1719.

TRUE OBJECT OF THE PEERAGE.

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the House of Lords neither could nor should exist. The limitations proposed by Stanhope and Sunderland would, indeed, have increased the power and importance of the Lords for a season; but would, most surely, by impairing their utility, have undermined their foundation and produced their downfall. The Peers, shut up in inaccessible dignity, would have learnt to look down on him whom even the highest services could not raise to an equality with themselves, unless by the previous extinction of one of their own number. The aspiring soldier or statesman would have lost one great motive for exertion. Even a Nelson could no longer have expected the same honours which had formerly rewarded an Anson or a Hawke. In many minds a sense of emulation would be altogether deadened. Many others (for such will always be the case with men of genius), finding that they could not rise to dignity by the institutions of the State, would attempt to rise over those institutions, and become noisy agitators instead of useful citizens. What has been the cause of the continued usefulness and authority of the British Peerage?—what has kept it firm and unshaken while so many neighbouring aristocracies have tottered to decay, or fallen before political convulsions? It is because their families are constantly coming from the people and returning to the people they have been an institution, not a caste not a separate and jealous oligarchy, like that of Venice, asserting for themselves and for all their descendants an inborn superiority over their brother men. With us, how many sons of ploughmen or of weavers, ennobled for their services, sit side by side with the loftiest of the Somersets and Howards! With us the younger children of the Peer return to the rank of Commoners, and his grandchildren merge again. completely in the great body of the people. Such is the true principle of usefulness and vitality in the British Peerage; and he who would limit its number, is as much its enemy and the country's, as he who endeavours to sap its hereditary honours.

It is true that the King's power of increasing the Peerage might be stretched to an unlimited extent, and for a factious purpose, so as utterly to overthrow the Constitution. But many other branches of the Royal prerogative

are, in like manner, liable to abuse and encroachment. Yet, we look upon the responsibility of Ministers as in almost every case a sufficient barrier; and in the opinion of one of our greatest Judges, "such public oppressions as tend to dissolve the Constitution are 66 cases which the law will not, out of decency, suppose, "being incapable of distrusting those whom it has invested "with any part of the supreme power, since such distrust "would render the exercise of that power precarious and "impracticable."* I may add, that while the advantages of the King's prerogative to create Peers are constant and unceasing, the danger of its abuse is extremely rare. During the peaceful reigns of the four Georges such an idea was never at any moment entertained by any statesman. It was reserved for the tumultuous times which preceded and which followed them. And on the whole, I would no more forego the benefits of the Royal prerogative from the possibility of its misuse than I would prohibit navigation to prevent the danger of shipwrecks!

For these reasons I believe that the Peerage Bill of 1719 was a narrow-minded, violent, and baneful measure, founded on mistaken principles, and tending to dangerous results. If it be asked on whom the blame of having planned it should mainly rest, it will be found stated by most of the later writers, such as Coxe†, that the measure was projected by Lord Sunderland. That statesman certainly pressed the Bill with great warmth, and had a stronger interest in it, since the animosity of the Prince of Wales was especially and personally levelled at himself amongst the Ministers. But on the other hand, I am bound not to omit that, in the debates of the House of Commons at the time, Lord Stanhope was attacked as the projector of the measure; and that amidst the unpopularity of the Bill, the charge was never denied by himself or by his friends.

If we next inquire to whom the praise of defeating this measure is most due, there can I think be no doubt that it belongs almost solely and exclusively to Walpole. We learn from Speaker Onslow, that when the Whigs in * Blackstone's Comment., book i.ch. vii. See also book iv. ch. ii. sect. 7.

† Memoirs of Walpole, vol. i. p. 116.

1719.

OPPOSITION OF WALPOLE.

363

opposition held a meeting at Devonshire House during the recess to consider the course they should pursue upon this subject, the whole body appeared either favourable to the Bill or despairing of any successful opposition to it. Very many considered it as a sound Whig measure to restrain a prerogative against which they themselves had repeatedly inveighed, and protested that they could not with any show of decency oppose it. Lord Townshend himself had already in the House of Lords approved its principle, and several other Peers were not averse to the increased importance which it would confer upon themselves. On the whole, it was the general opinion of the meeting that the Bill should be permitted to pass without opposition. Walpole alone stood firm. He declared that this was the only point on which they could harass the Government with effect, and that he saw a spirit rising against it amongst the usual supporters of the administration, and especially the independent country gentlemen. One of these, he said, a member of the House of Commons, he had overheard declaring to another with many oaths, that though his estate was no more than 8001. a year, and though he had no pretension to the Peerage for himself, yet he would never consent to the injustice of a perpetual exclusion to his family. "Such a sentiment," added Walpole with his usual sagacity and foresight, "cannot fail to make its way. It will "have a strong effect upon the whole body of country gentlemen; and for my part I am determined that if "deserted by my party on this question, I will singly "stand forth and oppose it." Walpole's declaration produced much altercation and resentment, and many attempts were made to shake his purpose; but finding him firm, his friends gradually came round to his opinion, and at length agreed to act with him as a body—to take no division on the Ministerial project in the Lords - but to resist it in the Commons.

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At the opening of the Session on the 23d of November, the Peerage Bill was announced by the following expressions of the King's Speech:- "As I can truly affirm "that no Prince was ever more zealous to increase his own authority than I am to perpetuate the liberty of "my people, I hope you will think of all proper methods

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"to establish and transmit to your posterity the freedom "of our happy Constitution, and particularly to secure "that part which is most liable to abuse. I value my"self upon being the first who has given you an opportunity of doing it; and I must recommend to you to complete those measures which remained imperfect the "last Session." Two days afterwards the Bill was brought forward in the Lords by the Duke of Buckingham, to whom it had been intrusted by the Government, probably because the Duke being a vehement Tory, his support might be expected to gain some votes from that party in the House of Commons. The measure was the same as that proposed last Session; but in order to conciliate the Commons, the Ministers engaged to their friends that in case of the Bill passing the Lords would consent to part with their privilege of SCANDALUM MAGNATUM, and permit the Commons to administer an oath, and that the King would give up the prerogative of pardoning after an impeachment- mere trifles," observes Mr. Hallam," in comparison with the innovation pro"jected."*

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According to previous arrangement, the Peerage Bill appears to have encountered no opposition in the Lords (except a speech from Earl Cowper), and it passed through all its stages in a very few days. But far different was its reception in the Commons. On the 8th of December, it having been read a second time, the debate was taken on the question, "That this Bill be committed." The fate of the British Constitution seemed to hang suspended in the balance. On the Ministerial side, the chief speeches were those of Craggs, Lechmere, and Aislabie; and though scarcely any particulars are preserved of them, we find them called by high authority "very able performances."† Amongst the adversaries of the Bill, the ingenuity and talent of Steele were as powerfully shown, and more fully reported. But by far the most splendid speech on that occasion was that of Walpole; and it may, in fact, be doubted if any harangue of so much eloquence and effect Constit. Hist. vol. iii. p. 322. For the inducement held out by Ministers, see Lord Midleton's Minutes, Coxe's Walpole, vol. ii. p. 172.

*

† Speaker Onslow's Remarks.

1719.

66

THE PEERAGE BILL REJECTED.

365

had ever yet been delivered in the House of Commons; whether we judge of it by the impression which we are told it produced, or by that which the records of it make upon ourselves.* He began with great spirit: “That "the usual path to the temple of honour had been through "the temple of virtue; but, by this Bill, it was now to "be only through the sepulchre of a dead ancestor." He inveighed against Stanhope, "who," he said, "having got into the House of Peers, is now desirous to shut "the door after him;" he touched with infinite caution and address on the unhappy breach in the Royal family; he drew a striking picture of the evils and injustice of the Scottish clauses of the Bill. In his skilful hands an argument was derived even from his own party tactics, that no division should be taken in the other House; "for surely," he urged, "the great unanimity with which "this Bill has passed the Lords ought to inspire some jealousy in the Commons." On the dangers to the Constitution and to freedom he enlarged with all the eloquence of truth: "That this Bill will secure the liberty of Parliament I totally deny; it will only secure a great preponderance to the Peers, and form them into a com"pact impenetrable phalanx."-" In this strain," says Speaker Onslow, "he bore down every thing before him." The effect was apparent in the triumphant result of the division, when the Ministers had only 177 votes and the Opposition 269. I ought not to omit that very many of those whose personal interest was supposed to be promoted by this Bill did not hesitate to vote against it, and that the majority comprised the heirs of not a few such families as Compton, Devereux, and Willoughby. To signalise their victory, the prevailing party immediately moved "That this Bill be rejected," which they carried without resistance.

It is very remarkable that so signal and thorough a defeat of Ministers does not appear to have loosened their hold of office, nor lost them a general majority in the House of Commons. I cannot discover that their Parliamentary power afterwards was at all less sure and

* Walpole's reported speech was in great measure compiled from his own memoranda (Coxe's Walpole, vol. i. p. 125.). The same, I suspect, was also the case with Steele's.