e
Senate of Lilliput," and with feigned names or simple initials to denote
the speakers. The best known reports of this kind were those contributed
by Samuel Johnson to the _Gentleman's Magazine_. Obtained by stealth and
often merely recalled by memory, such reports were naturally inaccurate;
and their inaccuracy was eagerly seized on as a pretext for enforcing
the rules which guarded the secrecy of proceedings in Parliament. In
1771 the Commons issued a proclamation forbidding the publication of
debates; and six printers, who set it at defiance, were summoned to the
bar of the House. One who refused to appear was arrested by its
messenger; but the arrest brought the House into conflict with the
magistrates of London. The magistrates set aside its proclamation as
without legal force, released the printers, and sent the messenger to
prison for an unlawful arrest. The House sent the Lord Mayor to the
Tower, but the cheers of the crowds which followed him on his way told
that public opinion was again with the Press, and the attempt to hinder
its publication of Parliamentary proceedings dropped silently on his
release at the next prorogation. Few changes of equal importance have
been so quietly brought about. Not only was the responsibility of
members to their constituents made constant and effective by the
publication of their proceedings, but the nation itself was called in to
assist in the deliberations of its representatives. A new and wider
interest in its own affairs was roused in the people at large, and a new
political education was given to it through the discussion of every
subject of national importance in the Houses and the Press. Stimulated
and moulded into shape by free discussion, encouraged and made conscious
of its strength by public meetings, and gathered up and represented on
all its sides by the journals of the day, public opinion became a force
in practical statesmanship, influenced the course of debates, and
controlled, in a closer and more constant way than even Parliament
itself had been able to do, the actions of the Government. The
importance of its new position gave a weight to the Press which it had
never had before. The first great English journals date from this time.
With the _Morning Chronicle_, the _Morning Post_, the _Morning Herald_,
and the _Times_, all of which appeared in the interval between the
opening years of the American War and the beginning of the war with the
French Revolution, j