5,000 troops without consent of parliament,
and represented their conduct in accepting their aid as most
unconstitutional and inimical to the liberties of the country. Lord
North, who agreed to the motion, in reply, argued that these spontaneous
exertions proved that the people felt the insults and injuries offered
to their king and country; and, also, that the country was not in that
impoverished state which a jealous and impatient faction had asserted
it was. Still the opposition hoped to obtain a vote of censure. In the
house of lords the Earl of Abingdon moved that the twelve judges should
be consulted as to the legality of raising troops without the authority
of parliament. This motion was not pressed to a division; but, on the
4th of February, the same noble lord made another motion more specific,
in order to cast blame upon government. He moved for a resolution that
the grant of money in private aids or benevolences, without the sanction
of parliament, for the purpose of raising armies, was against the spirit
of the constitution and the letter of the law; and that, to obtain money
by subscription was not only unconstitutional and illegal, but a
direct infringement of the rights, and a breach of the privileges of
parliament. This motion, after a warm debate, was negatived by ninety
to thirty. On the same day in the commons, some money being demanded for
the uniforms of these new troops, a still warmer discussion arose upon
the subject. The new levies were treated with much discourtesy by the
opposition; the two Scotch regiments, especially, being designated
vile mercenaries, and willing tools of despotism. The opposition also
maintained that such a practice of raising troops was contrary to
the oath of coronation, and that all who subscribed were abettors of
perjury. Lord North justified himself by precedents: he showed that
independent regiments had been raised in 1745, and again in 1759, when
Chatham was minister. On the latter occasion, he said, that Chatham
had publicly and solemnly thanked those who raised such troops for the
honour and service of their country. Yet, "that great oracle with a
short memory," on the very night on which Lord North reminded the lower
house of this notable fact, declaimed in the upper house in support of
the Earl of Abingdon's motion against the practice Later in the session
Wilkes renewed this subject, but the motion which he made relative to it
was negatived by seventy-two against