On the 24th, the Lords communicated their resolutions to the other House, who concurred in the same judgment. On February the 21st, Sir John Philipps, as he had before acquainted the House he would, moved for leave to bring in a bill to ascertain the power of Secretaries of State in granting warrants--a line almost impossible to draw. Treason was to be kept in awe on one side; the Ministers themselves on the other. Nor could this boon to liberty but be suspicious when offered by a hand so rankly Jacobite! The Ministers had made their use of the idea, and desired no such bill: and the Opposition were not forward to let them draw such a bill. It was therefore dropped with scorn by both sides of the House; and yet the Court afterwards affected to talk of this bill as a tender made to liberty, and rejected by its advocates. The same day was Wilkes found guilty in the King’s Bench, of being author of the North Briton, and of the Essay on Woman. The City of London, to honour the steadiness and services of Mr. Pratt, the other Chief Justice, presented him with the freedom of the City, and thanked their own Representatives for their behaviour on the question of the warrants. On the 6th of March, it was agreed to amend the Marriage bill by another bill, as Mr. Yorke had proposed: and the same day died his father, and the father of the Bill, Philip Earl of Hardwicke; a man who, during his power, had coloured over very confined parts, and very few virtues, with a gravity that was construed into both, as it served the purpose of himself or his dependents. Pride, revenge, and avarice were his true features; and whatever pictures shall be drawn of him where those lines do not predominate, will be unlike, false, and flattering. To conceal all knowledge of his vast wealth, his sons did not prove his will till the memory of him was faded away.[445] CHAPTER XXVII. The Earl of Egmont.--The Budget.--Taxation of the American Colonies.--New Bridge at Blackfriars.--Appearance of the “Lettres, Mémoires, et Négotiations du Chevalier d’Eon,” &c.-- Lord Clive appointed Governor General of India.--Contest at Cambridge.--Philip Earl of Hardwicke.--Jeremiah Dyson.