quittal, and the defendant Woodfall was discharged amidst the universal and unbounded acclamations of the people *. By an almost total seceffion from business for two years, the health of lord Chatham was in an unexpected degree restored. His mind also was greatly calmed by the reconciliation which had now taken place, with his nearest relative lord Temple, whom he had ever loved and esteemed, and whose friendship he had in a tranfient moment of political elation rashly and wantonly forfeited. This was an event which he had never ceased to lament. The fevere reflections of lord Temple, he said, he could endure, for he knew they proceeded from the warmth and openness of his nature, which was superior to all concealment and hypocrify. This was an opinion founded on long and intimate knowledge. He had on a former occasion styled him " a man whom he was proud to call his friend, and whose fidelity was as unshaken as his virtue." From the period of this re-union to the end of their lives the most cordial harmony subsisted between them; and Mr. Grenville alfo acceding ceding to this reconciliation, the bond of fraternal amity was perfectly restored. With his health, his intellectual faculties, so long clouded and oppressed, refumed their priftine force and vigor; and it is remarkable, that from this time to the termination of his life they shone out with a brightness and luftre in no respect inferior to that which they displayed in the full meridian of his long and gorious

career.

The parliament met on the 9th of January, 1770, and, on the motion for an address to the throne, lord Chatham arose, and declared "that, at his advanced period of life, bowing under the weight of his infirmities, he might perhaps have ftood excused if he had continued in his retirement, and never taken part again in public affairs; but the alarming state of the nation called upon him-forced him to come forward once more, and to execute that duty which he owed to GOD, to his fovereign, and his country. The fituation of foreign affairs was, he said, critical; but what more immediately demanded their lordships' attention was, with grief he spoke it, the divisions and distractions which prevailed in every part of the empire. He lamented those unhappy measures which had alienated the colonies from the mother country, and which had driven them into exceffes he could not justify. Such, however, was his partiality to America, that he was inclined to make allowance even for those excesses. The discontents of three millions of people deserved confideration-the foundation of those difcontents ought to be removed. This was the true way of putting a stop to those combinations which the address styled ' unwarrantable,' and which he readily admitted to be alarming and dangerous. The discontents of the Americans, however, at the present crisis were unimportant, in comparison of those which prevailed in this kingdom. It was an obligation incumbent upon that house to inquire into the causes of the notorious dissatisfaction expressed by the whole English nation, to state those causes to their fovereign, vereign, and to give him their best advice in what manner he ought to act. The privileges of the greatest and of the meanest subjects stood upon the fame foundation; it was therefore their highest interest, as well as their bounden duty, to watch over and protect the rights of the people. The liberty of the subject," said he, " is invaded, my lords, not only in our diftant provinces, but at home. The people are loud in their complaints-they demand redress; and until the injuries they have received are redressed, they will never return to a state of tranquillity; nor ought they; for in my judgment, my lords, and I speak it boldly, better were it for them to perish in a glorious contention for their rights, than to purchase a flavish tranquillity at the expence of a fingle iota of the constitution. Not being able to entertain the smallest doubt that the present universal difcontent of the nation arifes from the proceedings of the house of commons upon the expulfion of Mr. Wilkes, I think that we ought in our address to state that matter to his majesty;" and with this design his lordship concluded his speech by moving the following amendment to the address: "And for these great and essential purposes we will with all convenient speed take into our most serious confideration the causes of the discontents which prevail in fo many parts of your majesty's dominions, and particularly the late proceedings of the house of commons, touching the incapacity of John Wilkes, efq. expelled by that house, to be re-elected a member to serve in this present parliament; thereby refusing, by a resolution of one branch of the legiflature only, to the subject his common right, and depriving the electors of Middlesex of their free choice of a reprefentative."

This amendment was very powerfully opposed by lord Mansfield, who began with affirming, "that he had never delivered any opinion upon the legality of the proceedings of the house of commons on the Middlesex election, nor should he now. He had locked it up in his own breast, and

and it should die with him. He acknowledged the unhappy distracted state of the nation, but he was happy to affirm that he had in no degree contributed to it. Declarations of the law made by either house of parliament were," he allerted, " always attended with bad effects; he had conftantly oppofed them, whenever he had opportunity, and in his judicial capacity thought himself bound never to pay the least regard to them. But he made a wide diftinction between the general declarations of law, and the particular decifions which might be made by either house in their judicial capacity, upon a cafe coming regularly before them, and properly the subject of their jurifdiction-that for his own part, whenever the ftatute law was filent, he knew not where to look for the law of parliament, or for a definition of the privileges of either house, except in the proceedings and decifions of each house respectively that a question touching the feat of a member in the lower house could only be determined by that house; there was no other court where it could be tried, nor to which there could be an appeal from their decifion-that wherever a court of justice is supreme, and their fentence final, the determination of that court must be submitted to as the law of the land. He admitted that judges might be corrupt, and their fentences erroneous; but these were cases for which, in respect of fupreme courts, the conftitution had provided no remedy. If they wilfully determined wrong, it was iniquitous indeed, and in the highest degree deteftable; e; but it was a crime of which no human tribunal could take cognizance. He avoided entering into the merits of the late decision of the house of commons, because it was a subject he was convinced their lordships had no right to discuss; but he affirmed, that the amendment proposed manifeftly violated every form and usage of parliament, and was a gross attack upon the privileges of the house of commonsthat there never was an instance of the lords inquiring into the proceedings of that house with respect to their own members, bers, much less of their taking upon them to cenfure such proceedings, or of their advising the crown to take notice of them. If indeed it be the purpose of the amendment to provoke a quarrel with the house of commons, I confefs, faid his lordship, it will have that effect certainly and immediately. The lower house will undoubtedly affert their privileges, and give you vote for vote. I leave it therefore to your lordships to confider the fatal effects which in fuch a conjuncture as the present may arife from an open breach between the two houses of parliament."

Lord Chatham once more rose to complain that the scope and design of the amendment proposed by him had been totally misreprefented. "The amendment contained a mere statement of facts, and censure was no farther implicated than as the facts themselves were illegal or unjustifiable. He made no fcruple however to declare, that the conftitution of the country had been invaded by the house of commons, and he now heard with astonishment that invafion defended upon principle. What, faid he, my lords, is this mysterious power, undefined by law, unknown to the subject, which we must not approach without awe, not speak of without reverence, which no man may question, and to which all men must submit? When our kings were obliged to confefs that their title to the crown and the rule of their government had no other foundation than the known laws of the land, I never expected to hear a divine right or a divine infallibility attributed to any other branch of the legiflature. Power without right is the most odious and detestable object that can be offered to the human imagination. The noble lord assures us that the house of commons, when they act as judges, have no law to direct them but their own wifdom-that their decifion is law, and, if they determine wrong, the fubject has no appeal but to Heaven. What then, my lords, are all the generous efforts, the glorious contentions of our ancestors reduced to this conclufion, that, instead of the arbitrary power of a king, we must sub