fettlements, grown rich, and had raised their stock to 300 per cent. At this period Government interfered,, and had continued

neceffity as is implied in the nature of every other bargain. With fuch matters before us, that require the beft, we are denied all manner of information. A bill, the object of which has taken the Commons near eight months to confider, is precipitated through this House in little more than eight days, without any attention to parliamentary ufage or decorum; as if the Lords were the loweft of minifterial tools, who are not to be indulged even with the appearance of difcuffion, concerning the mandates they receive.

In this fituation we feel the honour of the peerage tarnished, and its dignity degraded. If the provisions and precedent of this bill should render the public faith of Great Britain of no estimation; the franchises, rights and properties of Englishmen precarious, and the peerage diftinguishable only by a more than common measure of indolence and fervility; if the boundless fund of corruption, furnished by this bill to the fervants of the Crown, should efface every idea of honour, public spirit, and independence from every rank of people, after struggling vainly against these evils, we have nothing left but the fatisfaction of recording our names to pofterity, as thofe who refifted the whole of this iniquitous fyftem, and as men who had no share in betraying to blind prejudices or fordid interest every thing that has hitherto been held facred in this country.

BECAUSE a bill, evidently taking away, without confent or compenfation, feveral rights and privileges now enjoyed by a great corporate body, purchased for a valuable confideration, and confirmed by the most folemn fanctions of parliamentary faith, can be juftified only by fuch delinquency as incurs a forfeiture of those rights, or by fuch evident and urgent neceffity as admits of no method confiftent with the charter of the Company, for the immediate prefervation of those objects for which the corporation was formed. The evidence, therefore of fuch delinquency, or fuch neceffity, depending effentially on matters of fact and record, it is impoffible for Peers to proceed on this bufinefs in a proper manner, while they are unfurnished with that information which it was our duty to demand, and which it was the difpofition of the Houfe to refuse.

zdly, Be

tinued to interfere, until they had brought them to the brink of ruin. And he would fay by the India Company, as he

had

2dly, Because the Houfe of Commons had appointed Committees to examine into the ftate and condition of the Eaft-India Company, and have from them received feveral reports previous to the bringing in this bill; a previous courfe of the fame kind is equally necessary in this House; nor is it enough for Lords to be informed from common conversation, that other men have done their duty, as a reason for neglecting ours. This House nevertheless (in conformity to its late method of proceeding, but in direct contradiction to the uniform practice and principle of better times) has wholly declined to make any enquiry into this important and delicate fubject; though fuch enquiry has been ftrongly recommended from the Throne at the opening of this feffion. We conceive that those who advised that speech were obliged, as well from confistency as from respect to the Crown, to have been early in moving a proper enquiry; and not to have oppofed it, even when a bill from the other Houfe had in common decency rendered it at length indifpenfable. Not content with this neglect of duty, and contempt of his Majesty's recommendation, a conference with the Commons was also refused; by which, however imperfectly, the inattention of the Peers might have been remedied by the diligence of the other Houfe; and when a conceffion was made that the Reports of the Committee of the Houfe of Commons fhould be laid before us, on condition of their not being read by the clerk, this small conceffion of imperfect information was immediately withdrawn, and the House refolved to proceed altogether in the dark. We cannot reflect, without the utmoft humiliation, on the total revolution which has happened in the fentiments and conduct of this House, within fo fhort a time as fince the year 1720, when the Lords, in confidering the affairs of the South-Sea Company, exerted the greatest diligence through the whole of a very long feffion, in a strict parliamentary inquifition into facts, before they thought themselves authorised to refort to an extraordinary ufe of the legislative power.

3dly, Because we conceive that the reason of dispatch, affigned for this refufal of all forts of information, to be unworthy the legislative and the judicial character of the Houfe, we are perfuaded that, invefted as we are with a public truft of the highest importance, we ought, in all cafes, to poftpone our amusements to our duties, and are bound to measure our confideration of the affairs before us, not by the feason of the year, but by the nature of the bufinefs. In the year 1720, the Lords had a conference with the Commons, which began in July, and did not end till the 25th of that month. If we once admit the advanced period of the feffion, as a reafon of refusing to ourselves every information required by the cafe, the Commons have it in their power to preclude the House from the exereife of its deliberative caYOL, XIV.

F

pacity;

had often faid, with respect to the Americans, that if Minifters meant to do any thing, they must begin by undoing.

pacity; they have nothing more to do than to keep bufinefs of importance until the fummer is advanced, and then the delay in that House is to be affigned as a fufficient ground for a precipitate acquiefcence in this. Our predeceffors in this House were fo well aware of the ufe which, in future times, might be made of fuch a practice of the Commons, and fuch an argument drawn from it here, that they have expreffly condemned both the practice and argument by our standing order, Die Martis 5 Maii 1668, which standing order we infert in this proteft, that it may appear that in this obftinate refusal of fuch an enquiry as the subject called for, the House has trefpaffed as much against its own rules of proceeding as against the general rights and privileges of the people.

Standing Order of 5 May, 1668.

"Upon report made by the Lord Chamberlain from the Committee of the whole Houfe, concerning the bill for raising 300,010l. by an impofition on wines and other liquors, that in regard the faid bill being very long and confifting of many paragraphs, came from the Houfe of Commons fo near the time of adjournment, he was commanded to report it as the opinion of the Committee, that it might be entered into the Journal-book of this Houfe, as was upon this bill (of fhortnefs of time for the paffing of thefe bills,) to precipitate the paffing thereof, but that due confideration may be had hereafter according to the courfe of Parliaments, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in Parliament affembled, agreed with the report made from the Committee, and ordered that this order be added to the roll of standing orders of this Houfe."

4thly, Because we think, that having rejected the ancient, reafon able, and parliamentary mode of proceeding, the maxim eftablished in its place is dangerous and irrational. We do conftantly deny, that what is commonly called public notoriety (which is in reality no better than common rumour) is or can be a ground for any act which may conclufively impair, much lefs wholly take away, any one of the rights of the fubject; fuch fuppofed notoriety being frequently uncertain in its foundation, generally under the influence of violent paffions, and entirely deftitute of that accuracy which is necessary for afcertaining the nature, extent, or tendency of any grievance, or confequently for furnishing any wife or adequate methods of re drefs.

Leave them to themselves, in the ftate they had found them, and there was little doubt, but they would foon recover to that ftate of credit and refpectability they were arrived

at before.

The Duke of Portland denied having changed his fenti- TheDuke of ments, they were the fame now as when he had figned the Portland, proteft-circumftances were materially different.

He re

The Duke of Richmond read the motion for which the TheDuke of protest had been entered into, which was for the production Richmond. of papers then before the Houfe of Commons; he could not affert the noble Duke was changed, but it would be neceffary for him to prove, as well as fay, he was not. probated the Coalition, and faid, one of three things muft be true; either Lord North had given up his principles to the Duke of Portland, the Duke of Portland to Lord North, or that the Cabinet was divided on every principle; and therefore no good could poffibly be expected from either.

Lords Sydney, Abingdon, and the Duke of Chandos, faid a few words; after which, the petition from the East-India Company was read as follows:

"To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament affembled, the humble Petition of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the Eaft Indies,

"Sheweth,

"That a bill is now depending before your Lordships, intitled An Act for establishing certain Regulations for the better Management of the Territories, Revenues, and Commerce of this Kingdom in the Eaft Indies.'

"That the faid bill deftroys the conftitution, and wholly fubverts the rights and privileges granted to your petitioners by charter, made for valuable confiderations, and confirmed by divers acts of Parliament; and empowers certain persons therein named, as Directors appointed by the faid bill, to feize and take poffeffion of all the lands, tenements, houses, warehouses, and other buildings, books, records, charters, letters, and other papers, fhips, veffels, goods, wares, merchandizes, money, fecurities for money, and all other effects belonging to your petitioners; and this without charging your petitioners with any specific delinquency, or ftating any juft grounds upon which their rights, capacities, and fran

F 2

chifes

Earl of

chifes ought to be forfeited, or their property to be feized; a proceeding contrary to the inoft facred privilege of British fubjects, that of being tried and convicted upon a specific charge, before judgment is paffed against them in any cafe whatsoever.

"Moreover, the faid bill empowers and authorizes the faid Directors to carry on a trade with the property of your petitioners, and at their risk, without their confent or control, for the confequences whereof your petitioners are exceedingly alarmed, and, therefore, they moft humbly crave leave folemnly to proteft againft the fame.

"If your Lordships should think that any reason or neceffities of ftate may warrant fo harfh a measure as that of divefting your petitioners of their franchises and property, your petitioners entertain the moft perfect confidence in your Lordships' wifdom as well as juftice, that the actual existence of fuch ftate neceffities, or other reafons, will be firft eftablished by the clearest and fulleft evidence. And your petitioners humbly prefume to refer your Lordships to the example of all former times, in which every encroachment upon the facred rights of private property, or private franchife, has been anxioufly compenfated by the wisdom and juftice of the Legislature.

"Your petitioners, therefore, moft humbly pray that they may be heard by themfelves, or their counfel, against the faid bill; and that your Lordships in your juftice will protect their rights, privileges, and property againft this moft unprecedented measure, fubverfive of your petitioners' conftitution, divefting them of their rights and privileges, feizing their property, and continuing a trade at their risk, but without their confent or control.

"And your petitioners fhall ever pray," &c.

December 15.

About three o'clock the Earl of Abingdon rofe, and obferved, that if the attendance of their Lordships had been then more numerous, he fhould have fubmitted to their confideration fome remarks and fubfequent propofitions relative to the Eaft-India bill, and other points of great importance; but, he muft beg leave to defer thefe until the House should become more filled.

Many Peers entering foon afterwards, the Earl of AbingAbingdon. don rofe again, and faid,

"My