In the first Parliament of WILLIAM and MARY Robert HARLEY sat for Tregony. To the second he was returned by the burgesses of New Radnor. The first reported words of his which appear in the debates were spoken in the course of a discussion upon the heads of a ‘Bill of Indemnity.’ ‘I think,’ said he on this occasion, ‘that the King in his message has led us. He shews us how to proceed for satisfaction of justice. There is a crime [of which] God says, He will not pardon it. [Sidenote: Grey’s _Debates_, vol. ix, p. 247.] ’Tis the shedding of innocent blood. A gentleman said that the West was “a shambles.” What made that shambles? It began in law. It was a common discourse among the Ministers that “the King cannot have justice.”’ The debate on the Bill of Indemnity of 1690 may be looked upon as, in some sort, the foreshadowing of a long spell of political conflict, in which Robert HARLEY was to take a conspicuous share. Twenty seven years afterwards the strife of parties was to enter on a new stage. Some of the men who acted as the political Mentors of the new member of 1689–90 were to live long enough to clamour for his execution as a traitor, and, on their failure to produce any adequate proof that he was guilty, were to console themselves by insisting on his exclusion from the ‘Act of Grace’ of 1717. HARLEY won his earliest distinctions in political life by assiduous, patient, and even drudging labour on questions of finance. [Sidenote: MS. Harl. 7524, f. 139, seqq.] During six years, at least, he worked zealously as one of the ‘Commissioners for stating the Public Accounts of the Kingdom.’ In parliamentary debates on the public establishments and expenditure he took a considerable share. As a speaker he had no brilliancy. His usual tone and manner, we are told, were somewhat listless and drawling. But occasionally he would speak with a certain pith and incisiveness. [Sidenote: Grey’s _Debates_, vol. x, p. 268.] Thus, in November, 1692, in a discussion on naval affairs, he said—‘We have had a glorious victory at sea. But although we have had the honour, the enemy has had the profit. They take our merchant ships.’ Again, in the following year, when supporting the Bill for more frequent Parliaments, he spoke thus:—‘A standing Parliament can never be a true representative. Men are much altered after they have been here some time. They are no longer the same men that were sent up to us.’