were so many precedents for the Lords having
exerted this power of rejection in the course of the preceding century,
that they probably never conceived that in so doing now they were
committing any encroachment on the constitutional rights and privileges
of the Lower House. But on this occasion the ill-feeling previously
existing between the two Houses may be thought to have predisposed the
Commons to seek opportunity for a quarrel. And there never was a case in
which both parties in the House were more unanimous. Governor Pownall
called the rejection of the clause by the Lords "a flagrant encroachment
upon the privileges of the House," and affirmed that the Lords had
"forgotten their duty." Burke termed it "a proof that the Lords did not
understand the principles of the constitution, an invasion of a known
and avowed right inherent in the House as the representatives of the
people," and expressed a hope that "they were not yet so infamous and
abandoned as to relinquish this essential right," or to submit to "the
annihilation of all their authority." Others called it "an affront which
the House was bound to resent, and the more imperatively in consequence
of the absence of a good understanding between the two Houses." And the
Speaker, Sir John Cust, went beyond all his brother members in violence,
declaring that "he would do his part in the business, and toss the bill
over the table." The bill was rejected _nem. con._, and the Speaker
tossed it over the table, several of the members on both sides of the
question kicking it as they went out;[32] and to such a pitch of
exasperation had they worked themselves up, that "the Game Bill, in
which the Lords had made alterations, was served in a similar manner,"
though those alterations only referred to the penalties to be imposed
for violations of the Game-law, and could by no stretch of ingenuity be
connected with any question of taxation.

Notes:

[Footnote 16: A motion was, indeed, made (but the "Parliamentary
History," xvi., 55, omits to state by whom) that the House should
"humbly entreat his Majesty, out of his tender and paternal regard for
his people, that he would be graciously pleased to name the person or
persons whom, in his royal wisdom, he shall think fit to propose to the
consideration of Parliament for the execution of those high trusts, this
House apprehending it not warranted by precedent nor agreeable to the
principles of this free constitution to vest in a