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 it should proceed upon adequate information. His opposition to the perpetuation of the Grenville Act, by which the jurisdiction in election petition cases was transferred from the whole house to special committees, shows that he had formed a juster estimate of the nature of the evils to be remedied than the author of that measure (25 Feb. 1774). He established his reputation as a constitutionalist by his defence of the ministerial scheme for the government of the province of Quebec (26 May 1774), by his exposition of the nature and extent of the royal prerogative of legislation in dependencies of the crown on the third hearing of the Grenada case before Lord Mansfield (7 Nov. 1774), and by his ingenious though unsuccessful defence of Lord Rochford in the action of false imprisonment brought against him by Stephen Sayre (26 June 1776). His conduct of the Duchess of Kingston's case was marred by both bad taste and cruelty [see ]; and in proposing the pillory (24 Nov. 1777) as the reward of Horne's manifesto in favour of the Lexington insurgents he undeniably displayed an excess of zeal. Throughout the dispute with the American colonies he inflexibly maintained the right of the mother country and the duty of exerting her full might. This naturally endeared him to the king, who insisted on his advancement to the woolsack on the resignation of Lord Bathurst (Corresp. of George III with Lord North, ii. 154 et seq., 167–74, 196). He was at the same time raised to the peerage as Baron Thurlow of Ashfield, Suffolk (3 June 1778). The event drew from his old friend Cowper a generous if somewhat pedestrian tribute to his ‘superior worth’ [see, (1731–1800)]. He took the oaths in Westminster Hall on 19 June, and in the House of Lords on 14 July, his first act on occupying the woolsack being to declare parliament prorogued. When parliament reassembled (26 Nov.) debate was abundant on the address, the recent treaty of alliance between France and the American confederation, and the consequent manifesto of the British commissioners. The latter document was defended by Thurlow in his usual thoroughgoing style. He also spoke on some other matters, e.g. the Keppel court-martial, the bill for which he remodelled, and the subsequent motions for a court-martial on Sir Hugh Palliser and the removal of the Earl of Sandwich from the admiralty, and was publicly taunted by the Duke of Grafton [see, third ] with his plebeian origin and the recency of his patent. In reply Thurlow haughtily contrasted his own honourable exertions with ‘the accident of an accident,’ to which he ascribed the duke's seat; and protested that he had not solicited but been solicited by the peerage, and that both as chancellor and as a man he was as respectable and as much respected as the proudest peer he then looked down upon (, Reminiscences, i. 188). After this manly vindication of his official and personal dignity he had little difficulty in establishing his ascendency over the peers. Under his guidance they turned a deaf ear to the representations addressed to them in 1779 by Lord Shelburne on the distressed and disaffected condition of Ireland and the scandalous waste of the public money, and in 1780 threw out the bills to deprive revenue officers of the parliamentary franchise and government contractors of their seats in the House of Commons which were sent up to them by the lower house. He was emphatically the king's chancellor, and as such was employed on the secret and abortive negotiations for a reconstruction of the administration which followed the resignation of Lords Gower and Weymouth in October 1779 (Corresp. of George III with Lord North, ii. 295; Egerton MS. 2232, ff. 16, 23–34). Thurlow consistently supported Sir George Savile's measures for the relief of catholics, and justified the use of the military to repress the Gordon riots (21 June 1780).

His somewhat vague and diffident utterances on the rupture with Holland, 25 Jan. 1781, did not enhance his reputation as a publicist; but he retained the confidence of the king, whose design of raising Lord George Germain to a peerage he loyally furthered [see, first ]; and when the whigs acceded to power under Lord Rockingham (March 1782), they were compelled to acquiesce in Thurlow's continuance in office (Rockingham Memoirs, ed. Albemarle, ii. 452). In their foreign policy he concurred, but supported none of their domestic measures, and energetically opposed the Contractors Bill and the revision of the civil list. Though he retained the great seal on the death of Lord Rockingham (1 July 1782), he had little to do with the formation of the Shelburne administration, the instability of which he foresaw (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. pp. 210–12). To the concession of legislative independence to Ireland he gave a reluctant consent, and took no part in the parliamentary discussion (ib. 12th Rep. App. x. 86). In the debate of 17 Feb. 1783 on the preliminary articles of peace he ably vin-