Four years later (that is, in 1771), the pensioning of Jacobite Johnson was brought before the notice of the House of Commons. In parliament, his Jacobitism was made use of as a weapon against himself. Townshend’s charge against the Ministry was based on the alleged fact that Johnson was a pensioner, and was expected to earn his pension. ‘I consider him,’ said Townshend, ‘a man of some talent, but no temper. The principle he upholds I shall ever detest. This man, a Jacobite by principle, has been encouraged, fostered, pensioned, because he _is_ a Jacobite.’ Wedderburn denied it, and aptly asked, ‘If a papist, or a theoretical admirer of a republican form of government, should be a great mathematician or a great poet, doing honour to his country and his age, and should fall into destitution, is he to be excluded from the royal bounty?’ The answer is patent; but it is not a matter for gratulation that Johnson wrote, as Lord Campbell remarks, ‘out of gratitude, “The False Alarm,” and “Taxation no Tyranny,” the proof sheets of which were revised at the Treasury.’ Johnson himself did not prove that his withers were unwrung by the vaunting remark to Davies: ‘I wish my pension, Sir, were twice as large, that they might make twice as much noise.’ [Sidenote: _A 30TH OF JANUARY SERMON._] In 1772, Jacobitism was again under parliamentary notice. At this time, although the Nonjurors kept true in their allegiance to the hereditary right of the Stuarts, the Tories were as opposite as could be to those of the old turbulent era of ‘High Church and Ormond!’ On the 30th of January, Dr. Nowell (Principal of St. Mary, Oxford) preached before the House of Commons a sermon that Sacheverel might have preached. That is to say, he vindicated Charles I.; he also drew a parallel between him and George III., and indulged in very high Tory sentiments. As usual, the preacher was thanked, and he was requested to print his discourse, which was done accordingly. At this juncture the younger Townshend moved in the House to have the sermon burnt by the common hangman; but, says Walpole (in his ‘Last Journals’), ‘as the Houses had, according to custom, thanked the parson for his sermon, without hearing or reading it, they could not censure it now without exposing themselves to great ridicule.’ They did censure it, nevertheless. ◆[Sidenote: _DEBATE ON THE SERMON._]◆ Captain Walsingham Boyle, R.N., proposed, and Major-General Irwin seconded, the motion that the vote of thanks should be expunged. This was opposed by Sir William Dolben and Sir Roger Newdegate, who had proposed the vote of thanks. ‘Sir Roger,’ says Walpole, as above, ‘was stupidly hot, and spoke with all the flame of stupid bigotry, declaring that he would maintain all the doctrines in the sermon were constitutional.’ T. Townshend, jun., showed how repugnant they were to the constitution, and it was carried by 152 to 41, to expunge the thanks. General Keppel,