d not appear to
have abated. The mace was sent into Westminster Hall and into the Court
of Requests. All members who could be found were brought into the House.
That none might be able to steal away unnoticed, the back door was
locked, and the key laid on the table. All strangers were ordered to
retire. With these solemn preparations began a sitting which reminded a
few old men of some of the first sittings of the Kong Parliament. High
words were uttered by the enemies of the government. Its friends, afraid
of being accused of abandoning the cause of the Commons of England
for the sake of royal favour, hardly ventured to raise their voices.
Montague alone seems to have defended the King. Lowther, though high
in office and a member of the cabinet, owned that there were evil
influences at work, and expressed a wish to see the Sovereign surrounded
by counsellors in whom the representatives of the people could confide.
Harley, Foley and Howe carried every thing before them. A resolution,
affirming that those who had advised the Crown on this occasion were
public enemies, was carried with only two or three Noes. Harley, after
reminding his hearers that they had their negative voice as the King had
his, and that, if His Majesty refused then redress, they could refuse
him money, moved that they should go up to the Throne, not, as usual,
with a Humble Address, but with a Representation. Some members proposed
to substitute the more respectful word Address: but they were overruled;
and a committee was appointed to draw up the Representation.

Another night passed; and, when the House met again, it appeared that
the storm had greatly subsided. The malignant joy and the wild hopes
which the Jacobites had, during the last forty-eight hours, expressed
with their usual imprudence, had incensed and alarmed the Whigs and
the moderate Tories. Many members too were frightened by hearing that
William was fully determined not to yield without an appeal to the
nation. Such an appeal might have been successful: for a dissolution, on
any ground whatever, would, at that moment, have been a highly popular
exercise of the prerogative. The constituent bodies, it was well known,
were generally zealous for the Triennial Bill, and cared comparatively
little about the Place Bill. Many Tory members, therefore, who had
recently voted against the Triennial Bill, were by no means desirous
to run the risks of a general election. When the Representation whic