These anticipations were afterwards corroborated by several persons, who told him, that after such a speech, he must give up all thoughts of ever being Chancellor. The public also felt that he had made a sacrifice in their cause. Thanks were voted to him in conjunction with Mr. Whitbread, Lord Folkstone, and some others, from the City of London, Liverpool, Carmarthen, Wiltshire, Bristol, Berwick, &c. &c.; and he was invited by the Livery of London to a public dinner, as a mark of approbation of his conduct. He declined, however, to accept the intended honour, and his answers to the addresses were drawn up with that unaffected modesty, and love of simple truth, which were so peculiarly characteristic of his mind. Instead of dwelling upon his own merit, he drew the picture of what would have been thought of him had he pursued an opposite course. “Seeing the case,” he said in his answer to the Livery, “in the light in which I saw it, to have acted otherwise than I did, I must have been base enough to have deserted my public duty upon a most important occasion, from the mean apprehension that to discharge my duty might be attended with personal disadvantage to myself. If there be much merit in not having been actuated by such unworthy motives, (which I cannot think, but if there be,) that merit I certainly may pretend to, &c.” The course which he took in the year following on the imprisonment of Gale Jones, and the alleged breach of privilege by Sir Francis Burdett, was again at variance with that adopted by either of the two great parties in the house. The Opposition as well as the Ministry, and all the lawyers who took any part in the debate, concurred in thinking the paper written by Sir Francis Burdett a breach of privilege, and deserving of punishment of one kind or another; while Romilly maintained that the house had no jurisdiction to take cognizance of the offence. He did not dispute the right to imprison for a breach of privilege which obstructed their proceedings, but he denied the right and the policy of doing so for the publication of animadversions on matters already concluded. He urged that these latter questions “ought not to be decided on by the house, which thus constituted itself prosecutor, party, and judge, without affording to the accused the opportunity of even hearing the charges preferred against him; but they ought to be left to the ordinary tribunals, the courts of law.” These arguments, disregarded at the time, were amply justified by the events which followed. The folly of the course adopted was proved by serious disturbances, attended with the loss of life; petitions couched in the most disrespectful language were sent up, and inserted on the Journals; and the question of the privileges of the Commons came, in the first instance, before the courts of law, and was finally decided by the House of Lords. Invitations to public dinners were again sent to him, which he again declined; and