The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 5Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 5
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Great Britain -- History -- James II, 1685-1688; Great Britain -- History -- William and Mary, 1689-1702
the Privy Council should be laid on the table. As it was thought not
improbable that the crisis might end in an appeal to the constituent
bodies, nothing was omitted which could excite out of doors a feeling
in favour of the bill. The Speaker was directed to print and publish the
report signed by the four Commissioners, not accompanied, as in common
justice it ought to have been, by the protest of the three dissentients,
but accompanied by several extracts from the journals which were thought
likely to produce an impression favourable to the House and unfavourable
to the Court. All these resolutions passed without any division,
and without, as far as appears, any debate. There was, indeed, much
speaking, but all on one side. Seymour, Harley, Howe, Harcourt, Shower,
Musgrave, declaimed, one after another, about the obstinacy of the other
House, the alarming state of the country, the dangers which threatened
the public peace and the public credit. If, it was said, none but
Englishmen sate in the Parliament and in the Council, we might hope that
they would relent at the thought of the calamities which impend over
England. But we have to deal with men who are not Englishmen, with men
who consider this country as their own only for evil, as their property,
not as their home; who, when they have gorged themselves with our
wealth, will, without one uneasy feeling, leave us sunk in bankruptcy,
distracted by faction, exposed without defence to invasion. "A new war,"
said one of these orators, "a new war, as long, as bloody, and as
costly as the last, would do less mischief than has been done by the
introduction of that batch of Dutchmen among the barons of the realm."
Another was so absurd as to call on the House to declare that whoever
should advise a dissolution would be guilty of high treason. A third
gave utterance to a sentiment which it is difficult to understand how
any assembly of civilised and Christian men, even in a moment of strong
excitement, should have heard without horror. "They object to tacking;
do they? Let them take care that they do not provoke us to tack in
earnest. How would they like to have bills of supply with bills of
attainder tacked to them?" This atrocious threat, worthy of the tribune
of the French Convention in the worst days of the Jacobin tyranny,
seems to have passed unreprehended. It was meant--such at least was the
impression at the Dutch embassy--to intimidate Somers. He was
confined by illness. He had been unable to take any public part in the
proceedings of the Lords; and he had privately blamed them for engaging
in a conflict in which he justly thought that they could not be
victorious. Nevertheless, the Tory leaders hoped that they might be
able to direct against him the whole force of the storm which they had
raised. Seymour, in particular, encouraged by the wild and almost savage
temper of his hearers, harangued with rancorous violence against the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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