1737. But though there had been no discovery, who CHAP. could tolerate that there should be no punishment? XVII In the next Session, a Bill was brought in for this object, framed in a violent and vindictive spirit, far unlike the usual moderation of the minister, and probably the effect of the Queen's resentment. Having found no other victims to strike, it aimed its blow at the whole City of Edinburgh. It proposed to abolish the City Charter, rase the City gates, disband the City Guard, and declare the Provost, Mr. Wilson, incapable of again holding any public office. To support these angry enactments, witnesses were examined at the bar of both Houses; but no new fact of importance appeared. Some carelessness was certainly proved against the Provost, who had slighted previous warnings of the riot: but how unjust to condemn, how unwise to insult, the citizens at large! The Scottish Peers, however, and Members of Parliament, with that high national spirit which has ever so nobly marked the character of the Scottish people, combined almost as one man on this occasion. In the House of Lords, the Duke of Argyle made an eloquent speech, in which, after his usual panegyric on himself, he denounced the measure as contrary both to law and justice. In the Commons, the Lord Advocate (the celebrated Duncan Forbes) was not withheld by the trammels of office or the attachments of party from declaring similar sentiments. He was earnestly supported by Mr. Lindsay, member for Edinburgh, and by Lord XVII. 1737. CHAP. Polwarth, son of the Scotch Earl of Marchmont, a young nobleman beginning to shine in the foremost ranks of Opposition; nor was the more experienced skill of Barnard and of Wyndham wanting. The measure speedily grew, as it deserved, unpopular, and on one occasion, in committee, was carried only by the casting vote of the chairman. Under these circumstances, Walpole, who, we may presume, had never heartily approved of the most obnoxious clauses, wisely consented to recede from them: one by one they were plucked out of the Bill, and it dwindled, at length, into an Act disabling Mr. Wilson from holding any future office, and imposing on the city a fine of 2,000l. for the benefit of Captain Porteous's widow. And thus, it was remarked at the time, all these fierce debates ended only in making the fortune of an old cookmaid - such having been the original calling of the worthy lady. - A clause, however, was added to the Bill, compelling the ministers of the Scottish Church to read a proclamation from the pulpit, once every month for the ensuing twelve, calling on their congregations to exert themselves to bring to justice the murderers of Porteous. This order was greatly resented by many of the clergy, who complained that their pulpits were thus indecorously made the scene of a hue and cry; while others, again, finding the proclamation mention "the Lords Temporal "and Spiritual in Parliament assembled," feared that they might thus seem to acknowledge the legality of Bishops; an order of men whom they CHAP. would seldom mention without insult and invective. XVII. Another remarkable proceeding of this Session, 1737. was a plan to lower the interest of the National Debt by Sir John Barnard. From no one could it have come with greater weight. Were I called upon to name the man who in that century Benjamin Constant, in his remarkable production, “Adolphe," most truly describes :-"je ne sais quelle fougue destructive "de la considération qui ne se compose que du calme." (p. 173.) XVII. 1737. CHAP. "life he generally chose to lead, not only for the "sake of his health, but the content of his mind, "in a moderate habitation in a neighbouring village "to London, from whence he only came as he was "occasionally called to any business of importance "in the City or in Parliament; in the first of "which he was a great magistrate, and in the other "of true weight and influence."* As to the latter, indeed, another remarkable testimony was once borne by the very minister whom he so keenly and steadily opposed. We are told that, as Sir Robert Walpole was one day riding with some friends in a narrow lane, persons were overheard talking on the other side of the hedge. "Whose voice is "that?" asked one of the party. "Do not you "know?" replied Sir Robert. "I never shall forget. I have often felt its power!" It was Sir John Barnard's. "It is one which The project of Sir John Barnard was, briefly, to borrow money at three per cent., and redeem some of the annuities for which a higher rate was yearly paid. But several solid and many specious arguments against it were urged by Walpole. "If we advert," said he, "to the time and manner in "which these debts were created, every argument against the reduction of interest acquires a great "additional force. At that disastrous period (1720), the creditors of the South Sea and East "India Companies had a power to demand the 66 * Speaker Onslow's Remarks. (Coxe's Walpole, vol. ii. p. 565.) 66 "whole amount of their bonds. Their forbear- CHAP. "ance was essentially necessary to the defence and XVII. "well-being of the community; for, had they per- 1787. "sisted in claiming their principal, the whole must "have fallen on the landed interest, or the result "must have been such as I dare not mention, or hardly think of. And is the service then ren"dered to the country to be now repaid by a compulsory reduction of their dividends? I call "it compulsory, for any reduction by terror can only be described by that name."-The country gentlemen were in general eager for Barnard's plan; and it was not without much adroitness and several Parliamentary manoeuvres on the part of the minister, that it was at length rejected by a large majority. 66 66 But the principal hopes of the Opposition in this year rested on Frederick Prince of Wales, whose secret encouragement had now ripened into open support. His disagreements with his father were by no means of recent date. Even whilst he remained at Hanover, and whilst his father, as Prince of Wales, had gone to England, they were near enough to bicker. His own wishes were strongly fixed on an alliance with the Princess Royal of Prussia, the same who afterwards became Margravine of Bareith, and who, in her Memoirs, has left us a strange, and probably exaggerated, portrait of all her own relations. The marriage was earnestly desired by the Queen of Prussia, and, indeed, by the chief members of both families; but the |