and the
protection of the laws and of the city's franchises. The commons still
proceeded with the same outrageous violence;--they called upon the
magistrates to justify their conduct, and would not suffer them to
be heard by counsel. These men, who had allowed the prostituted electors
of Shoreham counsel to defend a bargain to sell their borough by
auction, would not grant the same indulgence to the lord mayor of
London, pleading for the laws of England, and the conscientious
discharge of his duty. Accordingly they committed him to the tower
for not violating his oath. The most sacred obligation of morality and
religion they voted criminal, when it happened to stand in competition
with their assumed privileges. Their next step was the act of a mob, and
not of a parliament; I mean the expunging of the recognisance entered at
Guildhall. We have heard of such violence committed by the French King;
and it seems much better calculated for the latitude of Paris than of
London. The people of this kingdom will never submit to such barefaced
tyranny. They must see that it is time to rouse, when their own
creatures dare to assume a power of stopping prosecutions by their vote,
and consequently of resolving the law of the land into their will and
pleasure. The imprudence, and indeed the absolute madness of these
measures, demonstrates not the result of that assembly's calm, unbiassed
deliberations, but the dictates of weak uninformed ministers, influenced
by those who mislead their sovereign." Chatham then told the ministers
that it was through their misconduct that Wilkes had become a person of
consequence in the state, and twitted them with acknowledging him to
be their lord and master, since while they had punished the chief
magistrate of the city, they were compelled to allow him to act with
impunity. On all these grounds, he said, it was that he moved for an
address to the throne for the dissolution of parliament; a step which
he considered might have the effect of restoring good humour and
tranquillity on the one hand, and good government on the other. At the
same time he expressed his doubts whether this would prove any thing
more than a temporary and partial remedy, as the influence of the crown
had become so enormous, that some stronger bulwark ought to be erected
for the defence of the constitution. He concluded by stating that the
act for septennial parliaments must be repealed, and by proclaiming
himself a convert to t