'WHUAM AND MAEY.

113

twenty eight, a resolution implying a censure on the Judges of chap.the King’s Bench, men certainly not inferior in probity, and -very far superior in legal learning, to any peer of the realm.

The King thought it prudent to sooth the wounded pride of thenobility by ordering the recognisances to be cancelled; andwith this concession the House was satisfied, to the greatvexation of the Jacobites, who had hoped that the quarrelwould be prosecuted to some fatal issue, and who, findingthemselves disappointed, vented their spleen by railing at thetameness of the degenerate barons of England.*

Both Houses held long and earnest deliberations on the Debatesstate of the nation. The King, when he requested their ad- state ofvice, had, perhaps, not foreseen that his words would be con-strued into an invitation to scrutinise every part of the adminis-tration, and to offer suggestions touching matters w'hichparliaments have generally thought it expedient to leave en-tirely to the Crown. Some of the discontented peers proposedthat a Committee, chosen partly by the Lords and partly bythe Commons, should be authorised to inquire into the wholemanagement of public affairs. But it was generally apprehendedthat such a Committee would become a second and more power-ful Privy Council, independent of the Crown, and unknown tothe Constitution. The motion was therefore rejected by fortyeight votes to thirty six. On this occasion the ministers, withscarcely an exception, voted in the majority. A protest wassigned by eighteen of the minority, among whom were thebitterest Whigs and the bitterest Tories in the wholepeerage.**

* See the Lords’ Journals from Nov. 7. to Nov. 18. 1692; Burnet, ii. 102.

Tindal’s account of these proceedings was taken from letters addressed byWarre, Under Secretary of State, to Colt, envoy at Hanover, Letter toMr. Secretary,Trenchard, 1694.

** Lords’ journals, Dec. 7.; Tindal, from the Colt Papers; Burnet,il. 105.

Macaulay, History. VII .

8