without interruption in the prosecution of their measures. Under the former head may be mentioned an act for repressing the barbarous practices of the wreckers on the English coast; another, for the establishment of the British Museum, by the purchase of the Cottonian and Westminster libraries, the Harleian collection of MSS., and sir Han Sloane's museum and library; and a third, for throwing open the trade with Turkey, which had become a monopoly in the hands of a chartered company. Under the latter head may be included an act for the preservation of game, by which grouse and partridges were treated with more tenderness than poachers, the punishments and penalties being utterly disproportioned to the nature of the offence; a quarantine bill, which, however good in principle, was extremely oppressive and inconvenient in details; and a bill allowing an interest of three per cent. on the debentures for the bounty on the exportation of corn, during any interval in which the principal might remain unpaid a measure that placed the home market at the mercy of the corn-dealers, by inducing them to export corn until they brought up the price to suit their own purposes.

But the most important measure of the session was an act for naturalising, under certain restrictions, persons of the Jewish persuasion, born out of the realm The clamour excited by this bill, and the tenour of the arguments employed against it, afford a remarkable illustration of the spirit of the age. From the nu

merous petitions, especially that of the lord mayor, aldermen, and commons of London, invariably distinguished throughout the whole of this period by the bigotry of their sentiments, and the speeches delivered on the opposition side, we gather the sum of the objections, apprehensions, and prejudices that were brought to bear upon the bill. It was urged that it would dishonour the Christian religion, endanger the constitution, and be highly prejudicial to the trade of the kingdom, and of London in particular; that it would deluge the

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country with brokers, usurers, and beggars; that the rich Jews would purchase land and advowsons, while the poor would interfere with the industry of the Christian natives; that such an adoption of vagrants would rob Englishmen of their birthright; that the Jews would multiply so rapidly, acquire so much wealth, and engross so much influence, that they would at last become revered, their customs imitated, and Judaism established as the fashionable religion; and, in addition to all this, it was solemnly averred, that the act was a direct violation of the prophecy which declared that the Jews should be a scattered people until they were converted from their infidelity, and gathered into the land of their forefathers. Objections of this description, based on chimerical hypotheses, and of no more validity than any other bare and highly improbable assertions, contained their own answers. If it were competent to the one side to predict that the naturalisation of the Jews would overturn the church and state, it was equally competent to the other side to predict that it would strengthen and consolidate them, by the introduction and gradual conversion of opulent foreigners. As to the violation of the prophecy, who was to decide upon the manner of its fulfilment ? Was the English legislature to take that awful responsibility into its own hands, and to desecrate the justice and charity of Christianity, in order to insure the accomplishment of the Jewish curse? The charge of usury was the very last that ought to have been brought by the enemies of the Jews. What made the Jews usurers? That system of proscription and oppression, which, prohibiting them from acquiring freeholds, and from embarking in the ordinary enterprises of honourable ambition, compelled them to confine their operations to the trade in money,

the only trade they were permitted to carry on with impunity, and which presented to them the only investment for the fruits of their industry, which the law left unclosed upon them. Is it to be believed that the humanity of a Jew is different from the humanity of a

Christian? or that, if legislation threw open the field of legitimate exertion to him, he would not, like other men, cast his ventures upon the deep, cultivate the earth, and aspire, through all laudable channels of toil and speculation, for the rewards to which his talents or his skill might fairly entitle him? To reproach the Jew for usury, is to reproach him for the demoralisation of our own laws. The reproach should rather have come from him, against that code, which, narrowing the sphere of his movements within such circumscribed limits, afforded him no other resource, and which confirmed him in his persecuted faith, by clothing Christianity in a robe of terrors.

Notwithstanding the intemperate resistance which was made to this bill in parliament, the furious excitement it produced out of doors, and the danger of provoking the hostility of the people on the eve of a general election,—a circumstance which lord Egmont, with more candour than tact, urged upon the attention of government*, the ministers persevered with the measure, and carried it triumphantly through both houses. But the gleam of liberality vanished into darkness almost as quickly as it appeared; for in the following session the turbulence of the zealots rose to such a height, that it became imperative upon the administration to destroy the beneficent work of their own hands. The bill was repealed by its authors-an unavoidable sacrifice to popular prejudice.

Some agitation was also occasioned by a bill for the prevention of clandestine marriages, brought into the house of lords under the auspices of lord Hardwicke, lord chancellor. It appeared that clandestine marriages had latterly increased to a grievous extent, producing great misery in numerous wealthy and aristocratic fami

* "I am amazed," said his lordship, " that this consideration makes no impression. When that day, which is not far off, shall arrive, I shall not fear to set my foot on any ground of election in the kingdom, in opposition to any one man among you, or any new Christian, who has voted or ap. peared in favour of this naturalisation." His lordship, it seems, calculated confidently on the bigotry of the electoral masses.

lies, precipitating early unions, and leading ultimately to vice and wretchedness in an endless variety of forms. To prevent this growing evil, and to destroy the extraordinary facilities which existed for its encouragement through the agency of dissolute and vagrant clergymen, the bill enacted, that all marriages should henceforth take place either by banns or licence, and that all other marriages should be void, and the person solemnizing them transported for seven years. These principal conditions were fenced round by a number of safeguards and provisions, that helped to complicate the process of marriage*, and, as some of the opponents of the measure asserted, to produce, in consequence, evils of another kind. The subject was not entertained as a party question, and the members of the administration took different sides in the debate, according to their individual convictions. All parties agreed upon the necessity of preventing clandestine marriages, but it was strongly maintained that the abuse might be removed by a measure which should throw fewer restrictions and difficulties in the way of legitimate marriages. It was feared that such restrictions would promote mercenary matches, to the ruin of domestic happiness and the prejudice of posterity, that they would check the diffusion of property, by restraining the wealth of the kingdom within the pale of the opulent families, who, under these regulations, would intermarry amongst themselves, and that they would produce serious inconveniences to the poor, arising from the expense and trouble attendant on the prescribed forms. Unusual eagerness and heat were manifested in both houses; and when the bill was sent down to the commons, it was attacked with considerable asperity, especially by Fox, who reflected severely upon the measure and its chief promoter, lord Hardwicke. On the third reading, Fox softened his personal allusions; but when the bill was returned to the

*"It was so drawn up by the judges," says Horace Walpole in a letter to sir Horace Mann, " as to clog matrimony in general."

lords with amendments, the chancellor disclaimed the recantation, and retaliated so fiercely, that it was generally supposed Fox would be dismissed. He expressed his surprise that the bill should have been styled, out of doors, an absurd, cruel, scandalous, and wicked proceeding. With regard to his own share in it, he declared he was obliged to those who had so honourably defended him; so," he continued, "I despise the invective, and I despise the retractation; I despise the scurrility, and I reject the adulation." t

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The bill passed with large majorities; and, although it was felt to be burthensome in its operation, it did not appear to be productive of so much practical inconvenience as its opponents apprehended. Parliament was prorogued shortly after.

Amongst the incidents of the year which assist us to a clearer conception of the character of the times, the execution of Dr. Cameron, brother to Cameron of Lochiel, chief of one of the warlike tribes that had taken the field with the pretender, stands out conspicuously. After the battle of Culloden, Cameron, who was wounded in that engagement, effected his escape to the Continent, accompanied by his brother, Dr. Cameron, who had never taken any part in the contest, but who was included in the act of attainder passed against those who had been concerned in the rebellion. Circumstances subsequently induced him to revisit Scotland, -as some said, to obtain a sum of money belonging to the pretender, and according to others, on a secret mission from the king of Prussia; but, whatever was the cause, the interval that had elapsed since the rebellion inspired him with hopes that the vengeance of the royalists had subsided. In

Horace Walpole to George Montagu.

+ Parl. Hist. Hardwicke Papers. Dr. Birch, in a letter to the honourable Philip Yorke, tells us, that the account reached Fox while he was in Vauxhall Gardens with some ladies, and that, breaking from them, and collecting a little circle of young members of parliament and others, he told them with great eagerness, that he wished the session had lasted only a fortnight longer, for then he would have made ample returns to the lord Chancellor. The speaker was of opinion, that if the commons had not been prorogued, some notice would have been taken of lord Hardwicke's speech.