WILLIAM AT.D MAKT.

157

and foul worms were engendered by the corruption of thatwhich had been sweeter than honey. Littleton and other lead- ■ing Whigs spoke on the same side. Seymour, Finch, andTredenham, all stanch Tories, were vehement against the bill;and even Sir John Lowther on this point dissented from hisfriend and patron Caermarthen. Several Tory orators ap-pealed to a feeling which was strong in the House, and whichhad, since the Revolution, prevented many laws from passing.Whatever, they said, comes from the Peers is to be receivedwith suspicion; and the present bill is of such a nature that,even if it were in itself good, it ought to be at once rejectedmerely because it has been brought down from them. If theirLordships were to send us the most judicious of all money bills,should we not kick it to the door? Yet to send us a money billwould hardly be a grosser affront than to send us such a bill asthis. They have taken an initiative which, by every rule ofparliamentary courtesy, ought to have been left to us. Theyhave sate in judgment on us, convicted us, condemned us todissolution, and fixed the first of January for the execution.Are we to submit patiently to so degrading a sentence, a sen-tence too passed by men who have not so conducted themselvesas to have acquired any right to censure others? Have theyever made any sacrifice of their own interest, of their owndignity, to the general welfare? Have not excellent bills beenlost because we would not consent to insert in them clausesconferring new privileges on the nobility? And now that theirLordships are bent on obtaining popularity^ do they propose topurchase it by relinquishing even the smallest of their own op-pressive privileges ? No: they offer to their country that whichwill cost them nothing, but w'hich will cost us and will cost theCrown dear. In such circumstances it is our duty to repel theinsult which has been offered to us, and, by doing so, to vin-dicate the lawful prerogative of the King.

CHAP.

XIX.

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