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The House then ordered that no prosecution should be commenced against the messenger, for his pre- Messenger

tended assault. He was nevertheless indicted; saved from prosecution. and a true bill being found against him, he was only saved by the Attorney-General, who entered a nolle prosequi.

Alderman
Oliver heard
in their

Some delay ensued in the proceedings, in consequence of the continued indisposition of the Lord Mayor; The Lord but on the 25th March, he and Mr. Alderman Mayor and Oliver attended in their places. They were accompanied to the House by immense crowds, who places. cheered them on their way. Before their case was proceeded with, the order for the attendance on that day of Alderman Wilkes, — the prime mover of all this mischief, was discharged; the court and the ministers being fairly afraid of another contest with so dangerous an antagonist. The Lord Mayor now declined being heard by counsel; and after the reading of the city charters, and oaths of office, he briefly urged that he had acted in obedience to the laws and constitution, and appealed to the justice of the House. An endeavor was made to evade any further proceedings, by the previous question; but after an exciting debate,— interrupted by the shouts and uproar of the crowd, by which the House was surrounded,1 resolutions were agreed to, declaring that the privileges of the House had been violated. The Lord Mayor had been allowed to go home early in the evening; when the crowd took the horses from his carriage, and bore him triumphantly to the Mansion House. Alder. man Oliver being still in the House, was now Alderman called upon for his defence. In a few words he Oliver comsaid that he gloried in what he had done; that he Tower. was unconcerned at the punishment intended for him, and which nothing he could say would avert; 66 and as he expect ed little from their justice, he defied their power." Motions were immediately made that he had been guilty of a breach 1 Parl. Hist. xvii. 125; Cavendish Deb. ii. 452, 454. 2 Cavendish Deb. ii. 461.

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mitted to the

3 Parl. Hist. xvii. 125.

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of privilege, and should be committed to the Tower; and after a debate, protracted, — by earnest protests and remonstrances against this proceeding,- till half-past three in the morning, an order for his commitment was agreed to.1

The Lord

mitted to the

Tower.

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At the next sitting of the House, the Lord Mayor attended in his place. Again he was accompanied by a Mayor com crowd, larger and more tumultuous than before. The members with difficulty made their way through Palace Yard and Westminster Hall. Lord North's carriage was broken to pieces, and he himself escaped, not without injury, with the assistance of Sir W. Meredith. Mr. Charles Fox, a violent champion of privilege, and his brother Stephen, had their carriages injured; and several members were insulted and pelted with stones and mud. For some time, the House was unable to proceed to business. The magistrates tried in vain to disperse or tranquillize the mob; but the Sheriffs, who both happened to be members, being sent by the Speaker, at length succeeded in restoring order. In consideration of the Lord Mayor's state of health, it was at first proposed merely to commit him to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms; but as he boldly declined to accept this favor from the House, and desired to bear his friend Oliver company, he was committed to the Tower.2 Meanwhile Wilkes, the chief offender, was still at large. He had been again ordered to attend on the 8th April; but ministers discreetly moved the adjournment for the Easter Holidays until the 9th; and thus the dreaded culprit was eluded. This subterfuge may have been prudent but it was not magnanimous.

The authority of the House of Commons had clearly Ovation of the been defied; and however ill-advised the proprisoners. ceedings which had led to the contest with the city magistrates, the House could scarcely have flinched

1 He was allowed to sleep at his house that night, and early the next morning the Sergeant took him to the Tower. (Gentleman's Mag., cited in Parl. Hist. xvii. 155, n.)

2 March 27th; Parl. Hist. xvii. 157.

1

from the vindication of its privileges. But Parliament has no means of punishing a popular offender. The Lord Mayor, on leaving the House, accompanied by the Sergeant-atArms, was surrounded by the crowd, who took the horses from his carriage, and bore him to Temple Bar. Here they shut the city gates, and would have rescued him from custody, but for the adroitness of the Lord Mayor, who assured them he was going home, accompanied by his friends. He slept that night at the Mansion House, and early the following morning reached the Tower, without observation. Here the prisoners received every mark of public attention and sympathy. Visited by the most distinguished leaders of the Opposition, attended by deputations, flattered in addresses, complimented by the freedom of many cities, and overloaded with presents, their imprisonment, instead of being a punishment, was a long-continued ovation. They failed to obtain their release under writs of habeas corpus, as the legality of their commitment could not be impeached; but on the 8th May, after six weeks' confinement, the prorogation of Parliament set them at liberty. Attended by a triumphal procession, they proceeded from the Tower to the Mansion House; and the people exulted at the liberation of their popular magistrates.2

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1 Lord Chatham condemned all the parties to this contest. "Nothing appears to me more distinct than declaring their right to jurisdiction, with regard to printers of their proceedings, and debates, and punishing their member, and in him his constituents, for what he has done in discharge of his oath and conscience as a magistrate." Lord Chatham to Colonel Barré, March 26th, 1771.- Chatham Corresp. iv. 136.

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Lord Chatham, writing to Earl Temple, April 17th, 1771, said, “Great is the absurdity of the city in putting the quarrel on the exercise of the most tenable privilege the House is possessed of, a right to summon before them printers printing their debates during the session. Incomparable is the wrong-headedness and folly of the Court, ignorant how to be twentyfour hours on good ground; for they have most ingeniously contrived to be guilty of the rankest tyranny, in every step taken to assert the right.” — Grenville Papers, iv. 533. See also Junius, Letter xliv.

2 Memoirs of Brass Crosby, 1829; Almon's Life of Wilkes; Ann. Reg. 1771, 59 et seq.; Adolphus Hist. chap. xix.

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Thus ended this painful and embarrassing conflict.

Reporting henceforth permitted.

Its

results were decisive. The publication of debates was still asserted to be a breach of privilege; but the offence was committed with impunity. Another contest with the press, supported by a powerful opposition and popular sympathies, was out of the question; and henceforth the proceedings of both Houses were freely reported. Parliament as well as the public has since profited by every facility which has been afforded to reporting. The suppression of the names of the speakers, and the adoption of fictitious designations, had encouraged reporters to introduce other fictions into their narratives; and to impute arguments and language, which had never been used, to characters of their own creation.

Its difficulties.

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But reporters were still beset with too many difficulties, to be able to collect accurate accounts of the debates. Prohibited from taking notes, they were obliged to write mainly from memory. If notes were taken at all, they were written surreptitiously, and in fear of the Sergeant-at Arms. Nor was this the only impediment to reporting. The accommodation for strangers was very limited; and as no places were reserved for reporters, they were obliged to wait sometimes for hours, upon the stairs, before the doors were opened, in order to secure admission. Under such restraints, imperfections in the reports were to be expected. However faithfully the substance of the debates may have been rendered, it is not conceivable that the language of the speakers could have been preserved; and it was probably no vain boast of Dr. Johnson, when, to a company lost in admiration at one of Mr. Pitt's most eloquent speeches, he exclaimed, "That speech I wrote in a garret, in Exeter Street."

"1

1 Sir J. Hawkins's Life of Dr. Johnson. The editor of Cobbett's Parliamentary History bears testimony to the general accuracy of Dr. Johnson's reports, and discredits the statements of Sir John Hawkins and others, who had regarded them as the works of his own imagination. — Prefs. to vols. xi. and xii.

Nor were any further facilities conceded to reporters, after the struggle of 1771. Lord Malmesbury, speaking of Mr. Pitt's speech, 23d May, 1803, on the renewal of hostilities with France, said: “By a new arrangement of the Speaker's, strangers were excluded till so late an hour, that the newspaper printers could not get in, and of course, no part of Pitt's speech can be printed."1. A sketch of this speech, however, has been preserved; but the whole debate was very imperfectly reported. Even so late as 1807, it was noticed in the House of Lords, that a person was taking notes in the gallery.

clusion of

Another interruption to which reporting was still exposed. was the frequent and capricious exclusion of Reports interstrangers, at the desire of a single member. On rupted by exthe 29th January, 1778, seven years after the strangers. contest with the printers, Colonel Luttrell complained of misrepresentation in a newspaper; and said he should move the exclusion of strangers, in order to prevent the recurrence of such a practice; upon which Mr. Fox made this remarkable observation: "He was convinced the true and only method of preventing misrepresentation was by throwing open the gallery, and making the debates and decisions of the House as public as possible. There was less danger of misrepresentation in a full company than a thin one, as there would be a greater number of persons to give evidence against the misrepresentation." 4

1 Corresp. and Diary, iv. 262.

2 Parl. Hist. xxxvi. 1386.

8 Court and Cabinets of George III. iv. 150; not mentioned in the Parl. Debates.

4 Parl. Hist. xix. 647. A few days afterwards strangers were ordered to withdraw. This order was enforced against the gentlemen; but the ladies, who were present in unusual numbers, were permitted to remain. Governor Johnstone, however, remonstrated upon the indulgence shown to them, and they were also directed to withdraw. But they showed no disposition to obey this ungracious order, and business was interrupted for nearly two hours, before their exclusion was accomplished. Among the number were the Duchess of Devonshire, and Lady Norton. The contumacy of the ladies

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