he Queen of Denmark..... Death
of the Princess Dowager of Wales..... Revolution in
Sweden..... Partition of Poland..... Investigation of the
Middlesex Election..... Changes in the Ministry..... The
Meeting of Parliament..... East India Affairs.

{A.D. 1771}

RE-OPENING OF PARLIAMENT.

When the commons assembled on the 22nd of January, Lord North announced
the happy termination of the dispute with Spain, and the intention
of government to lay the convention which had just been signed before
parliament. Lord Rochford imparted similar information to the lords:
in both houses the question gave rise to warm discussion. In the
lords the Duke of Manchester moved for all the information received by
government touching the designs of Spain upon Falkland Island, and
for all the papers passed during the negociations. Rochford moved an
amendment, limiting the inquiry to the subject of Falkland Island, and
Lord Sandwich moved another amendment, which the Duke of Richmond said
would so narrow the motion as to deprive the house of all necessary
information. These amendments were withdrawn, and the original motion
of the Duke of Manchester agreed to; but even this did not satisfy the
opposition. The Duke of Richmond next moved, in order to recommend this
ignominious affair to further censure, that all the memorials or
other papers which had passed between his majesty's ministers and the
ministers of the King of France, relating to the seizure of Falkland
Island by the Spaniards, should be laid before the house. Rochford said
that he knew of no such papers, which assertion was questioned by the
Earl of Chatham, inasmuch as the interference of France in the matter
was a fact that could not be denied. The house, he said, ought never to
take the word of a minister, and that the refusal of this motion showed
that some transaction with France had passed, though perhaps not papers
or memorials. The motion was negatived; but the question gave rise to
still further discussion in both houses, of which little is known; as on
the great field-day in the lords, all strangers were rigidly excluded.
The Earl of Chatham moved on that day, that the following two questions
should be referred to the judges:--1. Whether, in law, the imperial
crown of the realm can hold any territories or possessions otherwise
than in sovereignty? 2. Whether the declaration or instrument for
restitution of Port Egmont, to be made by the Catholic