hasten the
completion of so desirable an event." The motion was negatived.

QUARRELS BETWEEN THE LORDS AND COMMONS.

Ministers were still pressed by the opposition concerning the lingering
negociations with Spain, and the incompleteness of their preparations
for war. In the house of lords, the Duke of Manchester descanted in
strong terms on the defenceless condition of Gibraltar, Minorca, and
Jamaica. In the midst of his harangue Lord Gower desired that the house
might be cleared of all persons except those who had a right to sit
there. When motions like this, he said, were brought on by surprise, no
one should be allowed to hear the debate except peers, inasmuch as in a
crowded house, emissaries from the court of Spain and other powers might
be present. He added that there was another reason why the house should
be cleared. Persons, he said, had been admitted who took note of what
was said, for he had in his pocket a paper which contained a speech
recently made by a noble lord! This, he asserted, was contrary to a
standing order, which standing order, No. 112, was produced and read.
The Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Chatham warmly opposed such a step,
but their voices were drowned by shouts of "Clear the house! Clear the
house!" The Earl of Chatham, with eighteen peers, indignantly left the
house, and the party who remained then insisted that all the members
of the house of commons present should be turned out _sans ceremonie_!
These members represented that they were there in the discharge of
their duty, for that they were there attending with a bill. The bill was
demanded, and they had no sooner delivered it, than they were hooted
out of the house. A strong protest was made against these proceedings by
members of both houses;--and on the same day, Mr. George Onslow moved in
the lower house that it should be cleared--"peers and all." This motion
was made merely from pique at the treatment of the commons by the lords,
and not with a view of encouraging the notion that debates ought to be
open, reported, and published. A better motion was made by Mr. Dunning,
who moved for a committee "to inspect the journals of the house of lords
of that day, as to what proceedings and resolutions were therein, with
relation to the not permitting any persons to be present in any part of
the said house during the sitting thereof." This motion was negatived;
but no vote passed either in the house of lords or that of the commons