e interpreted in a
private or personal manner. But the house was not disposed to put its
ban on this false code of honour. The conversation ended in nothing,
except the hope that duels and wounds would make honourable members
speak with better manners. This hope, however, proved to be fallacious.
An altercation occurred on the 13th of March, between the speaker and
Lord North himself, in which much bitter language was used. Negociations
were in progress for the promotion of the attorney-general to the office
of chief-justice in the Court of Common Pleas, which office had been
promised to the speaker by the Duke of Grafton. Sir Fletcher Norton
expressed much dissatisfaction at his being set aside for another,
and Lord North denied that he was responsible for the promise of his
predecessors. The consequence was that the speaker, from this time,
joined the ranks of opposition, and loudly repeated their cries of
crown influence, abuse of prerogative, and rights of the people.
Being dissatisfied at not having his unjustifiable demands allowed,
he suddenly turned patriot, so that if he lost, the people might
congratulate themselves at having an advocate for once sitting in the
speaker's chair of the house of commons.

DEBATES ON THE INCREASE OF CROWN INFLUENCE.

During the above debates county petitions were daily laid before the
house, and by the month of April the speaker's table was almost buried
beneath them. They were ordered to be taken into consideration by a
committee of the whole house, and on the 6th of April a great public
meeting was held at Westminster, with the advice and concurrence of the
corresponding committee in the other parts of the kingdom, and with
the avowed intention of giving weight to these petitions. On the same
evening the house resolved itself into a committee, and Mr. Dunning
moved his celebrated resolution, "That the influence of the crown
had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished." Dunning
remarked, that all the petitions agreed in one great fundamental point;
namely, that limits ought to be set to the alarming influence of the
crown, and to the expenditure of the public money by means of which that
influence had been obtained. He then exhibited, in a continued series,
the history and philosophy of constitutional law, and animadverted on
measures which endangered British rights and liberties in former years.
Afterwards he drew a highly-coloured and exaggerated picture of