ONE:During the year 1750 the French evinced a hostile disposition. They laid claim to part of Nova Scotia, and refused to surrender the islands of St. Lucia and St. Vincent, as they were bound to do by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. They continued to stir up bad feeling towards us both in Spain and Germany. The Empress listened with eagerness to the suggestions of France, and co-operated with that country in endeavouring to influence Spain against us. Fortunately, the good disposition of the Queen of Spain, and the able management of Mr. Keene, our Ambassador, foiled all these efforts, and completed a commercial treaty with that country. This treaty was signed on the 5th of October, 1750, and placed us at once on the same footing in commercial relations with Spain as the most favoured nations. We abandoned the remaining term of the Assiento, and obtained one hundred thousand pounds as compensation for the claims of the South Sea Company. The right of search, however, was passed over in silence, and we continued to cut logwood[115] in Campeachy Bay and to smuggle on the Spanish Main, winked at by the Spanish authorities, but liable to interruption whenever jealousy or ill-will might be in the ascendant. In various directions our commerce flourished at this time, and many injurious restrictions were removed, such as those that hampered the whale fishery of Spitzbergen, the white herring and coast fisheries, the trade to the coast of Guinea, the import of iron from the American plantations and of raw silk from China. Our manufactures also grew apace, in spite of the internal jarrings of the Ministry and the deadness of Parliament.The next who took his trial was Horne Tooke. The evidence was much the same, but the man was different. Tooke was one of the keenest intellects of the time, full of wit and causticity, by which he had worsted even Junius. He summoned as witnesses the Prime Minister himself, the Duke of Richmond, Master-General of the Ordnance, and others of the Cabinet, who had all in their time been ardent Reformers, and cross-questioned them in a style which, if he were guilty, showed that they had once been as much so. Tooke's trial was very damaging to the Government, and he was also acquitted after a trial of six days, during the whole of which the jury had not been allowed to separate, that they might not receive any popular impressions from withouta course which was not calculated to put them in a particularly good humour with the prosecutors.
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THREE:
THREE:In the department of philosophy flourished also Bishop Berkeley (b. 1684; d. 1753), author of "The Principles of Human Knowledge," whostartled the world with the theory that matter has no existence in the universe, but is merely a fixed idea of the mind; Dr. Mandeville, a Dutchman by birth, who settled in London, and published various medical and metaphysical works of a freethinking character; Hutchinson, an opponent of Dr. Woodward in natural history, and Newton in natural philosophy; and David Hartley, author of "Observations on Man." Bishop Butler, Warburton, Hoadley, Middleton, author of "A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers of the Church," and Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, were the leading theologians in the Church; but Dissent could also boast of its men of light and leading in Dr. Isaac Watts, author of a system of Logic and of the popular Hymns; Calamy, the opponent of Hoadley; Doddridge, and others.
THREE:Again, on the 22nd of March, Burke made another earnest effort to induce the infatuated Ministers and their adherents in Parliament to listen to reason. In one of the finest speeches that he ever made, he introduced a series of thirteen resolutions, which went to abolish the obnoxious Acts of Parliament, and admit the principle of the colonial Assemblies exercising the power of taxation. In the course of his speech he drew a striking picture of the rapid growth and the inevitable future importance of these colonies. He reminded the House that the people of New England and other colonies had quitted Great Britain because they would not submit to arbitrary measures; that in America they had cultivated this extreme independence of character, both in their religion and their daily life; that almost[216] every man there studied law, and that nearly as many copies of Blackstone's "Commentaries" had been sold there as in England; that they were the Protestants of Protestants, the Dissenters of Dissenters; that the Church of England there was a mere sect; that the foreigners who had settled there, disgusted with tyranny at home, had adopted the extremest principles of liberty flourishing there; that all men there were accustomed to discuss the principles of law and government, and that almost every man sent to the Congress was a lawyer; that the very existence of slavery in the southern States made white inhabitants hate slavery the more in their own persons. "You cannot," he said, "content such men at such a distanceNature fights against you. Who are you that you should fret, rage, and bite the chains of Nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have extensive empires. In all such extended empires authority grows feeble at the extremities. The Turk and the Spaniard find it so, and are compelled to comply with this condition of Nature, and derive vigour in the centre from the relaxation of authority on the borders." His resolutions were negatived by large majorities.Hitherto the United Irishmen had obtained little support from the Catholics, who were entirely out of sympathy with the Protestantism of one section of the party, and the irreligion of Wolfe Tone and his immediate associates. They preferred to look to the British Government, and especially to Pitt who was known to be favourable to the Catholic claims. But the Protestants in the Irish Parliament were too strong for him, and only a few remedial measures were passed and those inconsiderable in extent. In 1792 Sir Hercules Langrishe, with the consent of the Government, succeeded in carrying a Bill which admitted Catholics to the profession of the law, removed restrictions on their education, and repealed the Intermarriage Act. In 1793 the Irish Secretary, Major Hobart, succeeded, after much Government pressure, in carrying a second Catholic Relief Bill, admitting Catholics to the grand juries, magistracy, and finally to the franchise, though not to Parliament. Further than that Pitt could not be induced to go. He would neither consent to the admission of Catholics to Parliament, nor would he consent to a measure of Parliamentary reform, though the state of the representation was about as rotten as could possibly be conceived. From an inquiry instituted some years earlier it appeared that out of a House of 300 members 124 were nominated by 53 peers, while 91 others were chosen by 52 commoners. The British ascendency was, in fact, maintained by a system of organised corruption and place-holding, which failed only when religious bigotry carried the day.
