THREE:As this excitement closed the old year, so it opened the new one. No sooner did Parliament meet, after the Christmas recess, than, on the 17th of January, 1764, the order for Wilkes's attendance at the bar was read. It was then found that he had thought it best to retire into France. Still he did not hesitate to send over a medical certificate, signed by one of the king's physicians and an army surgeon, affirming that his wound was in such a condition that it was not safe for him to leave Paris. The House of Commons paid no attention to the certificate, but proceeded to examine evidence, and the famous No. 45 of the North Briton; and after a violent debate, continuing till three o'clock in the morning, passed a resolution that the paper in question contained the grossest insults to his Majesty, to both Houses of Parliament, and tended to traitorous insurrection against the Government. Accordingly, the next day, he was formally expelled the House, and a new writ was issued for Aylesbury.
FORE:The great question of the Prince of Wales's debts was brought on by Alderman Newnham, who had been selected by the prince's set for that purpose, to give it more an air of independence. Newnham, on the 20th of April, asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his Majesty's Ministers proposed to make any arrangement for this purpose. He praised the prince for his generous conduct in breaking up his establishment to facilitate the payment of his debts; but declared it disgraceful to the nation that he should remain in that condition. Not[338] receiving any satisfactory answer, the alderman gave notice of a motion on the subject for the 4th of May. Pitt then endeavoured to deter the alderman from bringing in the motion, by saying that it was not his duty to do so except by command of the king. Newnham, however, persisted in his motion, and in the course of the debate Mr. Rolle, the member for Devonshire, pointedly alluded to the rumours that were afloat as to the marriage of the prince with Mrs. Fitzherbert, a Roman Catholic lady. As a matter of fact, these rumours were true: the prince had been secretly united to her by a Protestant clergyman on December 21st, 1785, in the presence of several witnesses. The marriage placed the prince in this dilemma: by the Act of Settlement, marriage with a Roman Catholic invalidated all claims to the throne; but by the Royal Marriage Act, any marriage contracted without the royal consent was null. He could therefore annul the action of the first Act by pleading the second, but by so doing he would obviously take away the character of his wife. The prince saw a better way out of the difficultynamely, a denial that the marriage had taken place at all. Fox, completely duped by the mendacious assurances of his royal friend, was induced to get up and contradict the rumour, "by direct authority." The revulsion of feeling in the House was immediate. On the 23rd of May Pitt laid before the members a schedule of the prince's debts, amounting to one hundred and ninety-four thousand pounds. Of this sum a hundred and sixty-one thousand were voted, together with twenty thousand for the completion of Carlton House, and the king was induced to add ten thousand a year from the Civil List to the prince's income. He was thus placed for the time being in affluence, and only had to reckon with Mrs. Fitzherbert. This he did by disavowing Fox, whom he declared to have spoken without authority. But the lady appears to have urged some public explanation. The prince naturally avoided Fox, but sent for Grey, who, however, declined to have anything to do with the dirty business. "Then," said the prince, "Sheridan must say something." Accordingly, a few days later, Sheridan got up and paid a few vapid compliments to Mrs. Fitzherbert, which assuaged her wrath, without exposing the royal liar.It was not long before the Third Estate was discovered to be in hopeless antagonism with the Court and privileged Orders, and they resolved to act separately. They must act for themselves and for the people at large, or, by further delays, lose all the advantages of the moment. They resolved to assume the character of the representatives of the entire nation. Siys declared that the Commons had waited on the other Orders long enough. They had given in to all the conciliations proposed; their condescensions had been unavailing; they could delay no longer, without abandoning their duty to the country. A great debate arose regarding the name that the body of deputies which resolved to become the real legislative power should choose. Mirabeau proposed, the "Representatives of the People;" Mounier, "The Deliberative Majority in the absence of the Minority;" and Legrand, "The National Assembly." The proposal of Mounier was soon disposed of; but there was a strong inclination in favour of "The National Assembly," and Mirabeau vehemently opposed it. The name of "National Assembly" had, it is said, been recommended to Lafayette by Jefferson, the American Minister, and as Lafayette had not yet ventured to move before his Order, and join the Tiers tat, Legrand, an obscure member, and lately a provincial advocate, was employed to propose it. But Siys had, in his famous brochure on the "Rights of Man," long before thrown out these words:"The Tiers tat alone, it will be said, cannot form a States General. So much the better; it will constitute a National Assembly!" On the 15th of June, Siys proposed that the title should be "The National Assembly of Representatives, known and verified by the French Nation." Mirabeau indignantly repelled the title in any shape. He declared that such a title, by denying the rights and existence of the other two Orders, would plunge the nation into civil war. Legrand proposed to modify the name by making it "The General Assembly." Siys then came back to his original title of simply "The National Assembly," as devoid of all ambiguity, and Mirabeau still more violently opposed it. But it was soon seen that this name carried the opinion of the mob with it; the deputies cried out loudly for it; the galleries joined as loudly in the cries. Mirabeau in a fierce rage read his speech, said to have been written by his friend Dumont, before the president Bailly, and withdrew, using violent language against the people who had hooted him down, declaring that they would soon be compelled to seek his aid. He had protested in his speech that the veto, which some of the deputies wished to refuse to the king, must be given to him; that without the royal veto he would rather live in Constantinople than in France; that he could conceive nothing more dreadful than the sovereignty of six hundred persons; that they would very soon declare themselves hereditary, and would[360] finish, like all other aristocracies that the world had ever seen, by usurping everything. These words, only too prophetic, had brought down upon him a tempest of execration; and writhing under it he had hastened to the Court and had an interview with Necker, warning him of the danger of the crisis, and offering to use his influence in favour of the king's authority. Necker received him coldly, and thus Mirabeau was thrown back on the people. Siys's motion was carried by a majority of four hundred and ninety-one against ninety; and the National Assembly was proclaimed amid loud acclamations, mingled with cries of "Vive le Roi!"
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TWO:The General Congress met at Philadelphia on the 4th of September, when all the delegates, except those of North Carolina, who did not arrive till the 14th, were found to represent twelve States, namely, the four New England States, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and the two Carolinas. It was settled, however, that, whatever the number of delegates, each colony should have one vote. The next day they assembled in Carpenters' Hall for business, and elected Peyton Randolph, late Speaker of the Virginian House of Burgesses, president. It was soon found that so much diversity of opinion prevailed, it was deemed prudent, in order to preserve the air of unanimity, to deliberate with closed doors. It was clear that Massachusetts and Virginia were ready for war; but it became equally clear that other States yet[213] clung with all the attachment of blood and old connection to the fatherland. Strong and long-continued, according to Mr. Joseph Galloway, one of their own members, were the debates; and though they finally, and, from their system of secrecy, with an air of unanimity, drew up strong resolutions, they were more moderately expressed than the instructions of many of the delegates. They agreed to a Declaration of Rights, in which they asserted that they had neither lost the rights of nature, nor the privileges of Englishmen, by emigration; consequently, that the late Acts of Parliament had been gross violations of those rights, especially as affecting Massachusetts. They therefore passed resolutions to suspend all imports, or use of imported goods, until harmony was restored between Great Britain and her colonies. An association was formed to carry these resolutions out, to which every member subscribed. Having adjourned till the 10th of May of the next year, the Congress dissolved itself on the 26th of October, and the delegates then hastened home to keep alive the flame of their revived zeal in every quarter of the continent.
TWO:"Is that the very handsome Mrs. Landor who was at Grant a year or so ago?" The general seemed to have difficulty in grasping and believing it.
