Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second, Volume 1 (of 3)Walpole, Horace
History
Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second, Volume 1 (of 3)
Walpole, Horace
Great Britain -- History -- George II, 1727-1760
the Administration was in tolerating such libels; that the liberty
of the Press could not give liberty to print what a man may not
write; that what a man could not justify to do, he could not
justify to print; that he thought the libels on this Bill ought to
be prosecuted; that the Lords and Commons might trust themselves
with looking into the licence of the Press.
22d.--On the third reading of the Bill, Lord Temple made a very bad
obscure speech; tried to answer Lord Granville; tried to encourage
the Tories to continue the clamour; tried to excuse his invective
on the Bishop of London; but succeeded in none of those points, and
the repeal passed.
In Ireland, the new parties from personalities turned to matters
of government. A Bill had been prepared to enable them to dispose
of an overplus of the Revenue for the benefit of the kingdom;
and it was specified in the preamble that it was with the King’s
consent. The Opposition refused to admit this preamble: the Castle
were afraid to proceed to a division, and suppressed the preamble,
but sent over the Bill, depending on the English Ministry not
suffering such a diminution of the prerogative. The next day, on a
trifling question about some words relating to Neville Jones, the
Castle stood a division, and had a majority, though but of three
votes. As the parties were so equally balanced, the animosities did
not flag, but proceeded to great extremities, both in the English
manner of abuse, and in the Irish of duels.
27th.--Lord Temple, after having mysteriously summoned the Lords
to an affair, as he told them, of great importance, moved to
have the Judges asked, if Jews could purchase land, and whether
it would legally descend to their children. The Chancellor, Lord
Cholmondeley, Lord Granville, and the Duke of Argyle opposing the
Motion, and nobody supporting it, Lord Temple gave it up.
The same day the repeal was agitated in the other House; Northey
proposed to have the words in the preamble, _have taken occasion to
raise clamour_, altered to _have raised clamour_. He was seconded
by Prowse, Lord Egmont, and Admiral Vernon. On the other side
Nugent, Sir W. Yonge, Sir Richard Lloyd, Mr. Pelham, old Horace
Walpole, and Mr. Pitt, who was just come abroad again after a year
of sullen illness, defended the words and the repeal, and it passed
by a majority of 150 to 60.
28th.--Letters came from Ireland with an account of the first
Parliamentary victory obtained there by the Opposition over
the Court. Neville Jones had been voted guilty of abuse in his
office[237] by 124 to 116. The strangers in the gallery of the
House huzzaed; the city was crowded by the triumphant mob. Lord
Kildare, the popular hero, was an hour passing to his own house at
eleven at night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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