did not accord with his sentiments of dignity BOOK or propriety, he should wholly decline voting ~ upon the present question.

XV.

1770.

act passed.

Nearly at this period the same ex-minister introduced into the house of commons his famous bill for regulating the proceedings of the house on controverted elections, commonly known under the appellation of the GRENVILLE Grenville ACT. This was laudably designed by the mover, and as laudably patronized by the house, as a supposed radical remedy for a great and acknowledged evil; the negligence and partiality of the house in their elective decisions, being notoriously palpable and disgraceful. But, agreeably to the general character of the framer, this act displays much more of integrity than of penetration or ability. Conformably to the provisions of it, a jury of thirteen persons are elected by ballot, in a house consisting of not less than one hundred members, to whom the petition is referred; and till such jury is chosen, the house is restrained from proceeding on any business. But the remedy has in fact proved more intolerable than the evil. The rights of election, and the qualifications of the electors, are in different places so varied, intricate, and complex, and so uncertain is the legal issue of the generality of election contests, that no sooner was the chance of a fair and impartial hearing obtained,

1770.

BOOK than the multitude of petitions presented to the house, impeded in a most perplexing degree the course of public business. The trials themselves were frequently protracted to a length so insufferably tedious, that it was justly considered as a very heavy penalty to be chosen upon an election committee, and it was usually found very difficult to make a house on the day appointed for the ballot; and session after session has elapsed before a considerable proportion of the petitions could even come to a hearing; and, by a mockery of justice, after an extravagant expence has been incurred in fees to counsel, indemnifications to witnesses, and gratuities to agents, a man is perhaps declared duly elected to a seat in parliament when parliament itself may be approaching to its dissolution. A remedy of a totally different nature therefore is evidently wanting, as a preparatory step to which, the qualifications of the different descriptions of electors throughout the kingdom ought to be simplified and clearly defined; and were the house, upon the election of a new parliament, previous to its entering upon business, to divide itself into different committees to determine upon the merits of the petitions presented, the whole process of investigation might doubtless be completed within the compass of a very few weeks.

The king's friends, Mr. Rigby, sir Gilbert

XV.

Elliot, Mr. Jenkinson, Mr. Welbore Ellis, Mr. воок Dyson, &c. &c. took a very warm and de cided part in opposition to this bill; as to every 1770. other measure of public virtue, or general improvement, which has originated in either house of parliament during the long and gloomy course of the present reign. The bill in question was originally limited to a short term of years; but in the session of 1774 it was, in spite of the utmost efforts of the court phalanx, made perpetual. The concluding part of the speech of governor Johnston on this occasion, if the anticipation may be pardoned, is well worthy of being historically recorded : "It is clear," said he, "that this bill diminishes the power of the minister in all controverted elections. Unless, therefore, we can suppose he shall prefer the public good to his own interest, which I will never suppose of any minister, he will endeavour to get rid of the bill by every insidious art. And with all due deference to the memory of Mr. Grenville, I believe if he had been minister that he would not have proposed it: nay, I believe that he would not have permitted it to pass. A happy coincidence of circumstances forced it upon the house. A strange coalition of parties now favors its final confirmation be.. fore men dare forget their former declarations,

BOOK and before the golden bridge is completely formxv. ed to pass them through the ivory gate."

Inflexibi

1770. Although the parliament of Ireland, in the lity of the course of the present year, had gratified the liament on wishes of the court, by consenting to raise the of money establishment of troops in that country from

Irish par

the subject

bills.

twelve to fifteen thousand men, an incident occurred in the course of the session, which served to display, in a striking point of view, their rising spirit of independency. By the famous law passed in the reign of Henry VII. under the administration of sir Edward Poyning, and thence called Poyning's law, it was enacted, "that the lord lieutenant and council should, under the great seal of Ireland, certify to the king, and English privy council, the laws proposed to be passed in each succeeding parliament, in order to have the sanction of the great seal of England, previous to their being submitted to the Irish parliament for its assent or dissent." The rigor of this law, which had been ever regarded as the chief bond of the constitutional dependence of that kingdom, was in modern times mitigated, by the practice of introducing heads of a bill into the Irish parliament, in order, when the approval of that assembly was obtained, to be transmitted to England under the usual forms.

At this period a money bill, originating in the

XV.

usual and established mode, being returned from BOOK England, under the seal of Great Britain, was rejected by the Irish house of commons, under 1770. the plea that it did not originate in that house. In justification of this proceeding they maintained, that Poyning's law, and the other subsequent statutes by which that law was modified and enforced, made no specific mention of money bills, which might therefore by just inference be supposed excepted; that, if the origination of money bills were not in reality the sole right of the commons, this must at least be admitted to be the better and more constitutional mode; and that, in rejecting this bill, they exercised an indubitable right, even supposing the right of the council to originate the bill to be equally indisputable. The lord lieutenant, lord Townshend, though he thought proper to allow the Irish parliament to grant their own money in their own way, protested against the right claimed by the house of commons, and endeavoured, but in vain, to enter his protest upon their journals. The house would not permit this violation of their privileges; but the lords were found less inflexible, and, after much opposition and debate, his excellency's protest was solemnly recorded on the journals of the peerage. The parliament was immediately prorogued in anger, and with much inconvenience to the public;