, as of the unsettled state of the government of Great Britain
since the peace. "Till he saw," he said, "more stability in our
administration, he did not choose to draw his connexions with us
closer," and the negociations was therefore dropped.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.

The session was opened on the 11th of November, and the principal
topic of the king's speech was the scarcity of corn; and measures were
recommended, if necessary, for allaying or remedying the evil. The
address was opposed in both houses, and in the commons four amendments
were moved, but the government in every instance had a majority. On the
subject of the embargo, however, and the delay of assembling parliament
when the country was in such critical circumstances, ministers had a
harder battle to fight. It was thought right to pass a bill of indemnity
in favour of those who had acted in obedience to the council with
respect to the embargo, and when this bill was brought in by a member
of the cabinet, a remark was made, that although it provided for the
security of the inferior officers, who had acted under the proclamation,
it passed over those who advised the measure. This gave rise to much
altercation and debate, especially among the lords, where the Earl of
Chatham, Lord Camden, and others, who had long been the advocates of
popular rights, vindicated the present exercise of royal prerogative,
not on the plea of necessity but of right: arguing that a dispensing
power was inherent in the crown, which might be exerted during the
recess of parliament, but which expired whenever parliament reassembled.
Camden asserted that Junius Brutus would not have hesitated to entrust
such a power even to a Nero, and that it was at most but "a forty
day's tyranny." The Earl of Chatham was a more powerful advocate of the
measure. He vindicated the issuing of the embargo by legal authority
during the recess of parliament as an act of power justifiable on the
ground of necessity, and he read a paragraph from Locke on Government,
to show that his views were borne out by that great friend of liberty,
that constitutional philosopher, and that liberal statesman. The
sentiments of the ministers, however, were strongly opposed by Lords
Temple, Lyttleton, and Mansfield, the latter of whom, though he had once
been spell-bound by court influence, "rode the great horse Liberty with
much applause." The Earl of Chatham replied, but the constitutional
principles which his op