Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/221

 success was also partly due to ‘A Defence of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies and their servants (particularly those of Bengal) against the Complaints of the Dutch East India Company; being a Memorial from the English East India Company to his Majesty on that subject,’ which was drawn up by Dunning on behalf of the directors of the English company early in 1762, and afterwards published in the same year. In 1765 he established his great reputation by his celebrated arguments against the legality of general warrants in the case of Leach v. Money (, State Trials, 1813, xix. 1001–28). In 1766 he was appointed recorder of Bristol, and on 28 Jan. 1768 he became solicitor-general in the Duke of Grafton's administration, in the place of Edward Willes, who was raised to the bench. At the general election in March 1768, Dunning, through the influence of Lord Shelburne, was returned to parliament as one of the members for the borough of Calne. Though solicitor-general, he took no part in the debate on the expulsion of Wilkes from the house, and was absent from the division. On 9 Jan. 1770 Dunning both spoke in favour of and voted for the amendment to the address urging an inquiry ‘into the causes of the unhappy discontents which at present prevail in every part of his majesty's dominions’ (Parl. Hist. xvi. 726), and a few days later tendered his resignation. On 19 March he spoke on the side of the minority in the debate on the remonstrance of the city of London. No report of this speech, ‘which continued near an hour and a half,’ has been preserved, but it is said to have been ‘one of the finest pieces of argument and eloquence ever heard in the house’ (ib. 898). After considerable delay Thurlow was appointed solicitor-general on 30 March 1770. Upon Dunning's appearance on the first day of the next term in the ordinary stuff gown, Lord Mansfield announced that ‘in consideration of the office he had holden, and his high rank in business, he [Lord Mansfield] intended for the future (and thought he should thereby injure no gentleman at the bar) to call him next after the king's counsel, and serjeants, and recorder of London’ (5 Burrow's Reports, 1812, v. 2586). On 12 Oct. 1770 the freedom of the city was voted to Dunning ‘for having (when solicitor-general to his majesty) defended in parliament, on the soundest principles of law and the constitution, the right of the subject to petition and remonstrate’ (London's Roll of Fame, 1884, pp. 23–4). In the debate which took place on 25 March 1771 Dunning made an animated speech against Welbore Ellis's motion to commit Alderman Oliver to the Tower, in which he denied the right of the house to commit in such a case (Parl. Hist. xvii. 139–45). Though he did not oppose the Boston Port Bill, Dunning vehemently opposed the third reading of the bill for regulating the government of Massachusetts Bay on 2 May 1774, declaring, ‘We are now come to that fatal dilemma, “Resist, and we will cut your throats; submit, and we will tax you;” such is the reward of obedience’ (ib. 1300–2). At the general election in October 1774 he was re-elected for Calne, and continued to oppose the ministerial policy towards the American colonies to the utmost of his power, and on 6 Nov. 1776 supported Lord John Cavendish's motion for the ‘revisal of all acts of parliament by which his majesty's subjects in America think themselves aggrieved’ (ib. xviii. 1447–8). The motion was defeated by 109 to 47, but in the next session Dunning, still undaunted, continued to oppose the ministry, and was instrumental in obtaining the insertion of a clause in the bill for the suspension of the habeas corpus, which considerably lessened its scope (ib. xix. 24–6). On 14 May 1778 he seconded Sir George Savile's motion for leave to bring in a bill for the relief of the Roman catholics (ib. 1139–40), and it was upon his amendment that the house unanimously voted that a monument should be erected in Westminster Abbey to the memory of the Earl of Chatham (ib. 1225). On 21 Feb. 1780 he supported Sir George Savile's motion for ‘an account of all subsisting pensions granted by the crown’ (ib. xxi. 86–90), and on 6 April moved his famous resolutions that ‘the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished,’ and that ‘it is competent to this house to examine into and correct abuses in the expenditure of the civil list revenues, as well as in every other branch of the public revenue, whenever it shall appear expedient to the wisdom of the house so to do’ (ib. 340–8). In the teeth of Lord North's opposition, the first resolution (with a slight addition) was carried by 233 to 215, and the second agreed to without a division. But in spite of this success, when Dunning a few weeks afterwards proposed an address to the king requesting him ‘not to dissolve the parliament or to prorogue the present session until proper measures have been taken to diminish the influence and correct the other abuses complained of by the petitions of the people,’ he found himself in a minority of 51 (ib. 495–9). At the general election in September 1780 Dunning was again returned for Calne, and upon the meeting of the new parliament proposed the re-election of Sir