the West Indies, were so many asylums for the American privateers; warlike stores were openly transported from almost every harbour in France; the latter court had positively refused to prohibit American trading vessels or ships of war from entering their ports; and to complete the whole, a person sent from the Congress, if not two or three, was now in a public character at the court of Versailles, not perhaps received by M. de Vergennes with the formalities of an Envoy Extraordinary, but most certainly armed with all the efficient powers of a person treating on the part of an independent state. The concluding paragraph of the speech he declared to be a compound of the most glaring hypocrisies, unless attempting to rob the people of America of their property, by laying taxes on them without their consent and stripping them of their charters, was a proof "that no people ever enjoyed more happiness under a milder government," or unless sending over an army of foreign mercenaries, was the first step "to restore to them the blessings of law and liberty, equally enjoyed by every British subject."*

Against the ministerial majorities however the Opposition fought in vain; and so disgusted were the Rockingham Whigs at their want of success, that after the rejection on Nov. 6th of Lord John Caven* "Parliamentary History," xviii. 1385.

dish's motion for the revisal of all laws by which the Americans thought themselves aggrieved, they broke from the agreement they had made with Grafton in the previous year, and ceased to attend in the House of Commons. In this course Shelburne refused to join, and followed by his friends warmly opposed the Bill for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in the Colonies, which the Ministry were at this moment engaged in passing. Nor was this resistance useless, for Dunning succeeded in carrying a number "of alterations, clauses, and softenings," * which materially materially diminished the obnoxious character of the measure. Shelburne also strongly opposed the payment of the arrears of the Civil List, for which the King was again applying, condemning the extravagance of the Court, the careless manner in which it appeared from the papers laid before the House that the accounts were kept, and the unconstitutional character of the doctrine advanced by the King's friends, that he had an absolute right, independent of Parliament, to the Civil List, and that consequently Parliament had no right to interfere with the application and expenditure of it. †

The history of the extension of the control exercised by Parliament over the money given to the Walpole, "Journals," ii. 94.

"Parliamentary History," xix. 181.

Crown for the Civil List, affords an interesting study of the growth of the power of the two Houses. It was still urged in the middle of the last century by the King's friends, that as the Civil List had been given to the King for life, in exchange for the cession of the Ordinary Revenue, the House had no right to meddle with it in any way during his lifetime, unless with his previous consent; in other words that what applied to the Ordinary Revenue of the Crown, applied also to the money given in exchange for it. Historically the argument was unanswerable, and Rigby used it in 1780 in an unsuccessful attempt to thwart the reforming zeal of Burke and Dunning in the House of Commons.* The Whig Peers in 1776 took a very bold and extreme view of the question. They asserted, that the Crown had no independent right to the Civil List whatever, and that the revenue of the Crown was part of the national revenue, in the same sense as the money arising from the land tax or any other duty, and that Parliament consequently had the same right to inquire into the expenditure of the money they had voted, which it possessed in other cases. The argument, it is to be observed, implied the abolition of the permission of the Crown, customarily given whenever the Royal domain is about to be dealt with by Parliament. From enforcing this extreme

*Walpole, "Journals," ii. 376.

demand Parliament has hitherto shrunk, and the present practice reposes on a compromise. Whenever the Ordinary Revenue is about to be dealt with, the royal permission is still sought, but Parliament under the resolution moved by Dunning in 1780, claims an independent right to inquire into the expenditure of the money given to the Crown in exchange.

Shelburne concluded his speech on the Civil List with a general account of the degeneracy of Parliament, owing to patronage, borough-hunting, contractors and their contracts, peculation and corruption at home, vacillation and weakness in public matters, and the increased influence of the Crown. The last, he said, would bring the country to slavery, destruction and ruin. Corruption had spread beyond parliament into the general mass of the community; the nation was composed of buyers and sellers; contracts and the inexhaustible influence derived through these fruitful channels, had done wonders, and had succeeded in cases, where bribes, places, and pensions, from insuperable impediments, must have for ever failed; they not only answered purposes in Parliament, but from their fertile and happy nature, flowed through twice ten thousand channels. The great contractors had their different contracts; those again were divided and subdivided almost ad infinitum among sub

contractors; and they all found their interest in prolonging a war, by which, though the public might be ruined, they were themselves rendered opulent. The idea that the measures of the Ministers could be defended by saying that Parliament had called for them, signified, he said, "just nothing." Parliament in the first place did not represent the nation; even if it did, it could be shown that the nation itself was deluded; and he related a conversation he had had with a Wiltshire farmer, who he said was a just picture of the majority of the people within and without doors. He had asked the farmer what he thought of the American war, and the general state of public affairs. The farmer wished for peace with America, but thought the colonies should be taxed as well as Great Britain. The man was one of the wealthiest farmers in the county of Wilts. Such men, he said, were sometimes sent to Parliament; men of extremely good natural understanding, but who did not trouble themselves much with abstruse researches into politics as a science. If such a man, he argued, was in the Parliament, which had addressed the throne, declaring the colonies in rebellion, and pledging itself and the nation to all the consequences of an American war, it was extremely probable, that he would reason precisely

"Parliamentary History," xix. 183, 185.