enue bills; but he could not prevail
upon them to settle the revenue for life. They granted, however, the
hereditary excise for that term, but the customs for four years only.
They considered this short term as the best security the kingdom could
have for frequent parliaments; though this precaution was not at all
agreeable to their sovereign. A poll-bill was likewise passed, other
supplies were granted, and both parties seemed to court his majesty
by advancing money on those funds of credit. The whigs, however, had
another battery in reserve. They produced, in the upper house, a bill
for recognising their majesties as the rightful and lawful sovereign of
these realms, and for declaring all the acts of the last parliament
to be good and valid. The tories were now reduced to a very perplexed
situation. They could not oppose the bill without hazarding the
interest they had so lately acquired, nor assent to it without solemnly
renouncing their former arguments and distinctions. They made no great
objections to the first part, and even proposed to enact, That those
should be deemed good laws for the time to come; but they refused to
declare them valid for that which was past. After a long debate, the
bill was committed; yet the whigs lost their majority on the report;
nevertheless, the bill was recovered, and passed with some alteration in
the words; in consequence of a nervous spirited protest, signed Bolton,
Macclesfield, Stamford, Newport, Bedford, Her bert, Suffolk, Monmouth,
Delamere, and Oxford. The whole interest of the court was thrown into
the scale with this bill, before it would preponderate against the
tories; the chiefs of whom, with the earl of Nottingham at their head,
protested in their turn. The same party in the house of commons were
determined upon a vigorous opposition; and in the mean time some
trifling objections were made, that it might be committed for amendment;
but their design was prematurely discovered by one of their faction,
who chanced to question the legality of the convention, as it was not
summoned by the king's writ. This insinuation was answered by Somers the
solicitor general, who observed, that if it was not a legal parliament,
they who were then met, and who had taken the oaths enacted by that
parliament, were guilty of high treason; the laws repealed by it were
still in force: it was their duty therefore to return to king James; and
all concerned in collecting and paying the money levie