might grant them to
be held in _commendam_ with the see to which the bill proposed to
unite them, while it should have power at the same time to grant their
revenues to the commissioners. Earl Grey declared that if this amendment
were carried it would be fatal to the bill; and it was lost, though only
by a majority of fourteen, seventy-six voting for it, and ninety against
it. Lord Wharncliffe then moved that the produce of tax imposed upon the
clergy should be appropriated to the augmentation of small livings,
and that the commissioners should not have power to apply it to other
purposes for which parish cess was levied. This amendment was lost by a
majority of twenty; but ministers were left in a minority of two, on the
clause empowering the commissioners to suspend appointments to benefices
in which divine service had not been performed during three years before
the 1st of February, 1833. An amendment was agreed to, that in all such
cases the bishop of the diocese in which the benefice might be situated,
should be entitled to act as a member of the board; and that the
revenues of the suspended benefice should be applied to the building
or repairing of the church or glebe-house in such benefice; or if they
should not require it, that then the revenues should be paid into the
general fund, under the management of the commissioners. On this
defeat Earl Grey adjourned the committee, in order to allow time for
considering whether ministers ought not to throw up the bill and resign.
On the next day, however, his lordship stated that they had resolved to
proceed with the bill; the effect of the amendment would be far from
an improvement to the bill, but he did not deem it such an alteration,
affecting the general efficiency of the measure, as would justify him in
abandoning the duty he had imposed upon himself of conducting it through
the house. At the same time, he said, he would not disguise from their
lordships that he laboured under deep sensations of difficulty and
embarrassment in consequence of the vote; and he felt that if any
further alterations of the like nature should be made, it would be for
him to consider how far it would be possible for him, consistently with
his duty to his sovereign and his country, to continue the conduct of
the measure. Some further alterations were admitted on the bringing up
of the report. One of these went to guard against the future contingency
of the lord-chancellor and lord-chief-jus