignation." 2 By the 19th January 1770 "the Court had recovered from its consternation, and was taking measures of defence." Lord North, a few days later, expressed in plainer language than he had done before his view of the agitation and of the Platform orations, which were still evidently rankling deep. "What evidence have we that there are public grievances which demand an inquiry? That a number of ignorant mechanics and rustics have been treated in one place with beer, and broke windows in another, is true; are these the grievances into which we are to inquire? That some persons whose share in the public interest should have taught better, have treated these rustics and mechanics, and taught them, in the jollity of their drunkenness, to cry out that they were undone, is also true. Are these, then, the grievances into which we are to inquire? If these are not, I know of none. The nation is quiet and content, except where tumult and discontent are industriously excited; and shall the annual supply be withheld? shall every purpose of Government be suspended? shall the public creditors be unpaid, and the army and the navy want clothes and bread, because the drunken and the ignorant have been made dupes to the crafty and the factious, signed papers that they have never read, and determined questions that they do not know; roared against oppression and tyranny, with licentiousness that makes liberty blush, and staggered home with impunity, swearing they were in 1 Horace Walpole's Letters, vol. v. p. 214, 10th January 1770. 8 Walpole's Letters, vol. v. p. 217. danger of slavery, while every one they met who did not join. in their cry was in danger of a broken head?”1 In a fresh debate on the Middlesex election question, the Court majority suddenly fell to 44, and the Duke of Grafton, the Prime Minister, resigned (on the 28th January 1770). "A violent panic prevailed, the whole administration seemed falling to pieces;" but the King promoted Lord North to be Prime Minister, the tide turned, and affairs began once more to brighten for the Court party. Walpole wrote on 2d February: "The very critical day is over, and the administration stands. . . . The people are perfectly quiet and seem to have delegated all their anger to their representatives-a proof that their representatives had instructed their constituents to be angry. Yet I am far from thinking the administration solidly seated. When they could reduce a majority of 116 to 40 in three weeks, their hold seems to be very slippery." That the leaders of the popular party were not strong enough to cope with the concentrated power of the Court at this time was manifest at first sight. In the novel position in which they were placed, mistakes too on their side were to be expected. Want of success in the repeated divisions in the House of Commons quickly discouraged them. The Platform was no longer actively backing them, or where it attempted to do so, it was foiled. For instance, the Common Council of London, finding their petition ineffectual, held a meeting, which was attended by some 3000 persons, and framed a "Remonstrance." "To a Remonstrance they tell us," wrote Sedgwick, 6th February 1770, "an answer must be given. If not, force and arms are the only remedies. May heaven prevent the use of such remedies." But the House of Commons by 284 votes to 157 passed a vote of very strong censure on the Remonstrance. That was all that came of it. Other meetings were in abeyance while the battle was being waged in Parliament, and there the battle was lost, and before the session of 1770 was brought 1 Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 759. 2 On the 25th January 1770. 3 Walpole's Letters, vol. v. p. 225. 4 Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 875. 5 Weston MSS., Parliamentary Papers, 1885, vol. xliv. p. 421. to a close, the Government of Lord North might be considered as firmly established. But though the Government had thus triumphed, and though the electors of Middlesex were for a time denied the right of choosing their own representative, the Platform was ultimately the victor. Immediate and complete success, though vigorously striven for, was more than could be expected. The battalions of subservient nominees or placement in the House of Commons were overwhelmingly numerous, and the Government was in too great majority to be vulnerably assailable. Nothing, in fact, but the extreme importance of the subject in dispute could have brought the action of the Platform so near success at the time. The view some people took of the contest is amusingly illustrated by Dr. Johnson, though it redounds little to his political sagacity. With contemptuous censure he thus described the point at issue: "The struggle in the reign of Anne was to exclude or restore an exiled king. We are now disputing with almost equal animosity whether Middlesex shall be represented or not by a criminal from a jail. The only comfort left in such degeneracy is that a lower state can be no longer possible." But Burke put the matter in its true aspect when he said: "The people did not think of approaching the Throne with their grievances till the malversation of Ministers threatened immediate destruction to the State. Till the sacred right of election, wrested from their hands, filled the freeholders of Great Britain with universal apprehension for their liberties, they never disturbed the royal repose with their complaints. But oppression having now exceeded all bounds, the axe being. at length laid at the very root of the subjects' independence, the people of England can be silent no longer."1 At the time, the Court, the Government, and the "King's friends" may have fancied that they had won a permanent victory. Their triumph, however, was short-the mere mirage of a triumph-for it was only during that Parliament that the Government was able to enforce the expulsion of Wilkes. To the next Parliament, which was elected in 1774, he was again returned as Member for Middlesex. Taught wisdom by experience, and unwilling to stir up a fresh out1 Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 879. burst of Platform agitation, the King and the Government allowed him to take his seat in the new House of Commons without notice or opposition. Thus, in 1774, the Platform triumphed, and its first great victory, the prelude of many others, was won. In reviewing this first resort to the Platform, as an engine of political warfare, certain facts which specially marked it should be recorded, so as to enable us hereafter to compare it with subsequent outbursts of Platform activity, and also the more readily to understand the different stages in the growth or evolution of the Platform. The first fact is that this agitation, greater than any which preceded it, had not the support of the bulk of what were then considered the more respectable classes of the community. Horace Walpole says: "In fact the lower people alone, whom it was easy to lead, gave in to Petitions. The gentry in general discouraged, yet dared not openly oppose them, either fearing for their future elections or dreading the abuse that was cast on all who opposed the popular cry." It is possibly true, as was stated, that the Petitions were signed by 65,000 of the electors. Having regard to the political ignorance and indifference prevailing at the time, and the state of dependence in which large masses of the people were kept, this was a very large number, but it is nevertheless true that many counties and towns did not join in the move ment. Another noteworthy fact is that the agitation was only in a small degree the spontaneous uninspired agitation of the people; and one more fact to be noted is that the agitation was taken, as it were, under the protection of the Whig party leaders, and the endeavour was made to give it a distinctive party aspect. Lord Chatham, ex-Prime Minister, emerged from retirement and flung himself into the front of the battle. He even "engaged with new warmth in promoting petitions."2 Lord Rockingham, another ex-Prime Minister, also, as we have seen, took an active part in directing the objects of the agitation. Sir George Savile and other leading men of the Whig party took energetic action. 1 Memoirs of the Reign of George III., vol. ii. p. 393. 2 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 400. Edmund Burke, though he did not actually speak at any meeting, gave his fullest strength to the popular cause of his wisest counsel. His general ideas on the subject may be gathered from a speech of his in the House of Commons in 1771. "I am not of the opinion of those gentlemen who are against disturbing the public repose. I like a clamour whenever there is an abuse. The fire-bell at midnight disturbs your sleep, but it keeps you from being burned in your bed. The hue and cry alarms the county, but it preserves all the property of the province. All these clamours aim at redress. But a clamour made merely for the purpose of rendering the people discontented with their situation, without an endeavour to give them a practical remedy, is indeed one of the worst acts of sedition." 1 That the Middlesex agitation did not fall within the latter category is evident from what he further said: "Indeed, in the situation in which we stand, with an immense revenue, an enormous debt, mighty establishments, Government itself a great banker and a great merchant, I see no other way for the preservation of a decent attention to public interest in the representatives, but the interposition of the body of the people itself whenever it shall appear, by some flagrant and notorious act, by some capital innovation, that these representatives are going to overleap the fences of the law, and to introduce an arbitrary power." "Standards for judging more systematically upon their conduct ought to be settled in the meetings of counties and corporations." The interposition of the body of the people thus recommended, with their Platform and their resolutions, had, even so far as it had gone, proved most eminently disconcerting to the King and those in authority. Disconcerting it well might be, for the Platform was a new factor in the political life of the country, and carried with it vast potentialities for the future. Not alone was it a new form of expression of public opinion, but it was actually a new element or source of public opinion, differing quite from the Press, being more tangible, and carrying with it the greater weight which the personal presence of numbers gives to expressed opinion. Henceforward statesmen would have to reckon with the fact 1 Parliamentary History, vol. xvii. p. 54. |