50

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CIIAP.

XXV.

1700 .

Animated by such feelings as these, a party in theUpper House xvas eager to take the earliest opportunityof making a stand. On the fourth of April, the secondreading was moved. Near a hundred lords were present.Somers, whose serene wisdom and persuasive eloquencehad seldom been more needed, was confined to his roomby illness; and his place on the woolsack was supplied bythe Earl of Bridgewater. Several orators, both Whigand Tory, objected to proceeding farther. But the chiefsof both parties thought it better to try the almost hopelessexperiment of committing the bill and sending it backamended to the Commons. The second reading was carriedby seventy votes to twenty three. It xvas remarked thatboth Portland and Albemarle voted in the majority.

In the Committee and on the third reading severalamendments were proposed and carried. Wharton, theboldest and most active of the Whig peers, and the LordPrivy Seal Lonsdale, one of the most moderate and rea-sonable of the Tories, took the lead, and were strenuouslysupported by the Lord President Pembroke, and by theArchbishop of Canterbury, who seems on this occasion tohave a little forgotten his habitual sobriety and caution.Two natural sons of Charles the Second, Richmond andSouthampton, who had strong personal reasons for dis-liking resumption bills, were zealous on the same side.No peer, however, as far as can now be discovered, ven-tured to defend the xva.y in which William had disposedof his Irish domains. The provisions which annulled the