Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/180

166 they imposed taxes with an alacrity almost unparalleled. They imposed four shillings in the pound on all lands and incomes, including annuities, pensions, and stipends, and on all the professional profits of lawyers, doctors, surgeons, teachers of separate congregations, brokers, factors, &c. Then an additional tax of two and a half per cent, on all stock in trade and money out at interest, and five shillings in the pound on all salaries, fees, and perquisites. They laid on a poll tax of four shillings per head, so completely had this generation come to tolerate this hated form of imposition which formerly roused the people to open rebellion. Besides this they taxed the capital stock of all corporations and public companies which should be transferred in sale to the amount of one per cent., and, finally, sixpence a bushel on malt, and a further duty on mum, cyder, and perry.

On the 15th of January they passed unanimously a bill for the attainder of the pretended prince of Wales, and sent it up to the lords, and the lords, exceeding them in zeal, added a clause, attainting, also, the ex-queen Mary of Modena as regent of the pretended prince of Wales. The commons, however, objected to this amendment, as calculated to sanction a practice of attainting persons by added clauses instead of original bills, which they designated as a pernicious course, as not allowing the full consideration due to so momentous a measure. They struck it out, but the lords demanded a conference, and pressed their amendment on the ground that the commons had themselves adopted that practice so long ago as the 3rd of Henry VIII. The commons wore not likely to pay much regard to the practice of either house in the reign of that lawless monarch, and returned the bill to the lords without the clause, and the lords, on further reflection, passed it.

This was followed in the lords by the bill so strongly recommended by Sunderland for the abjuration of the pretended prince of Wales, in which was a clause introduced into the oath, acknowledging William rightful and lawful sovereign. There was a violent debate on the point whether this oath should be voluntary or compulsory. The earl of Nottingham strongly opposed its being compulsory, and he was supported by other lords of the tory party. They contended that the government was first settled with another oath, which had the value of an original contract, and any other oath was unnecessary; that this oath could do nothing more than that oath had done. All inclined to keep that oath had kept it, and all inclined to break it had broken it, and these would break this or any other oath. Whilst they were in debate, Sir Charles Hedges introduced a clause which made it obligatory on all persons enjoying appointments in church and state, and with an obligation to maintain the government in king, lords, and commons, and to maintain the church of England, with toleration to the dissenters. After a sharp debate it passed the commons, but only by a majority of one. In this bill it was made equally penal to compass or imagine the death of the princess of Denmark as it was the death of the king. The bill was strennously opposed in the lords, but it was carried, and Nottingham and nineteen other peers entered their protest against it. The quakers had endeavoured to get themselves exempted from the operation of the bill, but in vain. This zeal of the whigs in parliament for imposing fresh oaths did them no good, but tended to revive the unpopularity which had so lately driven them from office. Whilst these subjects were before parliament, the lords made a fresh attempt, by a bill of their own, to procure the attainder of Mary of Modena, but the commons let the bill lie.

The fatal passion for war with which the whigs had again managed to inoculate the nation, tended in some degree to swallow up the party feuds; yet the tories could not altogether forget their heartburnings of last session. They complained of petitions and addresses which had reflected on the proceedings of the commons, especially of the Kentish petition, and demanded satisfaction; but the commons rejected the motion, declaring that it was a fundamental right of the people to petition or address the king or parliament for the redress of grievances. The tories came back to the charge in the allegation that the lords, in the late motions for the impeachment of certain members of that house, had denied justice to the commons; and this served to bring back into debate all the rampant fury of the last session; and the advice of the king to avoid such divisions was apparently on the point of being forgotten, but the commons again rejected this motion, resolving that justice had not been denied. The tories, however, did not give up their attack altogether, but accused Thomas Bliss and Thomas Culpepper, two of the gentlemen concerned in the Kentish petition, of having been guilty of corrupt and scandalous practices in a contested election at Maidstone, and they succeeded so far as to obtain the condemnation of Culpepper and his committal to Newgate. They then went on and carried resolutions to the effect that whoever asserted that the house of commons was not the only representative of the people, or that the house of commons had no right to commit any but their own members, or who published any books or libels reflecting on the proceedings of the house, were guilty of subverting the rights of that house and the constitution of the kingdom. They next addressed the king, praying him to provide for the half-pay officers by employing them in the first companies raised, to which the king gave a satisfactory answer. William then went to the house of lords and gave his consent to an act appointing commissioners to examine the debts due to the army, navy, and transport service, and take an account of the prizes taken during the war.

In consequence of various petitions and addresses to the king and to the commons from individuals in Ireland, complaining of the conduct of the commissioners appointed to carry out the act of resumption of the forfeited estates, and of a circular letter which was sent to the members of the grand jury of Ireland to incite them to resist the act of resumption, the commons voted that these addresses and the charges in this circular against the commissioners were scandalous, false, and groundless. Yet, notwithstanding this resolution, they were urged by fresh petitions to examine into the causes of complaint, and they made the required inquisition, discovered the causes of remonstrance were just, and ordered them to be removed.

In Scotland the clamour against the government for its treatment of the Darien scheme still continued. The earl of Nottingham, therefore, moved that the Scottish parliament should be dissolved, and an attempt made to unite the two kingdoms, by which all causes of complaint would be