Arthur Onslow, the late Speaker, who died on the very day of this Committee, had ordered the House to be acquainted that he died in peace on hearing of that bill. But though the good old man’s detestation of corruption did him honour, the House reasoned too soundly to attempt a vain cure by increasing a blacker crime--perjury. When the bill was again read in the Committee on the 19th, it was so ill received, that Beckford, the author, left the House in the middle of the debate. Dowdeswell and all his party resisted the bill; but Grenville, to flatter the country-gentlemen, who can ill afford to combat with great lords, nabobs, commissaries, and West-Indians, declaimed in favour of the bill; but the courtiers moving for the Chairman to leave the Chair, Dowdeswell said, he could approve that proposal no more than the bill, as there had been instructions given to the committee on his clause for disqualifying officers of the revenue. On this he was reduced to vote with Grenville; but they were beaten by 96 to 69, and the bill was thrown out. Bradshaw, the Duke of Grafton’s favourite secretary of the Treasury, having been concerned in the business at Aldborough complained of by Fonnereau, the Opposition hoped to reach the Duke himself, and ordered the parson to their bar. He demanded counsel. Grenville vociferously ranted against allowing counsel on so enormous a crime as bribery, but was put to shame for his tyranny by Sir Gilbert Elliot, who showed that even on treason and murder, counsel was allowed to prisoners. Dunning, the new Solicitor-General, but not yet in Parliament, appeared as counsel for Bennet, who was a jovial, sporting young parson, neither very moral, nor very modest. Dunning exerted himself with great lustre. Fonnereau, to save 40_l._ (for he was a very miser) had refused counsel, and behaved so obstinately and absurdly, that though Grenville, Wedderburn, and Dowdeswell supported, and gave him hints, with all their parliamentary craft, he counteracted his own witnesses; and it came out that he had not only been more criminal himself than the clergyman, but for a series of years had established and profited of Ministerial influence in the borough in question. Conway was converted by the rancour of the charge, and with Hussey, as they were the two most candid men in the House, threw such disgrace on Fonnereau, that the parson was acquitted by 155 to 39; the most remarkable event of the debate being a warm dispute between the late friends Rigby and Grenville, in which the former attacked and treated the latter without management. Though this was the last debate in that Parliament, another had intervened of more weight, but I chose not to intermingle the subjects.