not to pass
such a clause; and they thought it better that what must happen at last
should happen speedily, and without a quarrel. [499]

The fate of the Triennial Bill confounded all the calculations of the
best informed politicians of that time, and may therefore well seem
extraordinary to us. During the recess, that bill had been described in
numerous pamphlets, written for the most part by persons zealous for the
Revolution and for popular principles of government, as the one thing
needful, as the universal cure for the distempers of the State. On the
first, second and third readings in the House of Commons no division
took place. The Whigs were enthusiastic. The Tories seemed to be
acquiescent. It was understood that the King, though he had used
his Veto for the purpose of giving the Houses an opportunity of
reconsidering the subject, had no intention of offering a pertinacious
opposition to their wishes. But Seymour, with a cunning which long
experience had matured, after deferring the conflict to the last moment,
snatched the victory from his adversaries, when they were most secure.
When the Speaker held up the bill in his hands, and put the question
whether it should pass, the Noes were a hundred and forty-six, the
Ayes only a hundred and thirty-six. [500] Some eager Whigs flattered
themselves that their defeat was the effect of a surprise, and might be
retrieved. Within three days, therefore, Monmouth, the most ardent and
restless man in the whole party, brought into the Upper House a bill
substantially the same with that which had so strangely miscarried in
the Lower. The Peers passed this bill very expeditiously, and sent
it down to the Commons. But in the Commons it found no favour. Many
members, who professed to wish that the duration of parliaments should
be limited, resented the interference of the hereditary branch of the
legislature in a matter which peculiarly concerned the elective branch.
The subject, they said, is one which especially belongs to us; we
have considered it; we have come to a decision; and it is scarcely
parliamentary, it is certainly most indelicate, in their Lordships, to
call upon us to reverse that decision. The question now is, not whether
the duration of parliaments ought to be limited, but whether we ought
to submit our judgment to the authority of the Peers, and to rescind,
at their bidding, what we did only a fortnight ago. The animosity with
which the patrician order was reg