pearance of Chatham in the House of Lords was to defend the Order in Council on the ground of public necessity. Camden and others in both Houses maintained its legality. Fierce debates ensued, in which this exercise of the prerogative was compared to former unconstitutional attempts to set up a dispensing power. It was thought essential to mark that such an exertion of the prerogative was not constitutional. An Act of Indemnity was there. fore passed to exonerate those who had advised, and acted upon, the Order in Council. A Parliamentary inquiry into the affairs of the East India Company was now forced on by Chatham, in opposition to the wishes of several of his colleagues. He refused to impart to them the nature and extent of his plans. Several of the Rockingham party resolved to secede from him. He had to form new combinations of public men; and to quiet the appre hensions of those who were accused of being despotically governed by him. During the Christmas recess Chatham went to Bath, where he became seriously ill. Parliament assembled, and the prime minister was not in his place. His Cabinet fell into disorder. The fatal effects of the absence of the chief, and his unwil lingness to entrust responsibility to his colleagues, were signally manifested, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer commended the Stamp Act, and again proposed to tax the Colonies. Burke has described in his Speech upon American Taxation, this strange disorganization of lord Chatham's ministry. "When his face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a wide sea, without chart or compass. . . . As if it were to insult as well as be tray him, even long before the close of the first Session of his Administration, when everything was publicly transacted, and with great parade, in his name, they made an Act declaring it highly just and expedient to raise a revenue in America. For even then, sir, even before this splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary, and, for his hour, became lord of the ascendant. You understand, to be sure, that I speak of Charles Townshend, officially the reproducer of this fatal scheme."

That portion of the life of Chatham when he was nominally the head of the Administration, but wholly incapable of directing the national affairs, and altogether shrinking from that direction, is as difficult to understand as it is melancholy to contemplate. In the beginning of 1767, when the Parliament met, he was ill at Bath. In the middle of February, the gout had returned so severely upon him as to confine him to his bed at the inn at Marlborough, as he

'CHATHAM S ILLNESS.

ΙΟΥ

writes to lord Shelburne by the hands of his secretary. In that inn he is described by Walpole as “inaccessible and invisible, though surrounded by a train of domestics that occupied the whole inn, and wore the appearance of a little court."* Here he remained a fortnight. The duke of Grafton earnestly entreats to be allowed to come to the earl of Chatham. The answer is, that "until he is able to move towards London, it is by no means practicable to him to enter into discussions of business." On the 2nd of March he came to town, but unable to stir hand or foot. At this time. the ministry had been in a minority upon the question whether the Land Tax should be reduced in amount. The king writes to Chatham expressing his reliance upon him to withstand that evil called connexion, to which his majesty attributes the defeat of the ministry. Chatham responds reverentially. Meanwhile the public business falls into confusion ; a violent Opposition, a divided Ministry. From the beginning of April the prime minister had not been allowed to see any one, nor to receive letters. It was in vain that his colleagues desired to visit him. Business, said Chatham, was impossible for him. Again and again the king wrote affection ately to his minister; and at last said, "If you cannot come to me tomorrow, I am ready to call on you." As an interview iess to be dreaded. Chatham consented to receive the duke of Grafton. The duke records in his Memoirs that he found him in a different state from what he expected. "His nerves and spirits were affected in a dreadful degree, and the sight of his great mind bowed down and thus weakened by disorder would have filled me with grief and concern; even if I had not long borne a sincere attachment to his person and character." The Session closed on the 2nd of July. The duke of Grafton was now the real minister; although the name of Chatham in some degree upheld the government..

A theory has been proposed, in a review of the Chatham Cor respondence, that the illness of the great minister was a long series of pretences" that the gout, whatever may have been its real severity, was exaggerated in order to excuse a line of conduct, for which, even if true, it would have furnished no excuse; "—that the gout was a frequent pretext;-that the desire of lord Chatham to have a power of attorney prepared in order to enable his lady to transact his private business was a blind;"—that his disappointment at his loss of popularity, and his regret at having descended from his proud posi tion of the Great Commoner, made him reluctant to appear in his new "George II1,", vol. ut p. 416. The statement in the "Edinburgh Review," vol. xxx, that Chatham asisted that during his stay all the waiters and stable-boys of the inn should wear his livery, is contradicted by lord Mahon, on the authority of the late Mr. Thomas Grenville.

character, and that he clung to office till he could find 'some striking and popular occasion for his resignation. Never was ingenuity more absurdly exercised for the purpose of damaging a great man's character. The true solution of this mystery is, that the intellect of Chatham was temporarily enfeebled, almost destroyed; that he did not resign office, although incapable of performing its duties, because the ordinary perceptions of his mind were clouded to an extent that left him no power of judgment; and that when he did resign, in October, 1768, on account of "the deplorable state of his health," his mind had to some extent resumed its vigour, though his bodily infirmities were as great as ever. His condition during the continuance of his mental prostration is thus described; "Lord Chatham's state of health is certainly the lowest dejection and debility that mind or body can be in. He sits all the day leaning on his hands, which he supports on the table; does not permit any person to remain in the room; knocks when he wants anything; and having made his wants known, gives a signal, without speaking, to the person who answered his call, to retire." He had sold his property at Hayes, and was removed to Burton-Pynsent,a valuable estate he had acquired under the will of sir William Pynsent. With the intense eagerness of a mind verging on insanity, his one idea was to re-purchase Hayes. Difficulties were naturally raised; and he resigned himself to his disappointment, saying "That might have saved me." the re-purchase was effected; and for many months he dwelt there secluded from all mankind. Lord Chatham, according to Walpole, under an attack of the gout, had put himself into the hands of Dr. Addington-innovating enough in his practice to be justly deemed aquack...... If all was not a farce, I should think the physician rather caused the disease; Addington having kept off the gout, and possibly dispersed it through his nerves, or even driven it up to his head." If all was a farce, it was a long farce to occupy more than a year in playing out.

The ministry struggled on with, considerable difficulty through the Session of 1768. There had been many changes in its composition. Charles Townshend had died of fever. His brilliant talents were neutralized by his levity; and it was clear that if his ambition had placed him at the head of the government, he would have done some rash things perhaps precipitated a war with America earlier than the nobleman, lord North, who succeeded Townshend as the Chancellor of Exchequer. The Parliament, now approach ing the end of its septennial term, was dissolved on the 11th of March, 1768.

Quarterly Review," vol. Ixvi. P. 251. + Letter in Lord Lyttelton's "Memoirs."

"George III.," vol. ii. p. 451.

New Parliament.-Non-publication of Debates.-Wilkes returned for Middlesex.Riots.-Sentence upon Wilkes.-His expulsions from Parliament and re-elections.-Debates on the privileges of the Commons.-The letters of Junius.-Personalities of Junius. His attacks on the duke of Grafton.-Private letters of Junius.- His attack on the duke of Bedford.-Address of Junius to the king.-Opening of Parliament.Lord Chatham.-Chatham's speech on the Address.-Schism in the Ministry.--Lo.d Camden disclaims their measures.-Resignation of the duke of Grafton.

THE new Parliament was opened on the toth of May, 1768. In this most important Session the non-publication of debates was enforced with almost unequalled strictness. Horace Walpole has, for some years, been to us the almost only authority for forming any notion of the debating power in an age of real oratory, if we may judge of its rhetorical excellence from the testimony of contemporaries. He is not now a member of "the Thirteenth Parliament of Great Britain." He says, "What traces of debates shall appear hereafter must be mutilated and imperfect, as being received by hearsay from others or taken from notes communicated to me." The rigid enforcement of the Standing Order for the exclusion of strangers went on from 1768 to 1774-the whole term of the duration of this Parliament, thus known as the "Unreported Parliament." But the debates of the House of Commons in this stirring period were not "unreported. Mr. Cavendish (afterwards sir Henry Cavendish), member for Lostwithiel, not only devoted himself to the task of taking down the heads of speeches, but after some practice, attempted to report them "more at large." These most valuable notes have been the foundation of the collection edited by Mr. J. Wright, as "Sir Henry Cavendish's Debates; " but, probably from inadequate public encouragement, these Reports, in their printed form, do not extend beyond March 27, 1771.†

At the opening of Parliament the ministry comprised lord Camden, Lord Chancellor; the duke of Grafton, First Lord of the Treasury; lord Shelburne, Secretary of State; lord North, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Chatham still held the Privy Seal, but continued unable to discharge any official duties. It was the

"Memoirs of George III.," vol. iii. p. 180.

↑ Published in Parts, in 1843, and forming two volumes, the second of which is incom

duke of Grafton's ministry. The new Parliament commenced in a tempest of popular violence, such as had been unwitnessed in England for many years. John Wilkes, an outlaw, suddenly returned from France, at the time when the writs had been issued for a general election, and he declared himself a candidate for the city of London. He was lowest on the poll, there being four aldermen in nomination, who had the suffrages of most decent citizens. Wilkes then proposed himself as a candidate for the county of Middlesex. The ministry were unwilling to proceed against him on his outlawry; and the Whigs, generally, could not well forget that he had been their tool. The demagogue was returned as member for Middlesex; and his triumph was celebrated by illuminations and riots. On the 20th of April, being the first day of term, Wilkes, according to a promise he had given, surrendered to his outlawry, and was committed to custody. A violent mob rescued their favourite from the offcers of the court; but he had the prudence to get away from them, and surrender himself at the King's Bench prison. Riots daily took place in the neighbourhood of Wilkes's place of confinement. On the 10th of May, a vast concourse of people assembled in St. George's Fields, to convey the member for Middlesex to his seat in the House, which it was thought he would then take in virtue of his privilege. The riot act was read when the mob assailed the prison-gates; and the military being called in, five or six e sons lost their lives, and many were wounded. The magistrate who gave the order to fire was tried and acquitted. On the 11th of May a royal proclamation was issued "for suppressing riots, tumults, and other unlawful assemblies." There were other causes of tumult than the political agitations connected with Wilkes, Seamen from vessels in the Thames were parading the streets, demanding increase of wages; and having interfered with the unloading of colliers, the coalheavers took part against the sailors, and were fighting with them in the public thoroughfares, The coalheavers had their own especial grievance, having by Act of Parliament been subjected to the jurisdiction of the alderman of the ward. An alehouse-keeper of the name of Green had given offence to the coalheavers, who were chiefly Irish; and they vowed his destruction. Walpole relates their proceedings, as "the fiercest and most memorable of all the tumults." His narrative shows the lawlessness of the metropolis ninety years ago. Green, Walpole says, "every night removed his wife and children out of his house. One evening he received notice that the coalheayers were coming to attack him. He had nobody with him but a maid-servant and a sailor, who by accident

1