man expected anything from them but complaisance for the Court--and they deceived no man! The Hierarchy behaved so nobly in the reign of James the Second, and has behaved so poorly ever since, that they seem to know no medium between a mitre and a crown of martyrdom. If the clergy are not called to the latter, they never deviate from the pursuit of the former. One would think their motto was, _Canterbury or Smithfield_. The heir of the house of Russel was silent, and at last acquiesced in rejection of the Bill. His compeer, the Duke of Devonshire, who did not love Murray, and who had set out with approving the Bill, became even an emissary to procure votes against it. He wrote to Lord Hertford, to press him to come to town and oppose it; and begged him, if he had any scruples, to come to him for the clearing of them. A Cavendish soliciting against the Habeas Corpus was a phenomenon; _that_ Cavendish supposing himself qualified for a casuist was the height of burlesque. For the other Whig Duke, Newcastle, he was the most pardonable of all. There had not been an hour of his life that laid him under the least obligation of acting consistently. The House of Commons maintained their character. If this survey appears severe, let the motives be considered and weighed. The Bill rejected was of the most national concern; if rejected conscientiously, the grounds were those of convenience preferred to those of immutable right--and with what arms do tyrants _begin_ to combat liberty but with those of necessity and convenience? But in the present case I cannot allow conscience to the House of Lords. The House of Commons,[21] almost to a man, approved the Bill. Five hundred men are probably as conscientious as two hundred. But it was evidently an affair of faction; and was rejected in compliment to Lord Mansfield, to mark whom it had been designed, and to gratify the private pique and public authority of the family of Yorke, the head of which always considered what was the law, never on what grounds a law had been made.