Mr. Onflow, who with the highest honor and reputation had occupied for more than thirty years the office of Speaker in five fucceffive Parliaments, now bending under the weight of increasing years and infirmities, declared his determination to retire from public bufinefs. The House, fenfibly affected at the prospect of this feparation, immediately and unanimously voted, "that the thanks of the House fhould be given to Mr. Speaker, for his long and faithful fervices-for the unshaken integrity of his conduct-for his fteady impartiality in the exercife of his office and his unwearied endeavors to promote the real interefts of his King and Country-to maintain the honor and dignity of Parliament, and to preserve inviolable the rights and privileges of the Commons of Great Britain." This venerable patriot rofe to express his gratitude to the House for the distinguished honor thus conferred upon him but he found his fenfations too powerful for utterance, and after a vain effort to speak he was relieved by a gush of tears. At length in broken fentences he declared to the House. his inability to hear, without emotions by which he was entirely overpowered, these last expreffions of their kindness and goodwill. He had received the nobleft reward which could poffibly be bestowed upon the highest merit-the thanks and the approbation of his country. He acknowledged the imperfection of his fervices, but he protested that wherein he had failed, it was involuntarily; and he hoped he had obtained the pardon of those to whom any caufe of offence had been inadvertently given. To give fatisfaction to all had been his conftant aim, his study, and his pride. In retirement and obfcurity, faid he, fhall I now spend the remainder of my days; and in the bosom of that retirement my ardent and conftant prayer will be, that the Conftitution of this country be preferved inviolate, and more particularly that the freedom, the dignity, and authority of this House may be perpetual." The House then unanimously refolved on an addrefs to the King, befeeching his Majefty to confer fome fignal mark of his Royal favor on the Right

Hon.

Hon. Arthur Onflow, Efq. for his great and eminent fervices; and his Majefty in return expreffed in high terms his esteem and approbation of the character and public conduct of the Speaker; and a penfion of 3000l. per annum was granted him for his own life and that of his fon, afterwards ennobled by the title of Lord Onflow.

On the 19th March (1761) the Parliament was prorogued, after a fpeech from the Throne expreffing his Majefty's. entire approval of their conduct, and in a fhort time diffolved. by proclamation, and a new Parliament convened. Upon the very day on which the diffolution took place. Mr. Legge was difmiffed from his office of Chancellor of the Exchequer ; two days after which Lord Holderness, having first secured an ample pecuniary indemnification, together with the reverfion of the Wardenfhip of the Cinque Ports, refigned. the Seals, which were immediately delivered to the Earl of Bute, who appointed the celebrated Charles Jenkinson, now Lord Hawkesbury, his under-fecretary. The circumftances attending the difinifiion of Mr. Legge are fomewhat remarkable. Not now to advert to the refolution taken to discard all the members of the Whig Adminiftration, that Minister had given peculiar offence to the King when Prince or Wales, by his conduct at the last general election. Mr. Legge had, as it appears, in confequence of very earnest folicitation, offered himself a candidate as Knight of the Shire for the County of Southampton. After the canvass was fuccefsfully terminated, and every idea of oppofition had vanished, a message was received by Mr. Legge from the Prince, requesting him, in preffing and fomewhat peremp tory terms, to relinquish his pretenfions in favour of Sir Simeon Stuart, a near relation of the Earl of Bute. Mr. Legge, in reply, represented in very respectful language his earnest defire to gratify the wifhes of his Royal Highness, had timely intimation been given him of his intention; but as things were now circumftanced, he could not in honor to himself, or juftice to his friends, recede from the nomi

nation already made. This was a fpecies of contumacy altogether unpardonable; and the new Monarch took a very early and decifive opportunity to demonftrate to the world how different was his fyftem of thinking from that of Louis XII. who, with a magnanimity truly royal, declared it beneath the dignity of a King of France to revenge the quarrel of a Duke of Orleans. Notwithstanding the advancement of Lord Bute, the entire management of foreign affairs ftill remained with Mr. Pitt, matters not being as yet mature for a total change; and the fall of Mr. Legge, which was the certain prelude to an approaching catastrophe, and which ought to have been the fignal for an immediate and general refignation, seemed to give little alarm, and made no visible alteration in the political system. He was fucceeded by Sir Francis Dafhwood, a zealous Revolution Tory, intimately connected during the laft reign with the Court of Leicester House, and who confidered the Earl of Bute as already occupying the poft of First Lord of the Treafury: and his firm attachment to that Nobleman, doubtlefs, compenfated for his palpable deficiency in the qualifications requifite to the juft difcharge of the duties of his station.

Previous to the refumption of the regular narration of events, it will be neceffary, at leaft ufeful, to advert to the general ftate of parties at this period-for it muft no more be inferred, from the perfect ferenity which had, under a wife and magnanimous Adminiftration, prevailed for feveral years paft throughout the Kingdom, that no political parties or dormant feeds of animofity exifted, than, during the peaceful intervals of the eruptions of Etna or Vefuvius, that no combustible materials threatening future explofion were lodged in the concavities of thefe volcanos. The grand parties which divided the nation at this juncture, nominally indeed co-incided with those which prevailed at the diftant æras of the Revolution and Acceffion. But a real and moft material alteration had taken place. By the impolitic violence of the measures adopted by the Whigs on their reftoration to power, a great proportion of

the

the Tories were driven into Jacobitifm; but after repeated unfuccefsful efforts, the cause of the Pretender was given up as defperate, and his very name had funk into contempt and almost into oblivion. The more refpectable part of the Tories, long fince abandoning the abfurd fpeculative opinions of their anceftors, but retaining at bottom ftrong monarchical prepoffeffions, with high and arbitrary maxims of government, confined their 'oppofition to the new and unconftitutional measures adopted by the Whigs. Since the death of the late Prince of Wales their political importance had much diminished, and they feemed, in gloomy and portentous filence, myfterioufly to reserve themselves for more favourable times. The principles of the Whigs, who conftituted the bulk of the Kingdom, had fuffered little variation, It might nevertheless be obferved, that, as the national attachment to the House of Brunfwic increased, the national diflike of the Whig or Hanoverian fyftem of politics had proportionally diminifhed. A standing army, a national debt, a German war, a feptennial Parliament, a Government by influence-terms once of terrific and hateful found -no longer excited alarm. The third grand political diftinction was that of the Diffenters, comprehending under this general denomination all the different claffes of Proteftant Sectaries, who had been ever uniformly and clofely connected with the Whigs by their common attachment to the principles of liberty civil and religious-by their zeal for the House of Hano-ver, and their indifcriminate fupport of the measures of the Court --a zeal at this period ftill fubfifting and operating on their part with unabated ardor. This very circumftance however, taken in conjunction with the known fact that the bulk of the Eftablished Clergy had fince the era of the Revolution invariably fided with the Oppofition, plainly fhowed, to adopt the words of a profound and philofophical hiftorian, "that an extrinfic

weight, SOME BIAS, was yet hanging on the Constitution, "which turned it from its natural courfe." But the Eftablifhed Clergy, once the firm and paffionate adherents of the

Houfe

* Hume.

House of Stuart, began at length to be fenfible of the strange delufion they had labored under, and were now well difpofed to compensate for former deficiencies, by the exceffive overflow of their prefent loyalty. When a competition for royal favor was thus eftablished between the Church and the Sectaries, it was evident that the latter muft foon find themselves unable to maintain the conteft. The interefts of the Church, i. e. of the Clergy, must be allowed fo far to co-incide with those of the Crown, as clearly to fuggeft the policy of opposing, with united strength, all innovations by which the power or fplendor of either might be eventually affected. Exclufive of this leading confideration, the dignity, the grandeur, the opulence affociated with an Establishment, would give it a decifive fuperiority, in the scale of royal eftimation, over a body of men entirely deftitute of these advantages. Confcious of their prodigious inferiority in these refpects, the Diffenters would naturally regard the prerogative of the Monarch, and the authority of the Church, with jealous eyes. They would eagerly feize every occasion to secure and extend the general systern of liberty, and in the ufual courfe of things would be inclined to favor the party in oppofition to the Court. No juft conclufion however can hence be drawn, that a wife and equitable government would find it impracticable, or even difficult, to reftrain this difpofition within reasonable and falutary bounds. In proportion as the Sectaries feel that comparative weakness and insecurity which muft neceffarily both excite and justify a certain degree of habitual alarm and apprehenfion, would they be foothed and flattered with any marks of respect or confidence from the Executive Power, which, however unimportant in their own nature, would be confidered as proofs of a favourable difpofition. And a Government acting either on a selfish or a benevolent principle, would find itself amply repaid for these trivial indulgencies in the gratitude and affection of a numerous class of citizens, on every account entitled to attention and regard. Agreeably to the genius of Sects in general, who must necef

farily poffefs elevated ideas of their own religious fuperiority