attend
this House and bring the constables with them." While the justices and
the constables were being sent for, Sir John Ward was {204} presenting
to the House a petition from the proprietors of the redeemable funds,
setting forth that they had lent their money to the South Sea Company
on Parliamentary security; that they had been unwarily drawn into
subscribing for the shares in the Company by the artifices of the
directors; and they prayed that they might be heard by themselves or
their counsel against Walpole's measure--the bill "for making several
provisions to restore the public credit, which suffers by the frauds
and mismanagement of the late South Sea directors and others." Walpole
opposed the petition, and said he did not see how the petitioners could
be relieved, seeing that the resolutions, in pursuance of which his
bill was brought in, had been approved by the King and council, and by
a great majority of the House. Walpole, therefore, moved that the
debate be adjourned, in order to get rid of the matter. The motion was
carried by seventy-eight voices against twenty-nine. By this time four
Justices for the City of Westminster had arrived, and were brought to
the bar of the House. The Speaker informed them that there was a great
crowd of riotous people in the lobbies and passages, and that he was
commanded by the House to direct them to go and disperse the crowd, and
take care to prevent similar riots in the future. The four justices,
attended by five or six constables, desired the petitioners to clear
the lobbies, and when they refused to do so, caused a proclamation
against rioters to be twice read, warning them at the same time that if
they remained until the third reading, they would have to incur the
penalties of the Act. What the penalties of the Act were, and what the
four justices and five or six constables could have done with the
petitioners if the petitioners had refused to listen to reason, do not
seem very clear. The petitioners, however, did listen to reason, and
dispersed before the fatal third reading of the proclamation. But they
did not disperse without giving the House of Commons and the justices a
piece of their mind. Many exclaimed that they had come as peaceable
citizens and {205} subjects to represent their grievances, and had not
expected to be used like a mob and scoundrels; and others, as they went
out, shouted to the members of Parliament, "You first pick our pockets,
and