concurred, without much debate, in the rest of the Commons' vote; till they came to the clause that he had abdicated the government, for which they substituted the word "deserted." They next omitted the final and most important clause, that the throne was thereby vacant, by a majority of fifty-five to forty-one. This was owing to the party of Lord Danby, who asserted a devolution of the Crown on the Princess of Orange. It seemed to be tacitly understood by both sides that the infant child was to be presumed spurious. This at least was a necessary supposition for the tories, who sought in the idle rumours of the time an excuse for abandoning his right. As to the whigs, though they were active in discrediting this unfortunate boy's legitimacy, their own broad principles of changing the line of succession rendered it, in point of argument, a superfluous enquiry. The tories, who had made little resistance to the vote of abdication, when it was proposed in the Commons, recovered courage by this difference between the two houses; and perhaps by observing the king's party to be stronger out of doors than it had appeared to be, were able to muster 151 voices against 282 in favour of agreeing with the Lords in leaving out the clause about the vacancy of the throne.[146] There was still, however, a far greater preponderance of the whigs in one part of the convention, than of the tories in the other. In the famous conference that ensued between committees of the two houses upon these amendments, it was never pretended that the word "abdication" was used in its ordinary sense, for a voluntary resignation of the Crown. The Commons did not practise so pitiful a subterfuge. Nor could the Lords explicitly maintain, whatever might be the wishes of their managers, that the king was not expelled and excluded as much by their own word "desertion" as by that which the lower house had employed. Their own previous vote against a regency was decisive upon this point.[147] But as abdication was a gentler term than forfeiture, so desertion appeared a still softer method of expressing the same idea. Their chief objection, however, to the former word was that it led, or might seem to lead, to the vacancy of the throne, against which their principal arguments were directed. They contended that in our government there could be no interval or vacancy, the heir's right being complete by a demise of the Crown; so that it would at once render the monarchy elective, if any other person were designated to the succession. The Commons did not deny that the present case was one of election, though they refused to allow that the monarchy was thus rendered perpetually elective. They asked, supposing a right to descend upon the next heir, who was that heir to inherit it; and gained one of their chief advantages by the difficulty of evading this question. It was indeed evident that, if the Lords should carry their amendments, an enquiry into the