To introduce the events recorded in this work, it may be helpful to give some background information from the newspapers on the British monarchy and the political institutions of the time:
Sat 27th April 1822
Lord Waldegrave’s mid-18th century Memoirs contains an insightful word-picture of George III, as he is now known:
The Prince of Wales is 21 years old. When his allowance was small his maxim was ‘a man should be just before he is generous’. Now he is in receipt of the resources of the Heir Apparent1 his generosity has not increased in proportion.
He is a true Christian but not a charitable one, tending to focus on the ‘sins of his neighbour’. He is obstinate and although he seldom does wrong, when he does, he is strongly prejudiced in his own favour.
There is a kind of unhappiness in his character which if allowed to take root will adduce to anxiety. When he is displeased, he becomes sullen and retires to his closet, where he seems to wallow in his melancholy ill-humour. This depression often reasserts itself – it seems he can forget nothing.
He had little formal education, although the Bishop of Peterborough and M/s Stone and Scott were his tutors. He preferred to rely on his mother and on his own opinions. He is now under the instruction of the Earl of Bute. Hopefully he will progress.
George III was a ‘hands-on’ King. Where George I and II had been docile and submissive, George III had his own opinions which he argued for tenaciously. He seems to have lacked mental flexibility. He exercised power in many ways.
One was by use of the fund comprised of ‘droits’ of the Crown. Droits represented valuable property for which no ownership could be established. In George’s reign it mainly arose from British acts of war against countries with whom we were at peace – capture of the Danish fleet in Copenhagen or the Dutch fleet that the Stadtholder brought with him to England or Commander Moore’s capture of a Spanish treasure fleet. In George’s reign this fund totalled £10 - £15 millions.
A second source was as Elector Hanover which state lay across the principal trading routes (rivers) into N W Europe. This trade was facilitated and encouraged by the Elector for a fee and was protected by AngloDutch policy barring use of the Scheldt. George was the treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire and his ability to collect and disburse funds should not be under-estimated. Indeed he became treasurer to all Europe in the Napoleonic Wars. He controlled multiple votes in the Imperial assembly and his Hanoverian diplomats were said to be the most diligent and peripatetic of all the diplomatic community of Europe.
His third source of power was the one normally associated with him – as King of Britain and later the United Kingdom. This included his income from estates in West Indies and his support from his Chartered Companies. It required he pursue a dextrous course with the Lords, Bishops and the Minister to ensure the power centres adopted a convivial course of action. In the wars with France, George was fighting for the institution of monarchy – to restore the Bourbon family to the French throne and expunge the stain of democracy from the continent. In general the minister’s acts were fully in conformity with the Royal wish but the death of the Tsar Paul was an intolerable affront to his monarchical agenda – George was fighting to save Kings not remove them.2
Sat 30th July 1814
An American doctor has attributed the widespread stupidity of the Royal families of Europe to their inter-marriages.
George III’s disease also affects the Queen of Portugal. The Regent of Portugal is slow-minded. The late Kings of both Sweden and Denmark were quite mad. Charles IV of Spain was little better and his relative the King of Naples is a notorious idiot. The late King of France is remembered for his goodwill not his intellectual abilities and all the Bourbon family are alike. The last Prince of Orange is sufficiently known to our readers to need no introduction on this subject. The Austrian Emperor and the King of Prussia are both nice people but lack strength of mind.
The American doctor says such general imbecility cannot be attributed to chance and certainly not to defective education. He concludes its a disease that is spread through inter-marriages. All the Royal Families of Europe (except Russia) trace their descent from the marriage of the daughter of James I to the Elector Palatine.
Britain is about to give new expression to this deleterious effect. Charlotte, Princess of Wales, is expected to marry the young Prince of Orange next year.
Sat 18th July 1801
The Elector of Hanover is the Arch-Treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire and a descendant of the ancient family of Guelphs, the Dukes and Electors of Bavaria. One of this Bavarian family, Henry the Lion, married Maude daughter of Henry II of England in 1140. Their son William succeeded to the Estate of Brunswick Lunenberg and William’s son Otto became Duke of that estate. The fief descended in a direct lineage to Ernst who, in 1546, divided it into Brunswick Lunenberg Wolfenbuttel and Brunswick Lunenberg Zell.
It was his descendant, Ernst Augustus, the possessor of Brunswick Lunenberg Zell, who was raised to be an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire in 1662. Ernst Augustus married Sophia, the daughter of King Frederick of Bohemia and Elizabeth, daughter of James I of England. Sophia was the Protestant heir to the House of Stuart. This lineage persuaded the British parliament to fix the English crown on Sophia, once Queen Anne had passed away, at which time Sophia’s son George Louis became George I of England.
It was by this lineage that the Electors of Hanover, possessors of Brunswick Lunenberg Zell, became Kings of England. The Electorate today comprises just over 10,000 square miles and supports a population of over a million. It is divided into several petty Duchies – Lawenburgh, Lunenberg, Brunswick Zell, Calenburg (containing Bremen) and Verden which are all in the circle of Lower Saxony, and Hoyt, Diepholt and Bentheim in the Circle of Westphalia. Bremen has a larger population (28,000) than Hanover (20,000) which is the capital city. Zell (11,600), Lunenberg (11,000) and Gottingen (8,000) are the other main towns.
The Electorate supports a peacetime army of 20,000 divided into 11 regiments of cavalry, dragoons and hussars, 14 regiments of infantry, and 1 corps of engineers and artillery. There are four battalions of garrison troops and 10 battalions of provincial troops. Hanover has no navy but a large mercantile marine on the Rivers Elbe and Weser.
The annual revenue of the Electorate is about £820,000 of which £230,000 is spent in maintaining the military force and £550,000 is spent in general administration. The small surplus funds a debt which rose to £5.5 millions some years ago but which has since been substantially reduced by application of the proceeds of a poll tax on residents.
Sovereignty resides in the English Kings and is entrusted to Lords of Regency whom the Kings appoint.
Hanover is agriculturally productive. Various minerals are also produced including tar, pitch and salt. The forests provide much useful timber. Local manufactures are inadequate for demand but the excess production of cattle, horses, salt, iron and fuel are exported to fund necessary imports.
Education is well supported. There are many well-established schools and colleges, foremost of which is the University of Gottingen whereat some 60 tutors instruct about 800 students of various nationalities.
The national religion is Lutheranism but other forms of Christianity are publicly tolerated.3
Sat 30th March 1799
George III is a member of the council of the Counts of Westphalia as Lord of Sayn-Altenkirchen and Count of the three states of Hoya, Speigelberg and Diepholz.
George III personally has seven votes (out of 108) in the proceedings of the Austrian Empire. The willingness of successive British ministers to employ German mercenaries gives the House of Brunswick greater influence amongst several of the smaller states, particularly Hesse.
George III’s third source of Austrian power derives from his being one of only five secular Electors (with Bohemia, Palatinate, Saxony and Brandenburg). Finally he is an arch-Treasurer of the Empire. That gives him a loud voice in German affairs. 4
As Waldegrave noted above ‘it seems he can forget nothing’.
Sat 1st Sept 1798
When George III became incensed by Fox last season, he ask ministers what he could do to ‘rid himself of this troublesome man’ and was advised that he alone hired and fired Privy Councillors. It appears this power had been hitherto unknown to the King throughout his long reign.
Fox’s name was then struck-off the list of Privy Councillors by the King and an Advice sent to the watchman of the Chamber to exclude Fox when he turned-up for a meeting. The doorkeeper was instructed to say ‘I do not find your name on the list’ - just as North had advised Fox when he had been denied a ministry by the King in 1774.
That former act was later reversed by parliament but times change.
Having learned his power over Privy Councillors, the King continued to peruse the names of the Councillors and also struck-off the Duke of Devonshire. The Duke had opposed the policy of Lord Bute and stopped attending Council meetings.5
The Glorious Revolution evicted the Stuart dynasty and established the House of Orange as British monarchs in 1688. The Dutch relinquished British sovereignty to the Hanoverians in 1714. This brief period of Dutch sovereignty introduced political and financial development – it entrenched the Commons as the treasurers of the nation and started the process of government loans being securitised on the Royal Exchange.
The British system of political administration that evolved under Dutch influence can be glimpsed from the following reports. The first few reports reveal the loyalist position in response to French revolutionary principles:
Sat 15th June 1793
Crown and Anchor Tavern, Strand, 20th Nov 1792:
A meeting of numerous gentlemen was held, the lawyer John Reeves in the Chair, to consider the danger to peace and order in Britain posed by mischievous opinions founded on plausible but false reasoning.
Societies should be formed in all parts of the Kingdom in support of law and for suppression of sedition, in order to defend our persons and property from those opinions contained in ‘The Rights of Man’ – ‘Liberty and Equality’, ‘No King, No Parliament’ – and other similar opinions all of which are inconsistent with the well-being of our Society.
These opinions require us to voluntarily surrender our religion, our laws, our civil government and civil society and attempt something new on principles of equality under the auspices of speculative men who have conceived ideas of perfection previously unknown in the world. Missionaries of this ‘sect of perfection’ aim to overthrow the present system of government and society by raising causes of discontent with our present station. Some of these causes are wholly imaginary whilst others derive from the trade-off of living in communities.
The inequalities of rank and wealth in this country are more the result of each man’s own exertions than of a controlling institution behind the state. Men become great in this country through the talents they acquire. They become rich through perseverance. Many of our rich men began their careers in shops and counting houses. They built their careers by assiduous personal industry and began to employ others to promote the provision of their goods and services. This happy inequality, a dependence of one man on another, improved both employer and employee. More talent and industry equals more reward and more inequality. Hitherto we have thought this a peculiar feature, distinctive of our own society. It is ascribed to the protecting influence of law on property. We feel that to pull out the thread of this fabric that has been gradually woven over the years by successive generations and to submit to a new system of equality is a matter of gross folly.
In such a case, whoever rose above his neighbours by industry and talent would again create inequality. In France the result has been to expose the lives and property of all men to the arbitrary proposals of philosophers operating on the mob whom they delude and instigate with expectation of being raised in society. In France the rich have been plundered to the immediate benefit of the mob and the wealth of the country has been dispersed amongst the people. There is no longer a concentration of surplus wealth in a few hands from which to create employment by the investment of capital in factories, ships and farms. Where are the blessings of this reform?
Murder and assassination have been willingly adopted by these philosophers in furtherance of their aims. In effect the people have only changed their masters, they have not achieved equality because they do not know how to be equal. This philosophy is the idle talk of schoolboys.
We Britons every day enjoy true liberty and the abundant blessings of productive industry, protected under property laws and a free government. Honest virtue is the common route to wealth in this country. We have liberty and property, France has liberty and equality. Why should we surrender our property just to exchange it for a new name. We have as much equality as necessary without diminishing the equality of our neighbours. We still have our religion which tells us to ‘do unto others what we would have them do to us’ and this is achieved by the application of our laws.
Believing in the truth of all this, we form ourselves into an Association to discourage, by every means we can, the progress of the reformers.
Sat 30th July 1796
House of Commons, 26th Nov – A debate was held today on Justice John Reeves’ pamphlet ‘Thoughts on the English Government’ which is said by the opposition Whigs to libel the Constitution:
Reeves is described as the Chairman of all the political societies that the ministry supports. He is a JP. The costs of all his publications are paid by government. The instant pamphlet says that all liberty depends on the King; the rule of law depends on the King. The events of 1688 were a chimera; they were not a real Revolution - the involved dissenters were the enemies of the King. All Whigs are either bribed by the King or are threatening Him through the Seditious Societies. They all meditate the King’s removal. He says that the Houses of Commons and Lords might easily be closed and the King would still govern well. His Majesty makes law and executes it. The Reformation accords with French principles. Those dissenters should have been annihilated, he says.
Sheridan categorised the pamphlet as libellous. The charges against Dr Sacheverall had established the nature of events in 1688 (Sacheverall was convicted and prevented from writing for two years). It was that Revolution that seated the Hanoverians on the throne. He thought the pamphlet was published merely to strengthen the hand of the Crown.
He mentioned another pamphlet ‘The example of France, a warning to Britain’ by Arthur Young as example. (Young is the Secretary of the Agriculture Board – a position annually elected - and thereby a government pensioner). Young’s pamphlet was commended by Reeves to members of all his Societies.
Young holds that the House of Commons is corrupt and bribery is essential to its continuance while Reeves would abandon the whole Constitution and make Parliament and Jurymen subservient to the King. It is true the King makes peers and the minister pays them but Young adds that the representatives in the Commons are not actually representative. He says the House of Commons is a creation of the King and is not responsible to the people. Corruption is the oil that makes parliament work.
Secretary Young formerly promoted parliamentary reform but was now paid by the minister. He decries rotten boroughs, corrupt representatives and selfish ministers. He says the ministerial system is extravagant and the Courts are prodigal - do away with them. The Constitution comes from the King; the nobility is created by the King and these two are the father and mother of the people. No notice need be taken of this pamphleteer were it not that he is in the pay of Pitt and his Societies, he said.
Sheridan noted that the accumulation of private wealth in England had never been so great but the capitalists exhibited neither public spirit nor virtue and this was the cause of the corrupt state of the nation. If England should fall it would not be the result of a want of funds but a want of national spirit and an indifference to public corruption. He concluded that the facts surrounding Sacheverall’s case were the proper guide for parliamentary action in this case.
The Solicitor General and Attorney General both declined to comment, supposing that they might become professionally involved later.
Erskine said the instant pamphlet was quite different to Stockdale’s book (on which the House had approved prosecution).6 This was not an attack on the House of Commons or its individual members but against its existence. He thought it required the House to act.
Windham, for the ministry, thought the book harmless. Its all a matter of intention. He did not know the author but he recalled the democrats had been found innocent by the Judge although thought guilty by the people (due to the legal difficulty of establishing a suspect’s intentions). He thought it had not been written with criminal intent - there might be errors of judgment, that’s all. The legal significance of 1688 was obscure. He disbelieved the popular supposition that the King held office by the choice of the people. That opinion would be a better subject for prosecution than these pamphlets, he thought.
Pitt thought the pamphleteer guilty. The Constitution allows a mixed monarchy. No King could now rule England alone.
Wilberforce said the House should at least disapprove the book.
Hardinge said he thought the book was a gross libel on the House but not on the Constitution.
Fox thought the intention of the book was to bring both Houses into contempt and to set up the King alone as an alternative form of government. He suspected the Secretary at War Windham of partiality to the principles advocated in the book.
It was agreed to identify the author conclusively and question him at the bar of the House.
Sat 6th August 1796
Reeves’ ‘Thoughts on the English Government’ has been examined by a Select Committee of the House. Wm Augustus Miles said he read the pamphlet and first drew Pitt’s attention to it (Pitt said he had not had time to read it). Miles was sure Reeves was the author. He wrote Reeves that ‘it was more prejudicial to government than all the works of Thewell and that group. Thomas Wright, the owner of the concerned printing house, declined to identify his client on the grounds that its bad for business. He agreed that a correction in the pamphlet’s wording had been made by Reeves. Jones, who is Wright’s proof-reader, confirmed Reeves was the author.
Reeves is John Reeves, Chairman of The Association for Protecting the Liberty and Property of Subjects against Republicans and Levellers and several other political associations. The Select Committee report has characterised the pamphlet as a seditious libel and a breach of the privileges of the House.
Before the examination of Reeves commenced, Owen MP was accused of not surrendering Reeves to due process. He agreed the function of Reeves’ Societies was to bring the Lords and Commons into contempt and to raise the King as the sole government of England. Reeves asserted the protection of liberty and property, an alluring prospect, but actually promoted a change of government. He thought Reeves dangerous on two grounds – first he had this ability to circulate opinions and secondly he had the ear of both the Secretary and the Solicitor of the Treasury.7 The seditious tendency of the pamphlet was apparent from a single sentence – ‘…. corrupt Courts, rotten boroughs and the corruption of ministers increased in proportion to their Power, as they had always more to sell and less to buy.’ The pamphlet could be the ‘opening shot’ in an initiative to establish a military despotism in these islands, he thought.
Sheridan said he had papers in his possession proving a connection between Reeves’ Society and the State trials.8 He noted Reeves was a JP and held magisterial Powers. Suppose a public meeting was to be held under the proposed new law and the application for a permit made to Reeves (whom Windham had eulogised in a former session) or someone like him. It was people like Reeves who procured the recent sedition trials. In 1792 it had been Reeves who raised the alarm through his many Associations, and convinced the Duke of Richmond to reinforce the Tower. It appeared to be Reeves who initiated the alarm of ministers and caused the oppressive legislation that ensued. Many people had been imprisoned for long periods without trial. Others had been gaoled or transported. It now appears that this has all been caused by the one man Reeves.
Sheridan wanted him prosecuted. He requested the hangman perform a public burning of the book; he also called for an Address to the King to remove Reeves from state employment and he wanted Reeves brought to the bar of the House to be reprimanded rather than gaoled.
Bombay Courier Editor – the rest of the newspaper report on this debate is unavailable.
Sat 1st June 1793
Bombay Courier Editorial - Monarchy is always preferable. A Republic merely exchanges the One Man for a band of demagogues sharing a single defining characteristic – ambition. Republics destroy union and perpetuate disagreements in the cabinet and between the parties until someone rises from the wreck of government to seize total control. After years of misery, the people find themselves back where they started.9
Sat 12th Oct 1793
Sermon at the Abbey Church, Westminster, 30th Jan 1793:10
Every monarchy is a contract between the King and the people. The contractual terms are in the Coronation Oath. In this country, it is further developed legislatively in the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act, the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement.
Parliament holds both King and people accountable for their agreement to these Constitutional provisions.
There is no doctrine in our country that says ‘the King is the servant of the people’ or that ‘the people have a right to dismiss the King for misconduct’. These seditious maxims are the principles of revolution. In fact the King is prevented from misconduct by two devices - sharing legislative authority with the two Houses of Parliament and by the responsibility with which he must treat the advice of ministers.
The aristocrats and the representatives of the people who sit in the two Houses insert themselves between the King and their constituents and assure that agreed measures balance the interests of all parties.
The private citizen has two channels of action – he can elect whom he prefers and he can petition parliament, direct or through his representative, for redress of any grievance. This later provision prevents excessive use of the Royal prerogative and assures two further things – that the King can do no wrong and the citizen’s liberty if inviolable. This is how the British Constitution works.
By way of comparison, the Bishop then catalogued atrocities in France, past and present ……
Sat 4th Sept 1802
Parliament is using the peace of Amiens to involve itself in settling the claim of George, Prince of Wales, to the income of the Stannaries (the tin-mines of Cornwall). It has been withheld from the Prince Royal all his life but previously formed part of the Heir Apparent’s income. Manners-Sutton has asked the House of Commons to resume paying the Cornish revenues to the Prince of Wales:
The King’s heir George, Prince of Wales, should have received an income from the Duchy of Cornwall. His title to it derives from a Grant of Edward III to his son, the Black Prince, to maintain that Prince in the dignity that was his due. At that time, Cornwall was the most productive of all the King’s dominions.
Prince George has only received a part of that income. He is due a part from birth to his coming of age and another larger part from then until 5th June 1795.
George III has been managing the revenues of Cornwall all along. He was entitled to do so until the Prince attained maturity but has continued to do so ever since. None of the Cornish revenues are said to have been received by the King (Pitt says the money is in the Treasury).
The Black Prince had it for 40 years; His son, Richard, had it; Henry IV gave it to his eldest son and in Henry VI’s reign an Act of Parliament was passed granting part of the revenue to the eldest son, then 10 years old, and the residue to the Royal Household. In 1459 a petition was presented by the then Prince of Wales asserting his right to all the Cornish revenue. Then in 1472 Edward IV granted them in their entirety to his eldest son under a patent that fully expressed the Prince’s rights and was ratified by House of Lords and House of Commons. Arthur was born in 1486 and got it from birth. Henry VIII got it as soon as Arthur died. His son Edward VI got it too but he and the subsequent reigns of Mary and Elizabeth produced no heir and consequently had no Duke of Cornwall.
It was James I who first sought to alter the historical arrangements. He wanted the revenue for himself but ultimately was persuaded to give it to his son Henry. When Henry died young it might have passed to his younger brother the then Duke of York but James I argued that he was not filius primogenitus and thus unqualified to receive it. The King’s opinion was judicially considered and the decision went against him.
When the House of Brunswick assumed the British throne, George I’s son and successor was 30 years old and he started to receive it. When he became King, Frederick was under age and no right was passed to him but he received an account of the sums due from the period of his notional right (until he came of age). In 1760 George III ascended the throne (who as a grandson had never had the benefit of the Cornish revenues) and in 1762 his son George was born Duke of Cornwall and was entitled to the revenue. His right was recognised by Act of Parliament when he was 6 years old (a 1768 Act permitting the King to grant leases in Cornwall during the Prince’s minority). Accordingly, the Prince’s title to the revenues may be established at law. Since 1768, all the profits of the Duchy have been paid into the Public revenue except for two sums of £12,000 and £16,000. The Prince wants parliament to consider this matter because the public is commenting unfavourably on his debts and he wishes it understood why he has difficulty making ends meet.
Manners-Sutton proposed a Select Committee should consider the matter and rule on the amounts due to the Prince. The Prince is willing to allow parliament to settle this matter and record the amounts due to his creditors in an Act of Parliament that will distribute the fund.
Mr Fuller said that in 1692 when Humphrey Morris, a member of the Commons, was appointed Warden of the Stannaries, the House of Commons considered whether his appointment required him to vacate his seat in House of Commons. They concluded it did not because Cornwall revenue was the property of the Prince of Wales not the King so there was no conflict of interest.
Pitt said Fuller’s advice did not settle the matter because members accepting offices under the Duchy of Lancaster, which revenues belong to the King, did not resign their seats either. Pitt thought the Prince was not entitled to the revenue from his birth although he might have a historical right to it. He objected to a Committee asserting the right to both enquire and to appropriate revenues - its unprecedented. Manners-Sutton’s review left out two centuries of important developments during which parliament was empowered by the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement. Prior to those Constitutional enactments there were all sorts of peculiar activities but since then the Cornish revenues were clearly a matter for parliament. Pitt said he had traced £94,000 paid out of the Cornish revenue during Prince George’s minority by warrants of the Lord of the Treasury and this sum was applied to the Civil List for Special Services (a slush fund). He calculated the Prince had received £128,420 in his minority from the Civil List and extraordinaries of £50,552 during 12 years. The balance of the Cornish revenues due to him was a considerable sum but he himself could find no trace of parliamentary approval for payments of the revenue to the Prince (as is required under the Constitution since the House of Brunswick assumed the Crown). On the other hand the Prince’s allowances had manifestly been inadequate and should be increased.11
Another MP noted that when this House passed a Bill in 1795 appointing Commissioners to superintend the liquidation of the Prince’s debts, it did not include the recovery of his receipts from Cornwall. It was then considered to be a matter of law for the Courts below. It was supposed that if the Prince had a claim of right, the money was his, if not, he should get nothing. The King took the revenues during the Prince’s minority. He asked ‘are we now to call the King to account to a Committee of this House for his expenditure’? The House of Commons should not become a collection agency. Its a property dispute and should go to the Courts. We may then have the King contending with his son in a public court but we should not get involved.
Fox said the committee to be appointed was merely to determine a matter of fact i.e. who spent the Cornish revenues, the King or the Treasury? As for the Prince’s right to the revenue there was no question. If we wish to be non-contentious, we might simply calculate the revenues of Cornwall during the Prince’s minority and consider how it is to be paid. If the King declined to be accountable (as is his prerogative), it was clearly a matter for legislative intervention. The Constitutional separation of judicial and legislative authority was important but it should not cause manifest miscarriages of justice.
Its not good enough to tell the Prince that his money has been received but the King does not have to answer for it. If the Treasury had the money and has not spent it, the Prince should be repaid. We should not be playing this game of requiring him to find it without telling him what we have done with it. The Prince has applied to parliament for help and Pitt tells him to ‘go away’. The King says he funded the Prince’s childhood, his board and lodging and education, which should be deducted from the Cornish revenues, and, once they are, he says there is little left. That’s nonsense. He provided the same funding for the Duke of York (George III’s 2nd son) who has the revenues of the Bishopric of Osnaburg from which British Estates have been bought for him. If the King could act correctly to his second son, why not to the first?
Fox thought there were three courses of action open to House of Commons – if a majority think the Prince has the right, he should be paid; if a majority are uncertain, we should investigate; if a majority think he does not have the right, we should give him our reasons.
Hawkesbury said the King received the money and he should account for it.
Sheridan said it was embarrassing to the Prince. Government officials had been settling his creditors with deals that tax-off 10% of the debt for instant payment ‘take it or leave it’. Pitt said the creditors were offered interest payments on their debts whilst the matter was being examined but most had wanted cash and had accepted the offer of 90% full and final.
The House then voted on Manners-Sutton’s motion 160/103 and it was rejected.
The King-in-Council subsequently referred the matter to the Court of Chancery for a decision. The Lord Chancellor responded by calling a meeting of the twelve Chancery judges to decide what to do. The resolution of this claim is expected to require many private meetings and consultations.
Sat 11th Sept 1802
The Prince of Wales, on being rebuffed by the House of Commons in his claim on the Cornish revenues, took his claim on the King to the Court of Chancery as recommended. The proceedings are not published but he is rumoured to have succeeded.
Sat 16th April 1803
The Lord Chancellor has concluded his equitable examination of the claim of the Prince of Wales to the Cornish revenues and concluded it is merited. The debt is however irrecoverable from the King and must be paid by the people.
Sat 18th June 1803
The King has asked the Commons to finance the lifestyle of the Prince of Wales.
Sat 16th July 1803
The Commons have continued to consider the Prince of Wales’ debts which the King recently required them to fund. Since the Act of 1795 the Prince has been living quietly. The government has paid-off £568,895 of his debts and a balance of £235,754 is yet to be paid. It should be fully settled by 1806.
The Lord Chancellor had a trial of the issue and adjudged the Prince’s claims on the Cornish revenues to be enforceable. He cannot submit a Petition of Right to the King himself, only a Secretary of State can do that, but he can advise the Secretary to do so and it has since been done. That was what elicited the King’s request to the Commons.
Sat 21st April 1804
A long correspondence between Addington, the Prince of Wales and Duke of York is published concerning a military role for the Prince Royal.
The King treats the Prince of Wales as a rival. He will assume the throne when George III dies. The King cares more for his second son, the Duke of York, and has given him the Bishopric of Osnaburg (not worth anything just now but usually paying several thousand pounds a year) but he not only gives no support to the Prince of Wales but has retained his Cornish revenues to keep him poor.
He seems to see the Prince of Wales as a threat to his reign, perhaps due to the Prince’s friendship with Fox who is his one real enemy in parliament and would end monarchy tomorrow if he could. The Prince of Wales is the only man in England who cannot get the King’s permission to join the militia or army.
Plowden’s History of Ireland notes that after the Irish insurrection at end of 18th century, when the British government was persuaded to adopt a conciliatory policy towards the Irish, the Prince of Wales offered to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, where he is the most popular of the English Royals, and to take Lord Moira with him as CiC. Plowden discovered no less than 14 precedents of Royal Princes being Lords Lieutenant of Ireland in the previous 300 years. It was refused by the King who has no intention of letting the Prince of Wales obtain any distinction or achievement on which he might build a following.
Sat 1st June 1805
Edinburgh, 15th Nov – The King’s Friends have been able to exclude the Earl of Lauderdale, a liberal Whig, from the Scottish representatives in House of Lords. They supported the Earl of Kellier who got in by 32/20 votes. Lords Kinnaird and Semple supported Lauderdale. Had the English peers not voted, the decision of the Scottish contingent was in Lauderdale’s favour.
Lauderdale protested in favour of the independence of Scottish peers. The Earl of Morton reminded Lauderdale that the House of Lords had voted themselves the right to influence the election of peers in Scotland and Ireland.
Sat 15th July 1820
London newspapers, 13th March 1820 - It appears the ministerial negotiation with the Royal Family is concluded and a new agreement for shared power reached. The result is that the Civil List is to be increased by £500,000 a year.
Tierney and other liberal Whigs have been predicting that the impoverished state of the country guarantees that the Civil List would continue to shrink. This increase will be an unpleasant surprise to them and would have made the matter a keen issue in the elections had it been disclosed earlier.
When James II abdicated, the King’s hereditary revenues became known publicly. On the accession of William III that King was allowed a Civil List. It appears the parliamentary intention was to retain the hereditary revenues of the Stuarts for the people and pay a fixed sum for the maintenance of the Crown.
The House of Brunswick has little connection with either the Stuarts or the House of Orange. It would seem difficult for them to claim hereditary revenues from this country. Even if the Brunswick family can establish a claim, it must involve the liabilities that the Stuarts were exposed to including the expense of maintaining both the army and navy.
Actually the income of the Royal Family is considered to have become a Constitutional assignment of the people. It is not to be compared with, for example, the Estate of the Duke of Devonshire. It is the quid pro quo for good government. In his Address to Parliament on 27th April 1820 the then Privy Council required George IV to specifically declare his agreement to the ministry disposing of his interest in the hereditary revenues.
Sat 28th Oct 1820
House of Commons, 5th May - Brougham has told the House that an English King may have no property. The matter of personal ownership of possessions was settled when the Baron holding the Duchy of Lancaster became King of England. On that occasion his Duchy lands and property became Jura Corona.
Even treasure cannot be owned by a King. When one of the Kings Edward sought to dispose of naval stores to the Earl of Devonshire, the transfer was adjudicated and was held incapable of performance under the King’s sign manual. The jurist Lord Coke held the decision to be correct. Later James I gifted some prize ships to Lord Ashley under the sign manual and was likewise criticised by Lord Clarendon who held that the law required such type of transfer to be done under a warrant of the Great or Privy Seal, the same as grants from the Exchequer.
Such was the uniform opinion of the law in English history until the ministry of William Pitt.
In 1795 an Act of Parliament was passed permitting George III to hold, buy and sell private property. It was extended to include copyhold land and permitted the King to become the copyhold tenant of one of his subjects. Brougham thought this had diminished the dignity of the King and should now be amended.
Brougham said he was not proposing to relieve the Monarchy of the revenues it had accumulated in the intervening years, without offering something in return. He wished it recollected by the House that whenever hereditary revenues and droits had been given to a Monarch, it was solely to enable Him to support the costs of the state. In consideration of this intention, shipping wrecks upon the coasts of England belonged to the Crown because the King used the proceeds to provide a coastguard against piracy. It is the same with the other droits – they are all supposedly applied to some national purpose.
For a long time the King has had no responsibility to fund any national efforts but the droits continue to accumulate for his account. During George III’s reign they were worth £13.7 millions.
It was not just the Crown that retained a revenue that was not due to it. The Anglican Church was permitted to charge tithes that were expressly to be applied to the maintenance of the poor. However, by a series of prior Acts (passed in the reigns of Henry, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth), the Church was largely relieved of its obligation to the poor and only a portion of the tithe income was subsequently spent that way.
Brougham proposed that the King’s droits should be treated like the Church’s tithes. He noted that the salaries of the Bourbon King of France, the Stadtholder of Holland and the American President were all fixed and published but no-one knew the income of the British King. In Thomas Paine’s book, the King of England is said to have an income of £800,000+ a year for a pleasant duty, and Paine typically added that he could find a good many people who would accept the job at £500 all in.
Brougham had asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to answer Paine’s assertion but had failed to obtain his agreement so he was raising the matter before the House himself.
The preamble to the Civil List usually says the £900,000 annual grant is for the costs of the Royal Household and to support the honour and dignity of the Crown. Officers on our Foreign Service, the Judiciary, the Board of Treasury, etc., receive their incomes from the Civil List Revenue and not from the King. It is suggested by the ministry that any inquiry into the King’s income would of itself impugn the dignity of the Crown. Previously there was no problem, now there is a problem. What has changed?
What is very apparent from a casual glance at the Civil List accounts for 1814 that have just become available is that the entire subject is engulfed in a fog of obscurity. It arises from the complex way used to classify Royal expenditure. All that can be said is that some Royals get their income from the Civil List and others from the Consolidated Fund; how much those incomes are is incalculable.
Looking down the Civil List one finds all sorts of people accompanying the King – the Rector of St Bodolphs, the Church Wardens, a school teacher, a mayor, a French minister, a lay corporation, the Astronomer Royal, the Master of the Horse and the Master of Ceremonies, etc.
During George III’s reign there were six alterations to the way the Civil List is operated and eight parliamentary interventions to pay debts on the List. This revealed that granting a lifetime income would be a waste of time. We should proceed on a more regular basis so the amount could be varied to suit the circumstances.
Payments to ambassadors, Secretaries of State, Treasury officials, Judges, the Speaker and similar officers might readily be separated from the rest of the List and regularised.
The section of the account for ‘contingencies’ was inscrutable. Some attempt should be made to estimate contingencies. They should be voted by parliament in the same way the military expenses called ‘extraordinaries’ are voted. The whole subject needs examination and review.
Returning to the matter of ‘droits’, which all disappeared into the murky depths of the Civil List, they represent a fund that, for consistency, should be controlled by parliament. Its not a question of abuse or suspicion of abuse but rather of transparency and Constitutional right.
There are many types of droits, although the predominant one involves prize money of the navy and (somewhat) the army. In 1807 a lunatic died and, being legally incompetent, his Estate of £137,000 fell to the Crown as a droit. In 1808 an estate of £49,000 and in 1809 another of £62,000 both came to the Crown as no heir could be identified in either case. This was windfall income over which House of Commons had no control – it might have been used in all sorts of ways that parliament would reprobate.
But the overwhelming balance of droits was due to prizes – the Dutch fleet in 1803 produced £1,030,000 and the Spanish treasure fleet £2.2 millions. After the Peace of Amiens we seized and sold all French shipping in British ports without declaring war. Those droits went to the Crown. Our seizures caused the detention of all British nationals then in France, maintenance of whom fell to parliament.
The only reason these droits went to the Crown and not to the captors was because Britain was not at war with the Netherlands or Spain or France at the time we took their property. In 1806 George III in his Address from the Throne remitted £1 million of this droit income to the people and we thanked him for it. It was the first occasion since the Revolution that a King had offered money to parliament and we should have been more attentive. In a constitutional monarchy, parliament funds the King and not vice versa.
One of the major recipients of benefit from the droit income was Sir Home Popham who did some peculiar things in South America and elsewhere which the minister of the day did not permit to be debated in this House. Accordingly Popham got his pay-off in several payments from the Civil List. That better than anything illustrates the type of payment that the Civil List might be applied to - a slush fund for official bribery.
There is also the 4½% duty on West Indian goods that goes to the Civil List for the Crown. This fund is charged with £700,000 a year and does not appear to belong to the country at all.
On an earlier occasion Charles II took the Dutch fleet at Smyrna without declaring war and as a result British forces were overwhelmed and we had to sue for a humiliating peace. These acts during peacetime can go wrong yet we seem to find them irresistible. It is these piratical British acts of war that make our neighbours anxious and fearful.
We are now at the beginning of a new reign. This is the time to reassert parliamentary supremacy by jealously controlling all available public funds. And Brougham moved for agreement to consider the Civil List, the droits and the 4½% West Indian duty together.
Canning said the 4½% duty was granted to the Leeward Islands to pay-off some quit-rents and meet some local expenditure. From the outset the income from this duty was used to fund pensions and had continued through four reigns. Chatham and Burke were both paid from the 4½% duty income. It is obviously not a slush fund, he said.
In George III’s reign £9.7 million was paid into the Civil List in respect of prizes and £4.3 million was paid out to captors and their legal advisers. The rest was spent subventing all those pensions payable from the 4½% duty (inter alia Nelson, St Vincent and Wellington), to individual members of the Royal Family and for the costs of entertainment of foreign princes, all of which expenditure had been known to parliament.
Canning said it is absurd to infer, as Brougham has done, that ministers are willing to go to war merely for personal financial gain. The Crown has managed the fund sensibly and there is no reason to transfer control to parliament. Britain is not like America - the King is a power centre in his own right. He selects his Minister, he controls the Church, receives the loyalty of the armed forces and has the loudest voice in Judicial appointments. He holds many reins on daily life.
Brougham explained. He had not thought ministers would go to war to obtain droits but that, when they ordered the commission of warlike acts without declaring war, they inevitably obtained them.
Sir James MacIntosh categorised Canning’s information as fallacious. The Civil List is one of the last relics of feudalism which we have been dismantling piecemeal since Magna Charta. Foreigners complain when we go to war on them without declaring ourselves. They look at the result and conclude we do it for the money. How do we answer them? Now Europe is at peace, we should take the chance to settle this matter not just for ourselves but to alleviate international concern. It is also a reasonable parliamentary intention to give the King a regular income, one that is not subject to fluctuations acquired through means of doubtful justice. Piratical income diminishes the dignity of the King more than enquiring into his financial sources.
The Danish droits were worth not £1 million as Brougham supposes but £2 millions and the British mercantile community at Copenhagen was injured by that action and later claimed for £200,000 compensation for lost business. They asked to be paid from the droits fund and were refused although the claimants in the Spanish treasure case had been settled in that way.12 Clearly there is a substantial part of the British mercantile community in Copenhagen who would disagree with Canning.
George III closely guarded this fund and brooked no interference in it. £300,000 a year of Royal Family expenditure is paid through the Consolidated Fund because we could not get the King’s agreement to use the Civil List. A succession of Ministers have bartered the Constitution for royal favours. Parliament should make a start on going through all the miscellaneous payments and reduce the obfuscation that surrounds the Civil List. The fact to keep in mind is that the Civil List contains funds that can be disbursed by King or Minister without informing parliament. That has to stop.
Tierney said the King had made no sacrifice although the people had paid everything they could pay and more. Here in the Civil List we have a great source of unaccountable wealth to mitigate the distress of the nation.
Vansittart said the acts that comprised droits had not invariably caused war, and he adduced the example of the occasion when we impounded the Russian ships in 1801. He thought that act probably averted war, and relations later improved, after which we gave the ships back.
Sir J Yorke asked if the officer who had conducted the souchong and congou expeditions (Amherst’s embassy to Peking) was rewarded with a pension from the 4½% West Indian duty but received no ministerial answer.
Sat 3rd August 1793
Mitford MP has reminded the Commons of the Constitutional duties of an Englishman:
Englishmen do not assume the role of their parliamentary representatives. The Revolutionary Society of Norwich prefers a majority of the people to express the national will. In England we do that by Act of Parliament. If we have a grievance, we petition for redress. Mr Tom Paine treats this proceeding with contempt but it serves us.
In France they speak of liberty and equality but these two things are politically incompatible. Where equality is established, liberty is curtailed and vice versa. Society can only be hierarchical, Mitford said.
Sat 14th September 1793
London news – The Scots have eulogised our political administration:
Dr Johnson laid it down that abundance is based on liberty and property. The man who, by economy and labour, acquires wealth is protected in his enjoyment of it by law. His wealth gives him power over those who remain poor. He hires them to do his bidding. This concentration of wealth in fewer hands permits the construction of factories, buildings and ships which increase prosperity. Liberty and property are the legs of the British system.
The French speak of liberty and equality. We have liberty in England subject to law designed to preserve the natural rights of each man. Equality is a mysterious thing. Common men suppose it to mean equal power, equal conditions and equal prosperity. If this were actually realised, it would destroy our society for it would require the rewards of industry to be equally shared amongst those who produced the rewards and those who did not. It would be a burden on the industrious man.
Government founded on the principle of force is tyranny, wherever the power is lodged. What feature of British life is there that requires the interference of our people in the administration of this country?
Are we overburdened with taxes? If tax is reasonable it should be paid. Government must be maintained. A failure of government credit would affect us all. The wages of hirelings are proportionate to the wealth of the country. As the country gets richer, wages go up.13
The workers assert that abuses are common. If so, it is the duty of the Legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary for the happiness of the people. The progress of our system requires the law to be constantly updated to address popular needs.
The personal services of vassals was abolished by George I. Ward-holdings and hereditable jurisdictions were abolished by George II. Thus the power of the aristocracy was curtailed in Scotland.14 In the present reign we have witnessed the restitution of forfeited families, the emancipation of colliers and salters, the exclusion of revenue officers from elections, the abandonment of police boards and many encouragements to arts, navigation, commerce and manufacture. In the past Judges were made independent, leases of land were registered and tenant’s interests protected, public registers were introduced, schools endowed and liberal sentiments promoted. This is genuine liberty. These wholesome developments were produced spontaneously by parliament. We may expect more of the same.
But men who seek to overawe and confront the legislature must establish that their cause is just. Some of them have bound themselves by Oaths, like the Cataline conspirators. The impropriety of this act should make us indignant.
Regarding the liberty of the press, it has in recent years overleapt its ancient boundaries and has audaciously attacked law, government, even religion. The liberty to speak freely has received little check from the law.
There are complaints about elections. If the rights of voting in counties and the Constitutions of ancient boroughs are both reformed, we hope that justice between one man and another will be preserved under law, that a multiplication of law suits will be avoided and that the morals of the lower classes will be kept free of corruption.
We owe it to those of our ancestors, who gave their blood and treasure in defence of the liberties we now enjoy, to examine every speculative plan for reform so that we may bequeath to our descendants the invaluable rights that we possess and which they ought to inherit.15
Sat 1st Mar 1794
Burke on Equality and Party (a criticism of Fox):
“There are two types of men in England, those with money and those hoping to acquire it. The limited extent of education of the lower classes meant that an aspirant to wealth might employ his labour to obtain it or resort to robbery. The main obstacle to robbery as a profession is the attitude of religion and the law, but in a system that espouses the Sovereignty of the People and equality between all citizens, the religious and legal obstacles are removed.
“It is impossible to extend political power to the lower classes because their ignorance makes them incompetent at using it. The term ‘the people’ must refer to the whole population, including the lower classes. If there is a difference between classes it is education.”
Burke is concerned by the arbitrary disposition of the leaders of parties. They hold that Kings might be discarded at the will of the people but refuse to apply the same criterion to themselves. The party leader fetters his adherents and combats opinion with force.
Burke distinguished parties from factions. Party is a concurrence of men in a laudable and honest cause having a just end in view; factions are indifferent to ends and merely concerned to answer their immediate purpose, right or wrong.
In spite of overwhelming support for the King in the Lords, Commons, army and navy, church and the great Chartered Companies, a feature of this period was the increasingly critical voice of the people. This is the shape of their representation:
Sat 24th June 1820
Bells’ Weekly Messenger, 13th March - The House of Commons contains the following representatives:
40 English counties return 80 Knights of the Shire;
25 cities return 50 citizens;
167 Boroughs return 334 Burgesses;
5 Boroughs (Abingdon, Bunbury, Bewdley, Higham Ferrars and Monmouth) return only one burgess each;
Oxford & Cambridge Universities return 4 members;
8 Cinque ports return 16 Barons.
Wales returns 24 MPs,
Scotland 45 (and 16 representative Peers to the House of Lords) and
Ireland 100 MPs
making a grand total of 658 MPs.
Throughout the wars with France the British people were taxed to the hilt – Talleyrand’s calculation, which appears in the text below, revealed British tax was 5-6 times the level of tax paid by Americans and Frenchmen. The condition of their lives was irrelevant to the political leadership in London which saw them as a source of soldiers, sailors and revenue. Here is the dissident liberal Whig Sir Francis Burdett on the subject:
Sat 2nd Sept 1809
Sir Francis Burdett has addressed the electors of Westminster on 30th March about recent scandals. He wondered why, after several committees of enquiry, none of the peculating officials had been brought before a Judge (loud applause).16
He said detecting offenders and passing supposedly remedial Bills was not enough, they should be punished to deter the others. Burdett recalled that Lord Melville (Dundas) had himself brought-in a Bill to deter corruption in his office at the Admiralty and had later been found to be venal but the ingenious drafting of his Bill made conviction impossible.
He noted that the Constitution forbad standing armies in peace time – it was one of the main charges against James II - but the MPs had become so tame they permitted ministers even that in 1803. He thought Bills were useless.
He noted Magna Charta required that no man be imprisoned except by due process of law. Today the prisons are full of people who have been incarcerated by the Attorney General. A few years ago the young le Maitre, a youth of 17 years, was sent to ‘solitary confinement’ for seven years without being brought to trial. He was accused of intending the death of the King with a reed.17
Burdett lamented the continuous extensions of the Bill suspending Habeas Corpus which passed without discussion as the expiry date of the previous enactment approached. He thought it was high time the House of Commons recalled it was the House of Commons, the representatives of the people, and not predators dependent on the favours of the King (loud applause).
Our rulers have become farmers. They are concerned to increase their estates and the production of them. They might better spend their time in rescuing the English people from oppression. We have tax-gatherers swarming over the country; we have Judges in London sending people to solitary confinement. The day this despicable award (solitary confinement) first arose in the judicial mind should stand accursed in the calendar, he said.
When Col Wardle made his motion in this House against sale of army commissions, he was accused of involvement in an unpatriotic conspiracy, a friend of France and an enemy of England. That is the constant response of the ministry to criticism - every revelation is instantly reflected back against the whistle-blower. The great mass of evidence incriminating the Duke of York was overlooked and the unevidenced possibility of Wardle being a conspirator was assumed, asserted and investigated. These are the things that clearly reveal what is going on in the ministry. Everything is abuse of power.
Abuse of power can be prevented only by an honest and alert House of Commons. We seek it out and correct it.
I see our national administration as a partnership. The three partners are King, Lords and Commons. What would you say if one or two partners monopolised all the profit of the firm, leaving the costs and risks to the third? That is the present condition of England. We should demand to be restored to our share (loud applause). You people do not expect improvement from a change in administration (no, no – all the same). We cannot tolerate factions any longer. We must take our proper share of the Constitution of this country. National administration must be subordinated to the peoples’ representatives.
Whitbread also spoke, taking for his topic the ease with which successive administrations had duped the public on important issues. He cited the use of ‘No Popery’ a few years ago to deny the Irish their religion – a call that was echoed from pulpits and hustings and government newspapers until the people supposed there was a real danger of Papal influence affecting the country.
Even if the people elect candidates concerned for their welfare, still they are outnumbered by MPs who are in parliament for the money and/or influence.
Sat 9th Sept 1809
In the developing debate over parliamentary reform, Burdett (one of the MPs for Westminster) has noted that Lord Chatham (Pitt the Elder) spoke darkly of ‘something behind the throne that was greater than the throne itself’.
Burdett says Chatham was cautiously referring to the King’s Friends, a group of Lords, Bishops and MPs, whose reliance on the King’s patronage assures their votes in his favour.18
Sat 13th Jan 1798
Fox has given his opinion, in seconding a motion of Charles Grey, on the reform of elections:
People paying ‘Scot and Lot’ (householders) are the appropriate people to have the franchise. I deprecate universal franchise – it prevents the deliberative voice being heard. One does not augment the deliberative body of the people by counting all the heads. You merely confer the numbers on the people without the necessary deliberative content supporting their views.
The best plan of representation is the one that brings forth the greatest number of independent thinkers. I should prefer to grant the franchise to women than to the population at large. Their mental powers, acquirements, discrimination and talents are as ours. Their interests are as dear to them as ours. Superior women are more capable of discharging the responsibility of the vote than the uninformed men who cry for universal suffrage. It is the Law of Nations, and perhaps the Law of Nature, that assures they are not empowered.
Our concern is to increase the numbers of independent voices. This does not require voting soldiers or servants. The perfect representation includes independent thinkers and excludes mindless dependents.
If we enfranchise each of the householders in the country it will produce some 600,000 voters and give every MP a constituency of about 1,500. That is enough to diminish bribery at elections to a tolerable level. A second means of enforcing honesty on MPs would be shortening the length of each parliament.
It has long been a question in this House how far a representative should be bound by the instructions of his constituents. I am myself unsure but I feel, as representatives are legislating for the Empire, they should not be altogether guided by instructions based solely on local interest. If the Member represents a populous city, it is arguable that he should follow his own conscience; but if he represents a Lord or Duke, he is honour-bound to promote the interests of his master for he has no opinion, no discretion and no liberty apart from his Lord. That is the present philosophy of this House. Is this fair? May a Member oppose the wishes of his constituents with honour, but not his Lord? This is the tyranny of corruption that we call parliamentary representation.
The country members are in thrall to the powerful land-owning families. They have all been diverted from the representation of their constituents to the side of the King. Every representative of counties, corporations and boroughs is similarly diverted.
Pitt, in the course of his administration, has so far made 115 Peers – some are new creations, others elevations. It is a nice question how many of these are for service to the nation and how many for parliamentary control. The people well know what is going on and I wonder how long they will endure it. MacIntosh’s able book on the French Revolution was quoted by Hawkesbury to support his opinion that the Primary Elections in that country would lead to the evil of universal suffrage. Now there is one Right of Man that all in this House will assert – that is the right to be well-governed. People are unlikely to endorse a representation from which they are excluded.
In Scotland the state of representation is monstrous. Its only benefit is that, by comparison, it makes our defective system appear more tolerable. There is no representative element in Scottish elections. Voting rights are vested in ‘superiorities’ and it is quite conceivable that Scottish MPs might be sent down here without the owner of a single foot of land supporting them. In Scottish boroughs the magistrates are self-elected so the MP has no duty to the townspeople.
It should be lucidly apparent that parliament requires reform. Without it, there will be increasing calamities and everything could be overthrown. Parliamentary reform is the only means of addressing popular grievances.
We taxed America on the grounds the colonists were virtually represented in the same way as Manchester and Birmingham etc. Look where that got us. An experiment in reform can hardly cause a deterioration in our position. What advantages would we lose? Look at the evil that has fallen on Ireland. A little reform will attract the moderates, increase their numbers and decrease the numbers of those who oppose us with violence.
Those who support the present disastrous war say we reformers are causing mischief and should be gone. This House has confided in the Minister and supported him. Members have not considered their individual liability after seeing the transparent failure of his policies. I have discharged my duty and would enjoy devoting more time to private pursuits. It is still possible for this House to obtain the grace and favour of the people by a spontaneous act of reform. We will inevitably have to do so sooner or later. The alternative will be to have reform extorted from us by violence.
Some say there is more liberty now than hitherto and the people ought to be content. I agree that liberty has gained but centralised power has gained more. The encroachments of autocracy have everywhere progressed throughout the course of the present reign. All virtuous public men (Sir George Saville, Lord Rockingham, Camden) have advocated popular rights. They saw the secret advisers to the King advance his power and obstruct any ministry that did not submit to his requirements. The constant theme of this reign has been the aggrandisement of the monarchy and the diminution of the people. In the course of this reign only three administrations supported popular aspirations and they lasted totally 24 months. For the rest of the long period, each ministry has been hand-in-glove with the King.
The evils we have seen in Ireland will come here too unless we act responsibly. The few dissenters today will become many tomorrow and then we will have to pay for our pride. Members may recall a noble lord saying about France ‘What! Shall we negotiate with regicides, shall we go to Paris and ask to be on good terms with such people?’ Well, now we have negotiated with France.
Can we continue to be blind to the events that have occurred? Our pride, obstinacy and insults must end in concessions and they will require humility. Can we conquer our own passions? Those evil ministers who have brought us to this must make way for a ministry that can reform the legislature and conciliate the people.
Sat 27th Feb 1819
The Globe, 10th Sept – Henry Hunt sent a Petition to Sidmouth for the Regent and Sidmouth refused to deliver it – the minister says the Petition purports to be from citizens of London and Westminster and he avers that is untrue.
Hunt says the Petition was the unanimous wish of a meeting of 5,000+ people held at Palace Yard (the place used by the Livery of London for meetings). It is a remonstrance against the unconstitutional acts of the borough-mongers who have usurped the government of Britain. He asks for its return so he can get it to the Regent by some other means. Hunt notes that Sidmouth is the first official to his knowledge to have interposed himself between the ruler and the ruled.
The political administration of Britain at this time is clearly peculiar. Here are a few more articles mainly on the subject of elections whereafter we will review some other articles that address the way in which the King and his Minister wielded this great concentration of power in the management of the country.
Sat 14th Aug 1802
The House of Lords is trying to limit the numbers of Irish Peers now eligible for membership. Ireland has 38 seats in the new Imperial House of Lords. A good many Irish Peers are Englishmen. Lord Auckland feels an Irish Peer who has neither investment nor estate in Ireland is merely a titular Peer. He should not be permitted to send a proxy to London for election as a parliamentary Peer. Such a concession should be confined to real Irish Peers resident in Ireland.
But even real Irish Peers are having difficulty gaining acceptance at the House of Lords. The 4th clause of the Act of Union provides that no Irish Peer may vote at the election of another Irish Peer to the United Parliament unless he has formerly sat in the Irish Parliament or has the approval of the English House of Lords to vote.
The Act does not indicate the principles on which the merits of Irish Peers are to be assessed. The difficulty came to light in the cases of those Irish Peers who have succeeded hereditarily to their titles but have not been recognised by the English House of Lords. The English Peers want them to come before the bar of the House of Lords and prove their claims, and until they do, they continue disqualified from voting.
Another doubt concerns those titles that are in abeyance but have not been declared extinct.
Sat 13th Nov 1802
A new law has confined election expenses to cash - no more beer. The publicans are dismayed – elections have been a big money-spinner for them.
Sat 4th Dec 1802
The violence in the contested elections in Scotland has reminded the Bombay Courier Editor of an old Huntingdonshire election between Sir Robert Bernard, 5th Baron of Huntingdon (1740 – 1789), and a son of Lord Sandwich. Bernard kept back his supporters from one part of the electoral district to inculcate a false sense of security in his opponent. He intended to flood the voting booths with them on the last day.
Sandwich discovered Bernard’s plan however and erected a hut on the route from that area to the polling station. He stocked it with wine and laudanum. As the would-be electors arrived, they were given the intoxicant of their choice and rendered unconscious. They were then laid-out on straw at the roadside. When they awoke they found the booth, barmen and intoxicants had all disappeared.
Sat 23rd July 1803
The Gatton (near Reigate) by-election of January 1803 is due to the sitting MP James Dashwood accepting the Chiltern Hundreds. He does so to permit Philip Dundas, the London candidate, to replace him. By delaying his resignation from the Commons until parliament was about to be prorogued for Christmas, Dashwood successfully concealed the need for a by-election from the electors. It will give Dundas a slight advantage at the polls.
The candidates are the India Company’s man Philip Dundas, late Royal Navy representative of Bombay, Clayton Jennings (an independent) and William Bryant (a local land owner and an elector).
Bryant is the ‘unknown quantity’. He is standing because he discovered that one of Dundas’ friends had intercepted and concealed the King’s Writ to deprive the electors of knowledge of the election and had continued to withhold it until the Sheriff of Surrey was moved to order him to deliver it.
Jennings, the independent, reprobated an agreement made by the two owners of the borough, Sir George Colebrook and the Rev Tattersall, whereby they had dispossessed and evicted all the small-holders to reduce the number of electors to an affordable eight.
At the poll Dundas’ seven tenants voted for him; Bryant, the eighth tenant, tried to give his vote to Jennings but Patrick Hay, the Gatton constable and a relative of Dundas’ principal, disallowed it. Dundas has since barricaded all the horse roads to the polling station. He will doubtless get in.
Sat 29th Dec 1804
An interesting election has been held in Middlesex. Middlesex is more or less a democratic constituency due to its having more than a handful of electors. Sir Francis Burdett was declared the winner. His opponent Mainwaring objected. The House of Commons declared Burdett’s election void and accepted Mainwaring. Then Burdett objected that Mainwaring had bribed some electors and that was upheld by the House. Another election was ordered.
The difficulty with another election is that there are a large number of electors in Middlesex and getting elected as their representative by the usual means costs a fortune. Mainwaring declined to pay again and some investors backed George Boulton Mainwaring, his son, in the re-run.
It was a thoroughly contentious election and every aspect of the process was argumentatively assessed. It first looked as though Burdett had a majority of one but the Sheriff ‘changed his mind’ overnight and returned young Mainwaring. That decision elicited a Writ from Burdett and in the final result he was declared winner but had to stay in the election room until late to avoid Mainwaring’s mob.
He got back to his house in Piccadilly the next day and about 5,000 of his supporters turned out to celebrate.
Sat 18th April 1807
The borough of Old Sarum belongs to Pitt’s relative, the eccentric Lord Camelford, and comprises seven burgage tenancies. The borough has long been uninhabited but sends two MPs to parliament. M/s Massey and Brunsdon are the two principal tenants of Old Sarum. They live in London. The sitting MP is Alexander. He is uncle of the Earl of Caledon and brother to the Bishop of Down.19
Mon 16th Nov 1807 Extraordinary
The King demanded an express ministerial undertaking not to propose Catholic emancipation. This caused the liberal ministry to resign – it is composed of Grey and the Foxites and espouses honourable policies. Subsequently, those few elections that were contested were fought hard and numerous duels have been held.
Colclough, a candidate for Wexford, was killed outright by a ball through the heart. He had been expected to succeed but his opponent Alcock won in both respects.
Mellish, who was contesting an English borough, sustained an arm injury from gunshot requiring amputation.
Alderman Hankey who was contesting a City of London seat died in mysterious circumstances and may have been poisoned.
Westminster, that flower of democracy under Fox, had the unique experience of electing a man who did not know he was a candidate until after his victory. Another duel was fought there between Sir Francis Burdett and Paul.
The Grenvillites have sprung a complete surprise on the liberals. Charles Grey (now Lord Howick) was totally deceived and only discovered there was another candidate for Northumberland when he arrived there. He had been told in London he was unopposed. He does not have the money to contest the seat and declined to throw such a great load on his friends (who may expect to be remembered) and has withdrawn his candidacy.
Feelings are inflamed. On a quick review of the results, it is difficult to gauge the extent of increased power that the Grenvillites have achieved. If they are strong enough, they will want to absolve Wellesley of misconduct in India and rehabilitate the disgraced Melville.
Sat 26th Dec 1807
The sudden elections have produced some disturbing signs amongst the populace, as the following events reveal:
The Cornish borough of Grampound has always been considered to belong to Sir Henry Carew. He controls 13 votes through his ownership of Grampound Corporation whilst the freemen of the borough have 23 votes. Carew pledged both of Grampound’s two seats to the new administration and requested for the names of the candidates whom he himself had to nominate. Unknown to Carew some of the freemen asked Sir Francis Burdett to represent them. He said he would never represent a borough but he could recommend the brothers Charles and Cochrane Johnson. The 23 freemen then nominated the Johnson brothers instead of Carew’s names. Carew needed the support of an additional six freemen to ensure the election of the minister’s nominees but was unable to influence any one of them in the usual way. He lost his own borough by ten votes. The result has caused considerable consternation amongst the political classes and introduced an unpleasant measure of uncertainty into elections.
The electors of Calne have likewise shocked the owner of their borough. Before parliament was dissolved Jekyll, one of the incumbent MPs for 20 years, found it appropriate to vote against the wishes of the Marquis of Lansdowne whose estate includes Calne. Jekyll accordingly notified his resignation before the Marquis could dismiss him. Then the voters told him they would re-elect him if he stood, which he did, and they did.
At the Westminster election, Lord Thomas Cochrane made a frank speech which shocked many people. He said he was not the puppet of the Lords of the Treasury. He said he was an independent MP. He said he was an enemy of plunder, corruption and tyranny:
“I know what the Constitution is supposed to guarantee and I will restore that happy state. Terrible abuses prevail in every department of government and it is beyond the power of the average MP to know what is going on, but I am an Admiral and I know what is going on in the Navy alright.”
He attributed corruption to men at the top:
“Put an honest man in charge and his underlings will be more or less honest; put a villain in charge and everyone’s a villain.“As regards the Commons, I am an enemy of placemen and pensioners. The Bribery and Corruption Oath that is administered to candidates at election should again be administered to MPs before every vote in the House. Do you suppose an MP would perjure himself and vote with the Minister just for a pension? (all, all) - well I am not like that. Return me to parliament and I will show you.”
They did.
Sat 2nd Jan 1808
There are 30,000 free-holders in Yorkshire. It is not a constituency that money can buy although all candidates provide free food and beer. Some 23,000 of them have elected Lord Milton (son of Earl FitzWilliam) and Sheridan. Milton has done particularly well – he is new and young and energetic. The incumbent Lascelles relied on block votes whilst Milton canvassed widely and tirelessly and most of his supporters are single voters. After ten years of representation, Lascelles is out and Milton is in – what has changed?
Milton was described by Lascelles as ‘a Jacobin lad leagued with a desperate faction’ (he commenced his political career as a member of the Rockingham Club and is identified with the liberal Whigs). He is accused of undermining the religion of this country by his public support of Catholic emancipation. Now a majority of free-holders in Yorkshire have voted for him.
It is a reproach to the King who hires and fires the Anglican Bishops and thereby controls the clergy. He can and does remove vicars who act independently. One of the King’s fundamental sources of influence is the Sunday sermon which gets discussed in the public houses after church. Here in Yorkshire it appears the English King and the English people are not in agreement on the Catholics. Milton has told Yorkshire that the restrictions on Catholics were solely to frustrate the Stuart dynasty’s attempts to regain power and once that was achieved there was no good reason to continue the disability.
The cry of ‘no Popery’ which used to be so potent in elections has been drowned in this one by the cry of ‘no peculation’ which is considerably more apposite. It is after all the people’s money that disappears in the unauditable morass of naval and military spending.
Sat 2nd June 1810
The City of London has held an election. It has 26 wards and 17 were contested. It is the first time in 40 years that City representation has attracted so much interest. 35 new members were returned and they are all people critical of the government.
Had the election been held a few days earlier, the original critical Address of Alderman Waithman would have gone to the King. Instead, Alderman Atkins was there to put the ministry’s craven demands and he got his amendment. His supporters have now been heavily reduced in numbers and influence.20
Farrington Without is the biggest ward and Waithman won that with 713 votes. The next biggest, Farrington Within, returned two new faces. New candidates won in Cripplegate Without and Aldersgate. In most wards those members who had voted for the original Address received thanks and support.
There are rotten wards in the City just like rotten boroughs in the country. In the six wards Billingsgate, Bridge, Broad Street, Candlewick, Tower and Walbrook the total votes cast was 723. These wards return 63 members. In the six biggest (democratic) wards 2,376 voters return 64 members.
Sat 12th Oct 1805
When Sir William Pulteney died recently, the funded property in his estate was supposed to be worth £2 millions but reportedly no Will has been found even though the Knight was 85 years old. For the last few years of his life he ate only bread and milk. If he died intestate his entire Estate will go to his widow.
He will be buried in Westminster Abbey where several of his ancestors are entombed. He owned an immense amount in the American funds. Sir William owned more electoral boroughs than any other person and his influence on elections was often conclusive. As a result he was courted by all the factions.
Sat 17th Nov 1810
House of Commons - Brand MP spoke about parliamentary reform:
We have 70 MPs returned to this House by the proprietors of rotten boroughs. We have huge new towns in the Midlands with no representation at all. There is a Constitutional parliamentary power to relieve depopulated boroughs of their duty to return a member. We should do that and transfer the seats to where they are needed in the new industrial towns.
What right had the constituencies of Gatton and Old Sarum or the submarine constituency of St Mawes to return an MP? The basis to parliamentary representation should be both property and population, not property alone. This intention can be inferred from the acts of our ancestors. Those rotten boroughs were well-populated when they received the right to send a representative. Now thirty boroughs have less than fifty voters each, few of whom are resident.
In the counties, property was the basis to the elective franchise and the vote is accordingly given to free-holders alone. This might safely be extended to copy-holders who have almost equal property rights. We are after all no longer a feudal society.
In the towns the vote should be given to every householder who pays parochial or other taxes.
These measures are not ostentatious or even difficult to effect and they have the advantage of stifling for a long time the recent clamour for better representation.
There is the notional question of compensation to the borough proprietors for their loss of political influence resulting from these reforms. He thought they had no legal claim but they would suffer a genuine pecuniary loss. Some part of the revenue should be ear-marked for compensation. Brand feared that, unless some practical step was taken to rehabilitate the representation, the country would become a military dictatorship.
Whitbread noted that Pitt had opened his political career with an attempt to reform the representation and had been defeated by a majority of only 21. Pitt’s argument was that England lost America because the decisions of the House of Commons were manipulated. Now America is well on the road to becoming our greatest competitor. It is clear that a large number of MPs were sympathetic at that time. The subject was debated again in 1793 on Earl Grey’s motion and again in 1797 and now it was coming-on again. Sir Francis Burdett made some propositions last year that deserved better than they got.21
The people cannot expect the House of Lords to represent them. Everyone knows how the King used the addition of Scotland and recently of Ireland (in the creation of the United Kingdom) to issue a huge number of new peerages out of thin air. Is it not fulgently apparent that a man of property, capable of commanding a few seats in the House of Commons, instantly becomes the King’s target for a new Lordship? This sort of representative will be biased in favour of property rights and dismissive of the social rights of people. Such peers as nominate MPs to seats in the House of Commons expect their servants to perform (“no, no” from the Treasury Bench).
Whitbread had no objection to navy and army officers serving as MPs. They derive popularity from their martial victories and exchange it for a seat. But he thought that they should not do both jobs at the same time. He concluded by recalling that both the Pitts, father and son, and Fox all agreed that a reform of the Commons was essential for the welfare of the country and Pitt had added the telling sentence - ‘without it, no honest minister could continue in office.’
Canning for the ministry said the argument for reform was based on the supposition that a great body of people in the country were discontented - its nonsense. Everyone is content, except for a handful of terrorists and anarchists who are spoiling to disrupt the smooth harmony of our system any way they can. They say the Commons has become too weak to be respected and too despicable to be feared. They want reform to make the Commons omnipotent and destroy all other power centres. Sir James MacIntosh in his book on The French Revolution admired a reformed Commons as a means to emasculate the King and the Lords. He really regrets writing that now.22
The fact is that this ‘corruptly-administered little country’ has withstood France longer than all the autocrats and oligarchs of Europe. All European countries have their limited monarchies and incorporated aristocracies but only England has its House of Commons. This is the reason why we have been saved and they have fallen, Canning said. The people are in fact a menace. They are always for war at the outset. They goaded Walpole into a war and that cost him his administration. It was the people who pushed us into the American War with all that sorry tale and now they have pushed us into this endless war with France. The people are a doubtful stick to rely on.
Canning added that votes of members for rotten boroughs were unpredictable - there is no telling how they might vote. They do not inevitably support the ministry. Reform is dangerous. We should resist it as long as possible.
Tierney said the votes of House of Commons after debating the Convention of Cintra and the Walcheren Expedition revealed that reform was essential.23
Sat 8th June 1811
London, 23rd Dec - George III is suffering a recurrence of his old disease. The Doctors say it has been brought-on by the death of his daughter Amelia. Perceval has presented a plan of Regency to the Prince of Wales and that Prince has declined to comment on it. The Prince says that on the last occasion of the King’s illness, the two Houses voted for a Regency first and he wants that procedure followed again. He has nevertheless circulated Perceval’s plan around the Family and it has drawn a Protest signed by the other seven Royal Dukes. They say the restricted Regency proposed by Perceval is inconsistent with Royal Prerogative – either you are a King or you are not.
Perceval said that his was the only legal course - we went through all this in 1788 and, after endless debate, parliament identified this course of action. Nevertheless, Perceval moved a debate in parliament.
Ponsonby moved the Prince of Wales be made Acting King for the duration of George III’s illness. It was defeated. The House of Commons then agreed to offer the Prince a limited monarchy as a Regent and a Regency Bill was passed.
The Prince was disgusted and wrote Perceval to tell him it was unconstitutional but Perceval was implacable. After the irresistible power of George III, a weak monarchy is preferable to the ministry. Perceval’s intransigence enforces on the Prince the realisation that he is never going to be a real King until his Dad dies. It flavours all his subsequent activities.
The City grieves with him. The Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Commons of London send in an Address complaining of:
the ministry’s ‘criminal deception of parliament and people’ during George III’s former incapacity (the King was sick in 1804, see below, but Addington concealed it);
the terms of Regency (prerogatives withheld or curtailed) which evidence the ministry’s ‘unfounded mistrust’ of the Prince of Wales, and that
the ministry had become a new and unconstitutional Estate in the Realm.
The City says it offers the ardent zeal of a free and united people in the Prince of Wales’ support. The Prince invited the Aldermen round to kiss hands and assured them he will always rule Constitutionally. Perceval, Lord Wellesley and most of the cabinet were present, looking despondently at the floor and shuffling their feet. The London papers are generally saying the City has expressed the views of the whole nation – it is a trying time for the oligarchs.
Tues 11th June 1811 Extraordinary
Arising from the medical history of the King’s disease which has been revealed to the House of Lords, Earl Grey has discovered that the King was deranged between 12th Feb – 23rd April 1804, that being a time during which he requested for and received treatment. The King has always put-off medical treatment for his disease until the last possible moment because he has no liking for it. The last time it occurred, the King was contending with Addington’s new ministry and Hanover had been occupied by France. The disease seems to arise when the King learns of unwelcome events that he is unable to effectively change; its an affront to his determination to control matters.
The House of Commons was only aware of the King’s disease in 1788/89, 1801/2 and the present recurrence. It is now apparent from the medical history that there was this fourth period in 1804 when the Lord Chancellor, John Scott 1st Earl of Eldon, was using the King’s name and performing the Royal functions but the King was effectively incapable of reigning. Grey is shocked.
He recalls that it was during that time that the Lord Chancellor told the House he had the King’s instruction to gift certain estates to the Duke of York. There were also some Bills passed during the period upon which Eldon applied the Great Seal of England (and someone presumably procured George’s signature).
Whitbread moved that the Journal of House of the Lords be examined to prove the dates of incapacity.24
Sat 15th June 1811
The Prince of Wales received Perceval’s cabinet members on 7th Feb. Each member kissed hands in sequence. The Regent spoke with none except the Lord Chancellor to whom he confided that he would not attend parliament next week.
Before the audience, the Regent instructed that the two busts of, respectively, the late Duke of Bedford and Charles James Fox, which had long been displayed in the sitting room at Carlton House, be removed into the audience chamber and placed at the head of the room. This was done a few hours before the cabinet members arrived. It was an eloquent gesture to Perceval.
Sat 18th July 1812
Benjamin Walsh MP has been tried at Old Bailey and found guilty of seven felonies all connected with converting over £15,000 of the Solicitor General’s (Sir Thomas Plomer) property to himself. Walsh first made his money running the national lottery. He is the son of a Bank of England Director and thus a trusted man.
The Judge, Sir Archibald McDonald, did not proceed to judgment as he disagreed with the Jury’s guilty verdict. He agreed the facts established a fraudulent intention and the appropriation also had been proved but he found these two elements fell short of the evidence necessary to establish larceny. As a result Walsh obtained a pardon from the Prince Regent.
The House is now taking a high moral tone in prospect of expelling him. They say the House is not precisely a Court of Justice and is not ‘bound by the technical totems of the law’. The Ministry says MPs are charged with the security of the public purse; Walsh’s friends say it was merely a transaction between two private people.
Burdett says any MP who gets thrown-out can approach his constituents and get re-elected – that is how ‘fair and open’ elections work. The House should have confidence in the judgement of the people.25
Burdett complained that the Commons always fudged its criticisms. There were far better cases recently which would have gone swimmingly:
When Steele was Treasurer for the Navy he was found to have helped himself to £19,000 but when caught he gave it back and, as he is a nice chap, we forgave him (Steele was not an MP).
Another case involved Hunt MP who evaded the law and went to Portugal where we might easily have arrested him, having assumed the government there, but did not do so. He then went with the Portuguese Court to Brazil where we also had the power to arrest him but he remains free and in receipt of two British pensions, totally £1,000 a year, granted in 1802 and 1804 respectively.
Next is Mills MP who was adjudged a debtor in King’s Bench to an enormous amount and, to avoid his creditors, bought a seat in this House whilst in prison. His creditors petitioned the House not to invoke members’ privilege but we did. Mills reflected on the great amount at stake and decided this House’s privilege was a slender rod on which to stake his possession of it. He emigrated to America.
Then there was the case of M/S Boyd Benfield & Co, bankers to the nation, to whom Pitt lent £40,000 and never saw it again.26 Pitt himself recognised it as an act of misplaced trust and sought no protection for it but it got glossed over anyway.
Sat 27th July 1811
Perceval has offered the Prince of Wales an increased establishment, subject to parliamentary approval which he controls, but the Prince has turned him down and referred him to Adams MP to whom the Prince had earlier averred he would never accept an increased allowance whilst the English people were labouring under such onerous taxes. All Perceval could do was to tell the House those facts that the Prince had assumed Adams would tell to the MPs.
Perceval knows the Prince wishes to change the ministry. He knows the Prince prefers to have the liberal Whigs in power under Lord Grenville and Earl Grey.
Sat 17th Aug 1811
Whitbread told House of Commons on 25th Feb 1811 that the British people have been astonishingly tolerant and supportive of George III for the last 20-25 years. The present ministry now threatens to jeopardise this devotion by its criminality.
When the King had his first episode of disease in 1788/89 no-one wanted to believe it until Lord Thurlow, the then Lord Chancellor, announced it to both Houses. On 15th Feb 1801 the King was again unwell. An attempt to debate the subject was made but withdrawn when Pitt promised to tell the House if it should become serious.
A few years thereafter Lord Eldon, the then and now Lord Chancellor, came to the House with a legislative Act for which he purported to have received the King’s assent. It was at this time that Pitt resigned his office after a ministry of 17 years;27 Sidmouth became Speaker and Addington became Prime Minister. On 11th March the medical bulletins on the King’s health were stopped by order of the new ministry which persuaded the people that the King was recovering. In fact he remained incapable and the functions of monarchy were assumed by Addington’s ministry.
Between 12th February – 10th June 1804 the King’s was placed under the control of his doctors but the same cessation of medical reports occurred after 24th March. Throughout these 2½ months only Eldon was able to see the King. As several of the cabinet ministers involved in this – Sidmouth, Castlereagh, Yorke, St Vincent – are still alive, it appears we have a coterie of politicians who remain available for enquiry and who were involved in illegality, but Whitbread most particularly blamed Eldon.
Two great political events occurred during the King’s illnesses in 1801 and 1804.
In the latter year the parties coalesced and Addington was defeated and resigned. It was then Pitt’s wish that a joint government would be formed to unite the two great political leaders of the House. The only minister with access to the King was Eldon although there is no record of his communications with the sick King that is available to parliament. Eldon was questioned about the King in the House of Lords and Addington was questioned in the Commons. Addington said government is proceeding normally. Addington of course had no personal access to the King and relied on medical reports. On 5th and 6th March 1804, Eldon says he received the King’s commands to alienate some Crown Lands and on 9th March he came to parliament with a Commission supposedly signed by the King transferring an Estate to the Duke of York. He was questioned as to the state of the King’s mind and averred inter alia that he (Eldon) would never act unconstitutionally.
One of the Lord Chancellor’s functions is to protect lunatics. At that time the doctors report that the King’s judgment was ‘in eclipse’ although the ministry recently disclosed that there were odd days when the doctors certified the King to be lucid. There is no such temporary recovery permitted in our lunacy laws - Chancery recognises precedents for the proposition that both a lunatic’s derangement and his recovery must be proved. The practice of the Court excludes the concept of temporary insanity. Indeed, in the 1802 case of Ridgway v Barton, Lord Eldon held that the jurisdiction of the Chancery Court extended beyond mad people to those of weak intellect, to protect them from those who might dispose of their property. Eldon’s opinion was not extended to the King whose keys were retained and whose property was alienated by the highest Chancery Judge. Whitbread wished Eldon to confirm or deny that he took the keys to the King’s escritoire and refused to return them.
On 26th March 1804 another Message was brought from the King by Eldon which Whitbread now wishes to make the subject of a further debate. He called for the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry.
Castlereagh for the ministry said none of the then ministers would have received the King’s commands unless they were all convinced he was sane. He said Whitbread was wrong – Eldon was not the only minister to visit the King between 12th Feb – 23rd April 1804; Sidmouth had visited on 10th and 19th March. The King signed some more Bills on 23rd March. On 26th March he discussed the Irish militia. On all these occasions the doctors’ confirmed the King’s fitness to deliberate.
Castlereagh accused Whitbread of ignoring ministerial acts during the previous illnesses and queried why he should be raising this old 1804 subject only now. He categorised the accusations as entrapment and asserted a time-bar on enquiries into old matters. Castlereagh said the King was mentally competent whenever the medical reports ceased. There were indeed many periods of temporary recovery and ministers had taken the doctors’ advice and sought the King’s commands only when the doctors said he was competent to give them. They had not thought it appropriate to trouble parliament by publishing these informal advices. In fact the King was slowly recovering throughout and his abilities increased by the day but up-dated medical reports were not requested to track the improvement; we just asked for reports at the beginning and end.
At one point Sidmouth told parliament it was unnecessary to suspend regal functions and Pitt, who was then in opposition, agreed that no communication be made to MPs. Grey took a contrary view and Sidmouth revealed to the House that the King’s improvement was confirmed by the doctors. Grey was satisfied and merely said if the King’s malady continued much longer parliament would have to deal with it.
The alienation of Crown Lands to the Duke of York occurred during one of these intervals of sanity, Castlereagh said. Eldon had the doctors’ informal approval for his interview with the King at that time. On 9th March the King gave his assent to the Mutiny Bill – does Whitbread think ministers should have permitted the Mutiny Act to expire?
Yorke said he had conversed with the King during the period of his supposed incapacity in 1804 and found him perfectly rational.
Whitbread said he would like to hear the responses of Sidmouth and Bathurst (two of the implicated ministers). Bathurst said Castlereagh has said it all. Sidmouth was silent. Whitbread then reiterated that the King was legally insane at the times of numerous ministerial acts done in his name. Perceval shook his head, which annoyed Whitbread – “you should do more than toss your head.” He accused Sidmouth and Perceval of being dumb because they had no alternative.
Whitbread’s motion for an inquiry was then voted and defeated 198/81
Sat 14th Sept 1811
The Duke of Grafton, Chancellor of Cambridge University, is dying and John Henry Manners, the Duke of Rutland, is one of two candidates for his replacement. Manners has written to the University Senate stating he has the support of the Prince of Wales and Perceval and inviting them to vote for him.
The other candidate is the present Vice Chancellor, the Royal Prince Frederick William, Duke of Gloucester, and he has also written to the Senate. He made no claims based on his standing in the country. He noted that he is the only member of the Royal Family to have received an English education; that he was tutored at Cambridge and has a long record of respect for the institution’s laws and traditions, and that he is affectionate to the university’s prospects, etc.
The Senate elected Prince Frederick William.
Is it possible that a new era in the history of British administration is dawning? An era of civil and religious freedom over patronage. At the Senate vote Gloucester polled 464 against Rutland’s 350.
Sat 9th Oct 1813
The House of Commons has debated an instance of election malpractice:
The Royal Duke of Cumberland inherited one of four trusteeships for the borough of Weymouth. He seems to have since disposed of the other three trustees (who were all commoners) and assumed control of the borough himself.
He wrote a letter to Stewart, an important resident in the borough, requesting he support Johnstone for election. Johnstone is the candidate of Sir James Pulteney. Cumberland required Lord Liverpool to provide a place to Johnstone. The Writ ordering the election has been bought and retained by Cumberland. It cannot be received at Weymouth.
The ministry says there is a Committee investigating election malpractice and any debate in the House will usurp that committee’s function.
Whitbread expostulated that the ministry had itself protested a similar event in the last Hampshire election and now they took the opposite course. This inconsistency is particularly egregious because the Order of the Day is for debate on a Bill concerning other abuses in the same Weymouth election. This House should try to identify itself with the correction of election abuse, he thought.
Whitbread and the liberals were defeated 45/57
Sat 2nd Nov 1811
London, 31st May - The Morning Post and Evening Courier have for long continued daily articles referring to the King’s improving state of health. Both are pro-ministry papers. Now the King has ridden a horse and the papers have a report under the title ‘H M’s reappearance in public’.
George III recently exhibited swelling of the legs which the doctors assume to be a form of dropsy – this was the reason for prescribing the horse rides. We understand he is usually cheerful and well-behaved when in the presence of the doctors but reverts to irritability and unpredictable behaviour when his relatives visit. He believes he is adequately recovered to resume the Crown and gets very angry should others disagree. On Wednesday Dr Willis’ ‘gentlemen’ arrived by post chaise and were immediately admitted into Windsor Castle.28 Their arrival is the main evidence for a relapse but it is also the case that the gala set for Wednesday has been postponed by the Prince of Wales to the following Wednesday. It is rumoured this was done in the hope the King will by then be improved. The Queen has pleaded with the doctors to alleviate the strict regime her husband is under but the experts and the Privy Council all want it to continue.
Sat 14th Dec 1811
Lockhart introduced a complaint from an elector for Stafford. That man had approached his MP, Richard Mansel Philips, for advice how to release his son from service in the marines and the MP had said he would arrange it for 50 Guineas. Lockhart made enquiries and learned that the practice of discharging marines by payment was not only legal but customary. The elector paid Philips a negotiable Manchester Bill to £50 plus some £1 and £2 notes but the marine was not subsequently discharged. The elector enquired and Philips said he had paid the money to Tucker, the Secretary of the Admiralty, and received Tucker’s assurance that the marine would soon be released.
Some months passed and the elector again enquired, this time directly to Tucker, from whom he was told that the 50 Guineas had not been received. He then paid another 50 Guineas at the proper office and the marine was discharged.
The Manchester Bill that the elector had tendered to Philips in part payment was later returned having been negotiated by a grocer at Wimbledon to discharge a debt of Philips MP.
The elector then commenced an action against the MP at the Surrey Session in Spring 1809 for ‘obtaining money by false pretences’. The MP had never responded to the Writ and the entire Judiciary up to Ellenborough had declined his request to order the attendance of the MP fearing it might be construed as an interference in the privileges of the House. The elector had accordingly petitioned the House of Commons for the redress of his grievance.
It was agreed to call Philips to the House next week to answer his constituent’s charge.
Sat 25th Jan 1812
The Lord Chancellor has read the Prince Regent’s speech closing this parliamentary session. Why the Regent did not read his own speech is not explained but there is a belief gaining ground that the Regent has a Viceroy over him. The Address approves the interchange of militias between England and Ireland. The Duke of York had to order a limited amnesty to permit Irish militias to worship in England in the Catholic way. The Lord Chancellor then prorogued parliament to 22nd August 1811. Many MPs are staying in London as they expect a recall should the King’s condition change. They hope it does as the Regent is keen on Catholic emancipation.29
Sat 21st Nov 1812
Banks MP’s Sinecure Office Bill is being read for the second time. It abolishes 200 of the offices that the King and his Minister use to buy support. It is Banks’ intention that sinecures should be progressively replaced by pensions:
Chancellor Vansittart opposed it. The proposed amalgamations of offices would obscure individual responsibility. A man can only be responsible for himself and those he appoints to his offices (over whom he holds the power of dismissal).
Depriving the Chief Justices in the Court of King’s Bench and Court of Common Pleas of their power to sell offices without compensation until £2,000 a year in vacancies had arisen, was simple robbery. If the value of disposable offices was less than £2,000 in any one year they will receive nothing.
Castlereagh also opposed it as its ultimate effects were unforeseeable.
The Bill prevents the King (and the minister) from granting offices to anyone who has not performed some public service. Castlereagh says that is unconstitutional. Under the Bill, such a person has to serve five years before qualifying for reward. Many people of merit will be deterred from public service by its gratuitous nature. The King will find himself surrounded by an even greater concentration of rich aristocrats who do not need sinecures. The tendency of this Bill is to elevate the power of the House of Lords.
The number of offices to be abolished will severely diminish the power of the King. Some say the King’s power has grown too great, but he now has to contend not just with the aristocratic landowners but the burgeoning desires of the City. The thrust of this Bill is directed at the King-in-Waiting.
W Dundas and Colquhon, Scottish MPs, protested the loss of Scottish offices that is envisaged in the Bill. These had been guaranteed to Scotland by the Act of Union.
Banks defended his Bill. The national revenue and expenditure had enormously increased in recent years and the minister’s patronage along with it. It used to be the case that the King’s influence was concentrated on the church, the military and his Chartered Companies but now there was a vast army of people from all walks of life all over the country who are dependant on the King for their income. It has also become apparent that many private bankers and merchants had liaised with the minister to their advantage.
Patronage is not approved by the people. It has become derogatory of the King. We should reinstate the monarchy to its former pristine quality. The jobs that will be abolished by this Bill are just those for which no conceivable justification can be made – jobs that entail no work. The passage of this Bill will restore the public’s faith in their elected representatives - it tends to suggest that we are not in parliament for the money. Instead of sinecures, which the public hate, we can reward conspicuous service with pensions.
The House then voted 134/123 in favour. The Bill will come-up for third reading shortly.
Sat 26th March 1814
House of Commons, 21st June - The Duke of Leeds has been criticised concerning the Helstone election in Cornwall. He used to live near Helstone and the local electors, who have incorporated themselves, agreed to sell him the borough. He bought it at the market rate (equating with the amount of the poor rate, then £1,700 a year for Helstone) which he agreed to pay on behalf of the electors. He later removed and his castle became dilapidated.
Most of the bribery in Cornish elections is done by the clergy – at Tregony and Penryn for example. At Helstone the important clergyman was Rev Grills who had the King’s living for that parish and was also Chief Alderman.
In 1804 the Duke was unable to have the electors agree the former price, such was the effect of war on the local economy. Sir Christopher Hawkins bought a share for £5,025, believing it was a progressive step towards a seat in the Lords for himself. Leeds took-up the remaining share at £1,700 and nominated the banker Hammersley and the barrister Horne as his MPs.
Now one of the incorporated electors had asked the Duke for a job for his son and received no reply. He was aware of the case of Grogan, who is now in Newgate Prison for agreeing to pay the debts of the Corporation of Penryn which elected him in return for that agreement. Grogan’s situation appeared indistinguishable from the Duke’s and, in the absence of a job for his son, this present complaint was made.
Davis Giddy MP said the Duke’s acts were customary. Tremaine MP said the Corporation of Helstone is comprised of respectable people who manage their borough professionally. He thought parliament might reasonably order that all the boroughs be thrown open, each to hundreds of freeholders, but it would be unjust to single out the Duke alone for this trivial offence.
The House of Commons then voted and Leeds was absolved of wrong-doing 55/52.
Brand MP said this is precisely what is wrong with parliament. There is a need for reform. Aristocrats from the House of Lords nominate MPs to the House of Commons. The sale of seats like Helstone is a frequent occurrence. He agreed with Tremaine – Helstone should be turned into one of the Hundreds.
Sat 28th Feb 1818
Henry Willock, the British Consul at Tehran, has written to the Bombay Governor about our Royal Family:
Princess Charlotte’s baby was still-born and she herself survived only a few hours on 5th or 6th Nov. Our hopes are dashed for a clear succession to the Crown. None of George III’s other sons have produced children and, unless one of them does so, this will end the House of Brunswick’s reign on the British throne.
He says Charlotte was a devout admirer of Napoleon – perhaps it is just as well she has gone.
Sat 25th April 1818
The death of the Regent’s only child (Charlotte) in childbirth has raised a question over the succession. The three persons nearest the throne and having children are the King of Wurtemburg, his brother the Prince Paul and his sister Frederica Bonaparte. The wife of a Bonaparte being third in line to the British succession has stunned the ministry.
If the succession is to remain with the House of Brunswick, one or other of George III’s sons must have a child and they have all been briefed.
Charlotte’s husband Leopold is distraught at the loss of his family and has returned to his Electorate of Saxe Cobourg.
Sat 4th July 1818
The Semarang has arrived from the Gulf with the overland mail bringing European news to April:
The Royal Dukes are belatedly getting married now the uncertain succession has opened-up opportunities for them. There are two ways for a Prince of the Blood to marry – either he gets the permission of the King-in-Council or, if he is 26 years or older, he can notify his intention to the Privy Council. If neither House of Parliament objects within a year, his application is approved.
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Frustrated in his first choice, Clarence has sent off a wedding invitation to one of the Princesses of Hesse. He only gets £1,100 half-pay from the army at present but he has a fine Estate that is worth £3,000 a year. The trouble is he is not good with money – it flows away from him like water off a duck’s back.
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There is ministerial support for all the Royal Dukes to have £30,000 a year. The House of Commons will shortly vote the additional funds to improve their marriage prospects. The country members are pouring into London to oppose the Royal allowances – they like the Royal Family to be poor. Tierney has asked Castlereagh what happens to the King’s £60,000 a year now he is unwell and retired. Can we divert some of that to the Princes? What about the £100,000 a year for Windsor. The Queen already has £68,000 a year and the two Princesses £13,000 each. There seems to be plenty of money for the support of the King in his old age. On a review of all the facts, House of Commons did not vote the extra funds that Castlereagh demanded. It is supposed he will try to find the money from the Consolidated Fund but he later obtained House of Commons approval for payments to some individual Dukes.
Sat 5th Sept 1818
The costs of representation in the Commons have greatly increased. According to a Bury newspaper Mr Crespigny has sold the Borough of Aldborough for £32,000 and the buyer is now collecting individual votes at £40 each. Aldborough returns two MPs.
Sat 10th Oct 1818
Britain has been holding a general election in May 1818. The towns of Aylesbury, Bristol, Coventry, Exeter, Gloucester, Hull, Ipswich, Liverpool, Lincoln, Lancaster, City of London, Nottingham, Preston, Worcester, Yarmouth, York and the counties of Wiltshire, Kent, Devonshire and Middlesex are examples of electoral districts where the number of electors is adequate to deter direct purchase.
The towns of Berwick, Bridgewater, Carlyle, Cricklade, Evesham, Hereford, Leominster, Penryn, Taunton and Weymouth are constituencies with a few tens or hundreds of electors. They offer greater opportunity for purchase.
Sat 20th March 1819
House of Commons, 8th Oct - Application of the Consolidated Fund in 1817 in Sterling:
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Civil List to the King |
1,028,000 |
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Salaries to Judicial officers |
64,000 |
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Salaries to auditors of the public accounts |
54,000 |
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Salaries to officers of the Mint |
15,000 |
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Other salaries |
8,500 |
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Pensions to the Royal Family |
348,000 |
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Other pensions |
98,000 |
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Interest on part 50 million Florin Russia loan |
131,000 |
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South Sea Company deficiency |
3,000 |
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Bounties to naval officers for slaves freed |
4,000 |
Sat 21st Aug 1819
London, 6th April – One of the electoral districts belonging to the Duke of Newcastle is Boroughbridge. The Duke employed Lawson as MP but that Member failed to endorse the Duke’s policies. As a result all the electors that supported Lawson’s action over Newcastle have received notices of eviction from their tenements.
Lawson then negotiated with Newcastle and, in return for his resignation from the House, obtained the Duke’s permission for all the ejected farmers to be restored to their houses at the same rents. By alleviating the electors of this hardship Lawson earned their gratitude and they returned him to the Chiltern Hundreds, confounding the opposition of the Newcastle faction.
Sat 6th May 1820
House of Commons 14th Dec 1819:
Lord John Russell moved parliamentary reform. He said too many towns were unrepresented in the Commons. Eliminating just a few boroughs, as the late Samuel Romilly had commended, would make a difference.
Long ago we ceased receiving representatives from Malden. We granted elections (by the King’s Writ and by Act of Parliament) to the counties of Cheshire and Durham. Haverford West was allowed to send representatives in Henry VIII’s reign. Other places were enfranchised up the reign of Charles II. By the Act of Union the King was prevented from increasing the membership and an unintended side effect of that was to permit the continuance of small boroughs which sell the suffrage and have occasionally been punished (Cricklade, Aylesbury) by this House for so doing. Fossilisation of the franchise has prevented the new towns from obtaining representation. As a result this House is no longer truly representative of all the people.
In 1778 Manchester was a village of less than 3,000. Now it is home to 110,000. Not long ago Leeds was the same diminutive size as Manchester, in 1811 it contained 62,000. In that same year (there was a census) Birmingham had 85,000, Halifax 63,000 and Sheffield 35,000. These rapid changes require parliamentary action. All these towns are commercially important and should be enabled to defend their interests and state their grievances in this House.
When Pitt sought to reform the representation in 1782 he was defeated by the absence of petitions from the new towns requesting for it. Well, now we have them. It was also argued that our ability to make war and raise taxes would be constrained by representatives of commercial districts. Montesquieu long ago answered that fear in his review of the history of the Republican governments of Genoa and Venice which reveals no such difficulties.
The membership of this House divides into four groups - Members for counties, for boroughs, for Cornwall and for the Cinque Ports. Our Constitution does not depend on a Charter but is an accumulation of legislation to ensure the fair division of power between King, Lords and Commons. In the same way, representation in the Commons balances the interests of counties, cities and boroughs. Montesquieu thought it the most perfect Constitution. It is a magical thing and should not be abandoned. We merely need to demonstrate to the people that when a defect manifests we are disposed to correct it.
I propose four Resolutions:
Those boroughs that are notoriously corrupt shall cease to return MPs.
Those seats to be given to large towns and counties.
That we consider how best to deter, detect and prevent electoral corruption.
That the borough of Grampound do cease to return MPs.
Normanby seconded. He thought Cornwall should not be famous for its production of tin, copper and MPs. He noted Manchester was unruly whilst Derby and Leicester (both represented) were not. He thought the people were irritated to the limit of their endurance and some redress must be offered them. If the people are not opposed to us the Constitution will stand more firmly.
Castlereagh for the ministry feared any reform would be understood as a sign of weakness. He agreed with the concept of punishing some boroughs to deter the others. The principle had been admitted in the last session and 3 or 4 boroughs had been identified but the difficulty in disenfranchising them was judicial not political. He believed a Bill had been sent to the other House during last session in respect of one borough. The impolicy of bringing people to London for enquiries had delayed development in the other cases - the House has been very busy. He thought each case must be dealt with individually on its merits. He expected it would be impossible to disenfranchise the Cornish boroughs. The householders had an express right to vote. How could these householders be distributed amongst the electorate of the counties? Practically, only a few boroughs in the other counties might be amenable to the process. Russell’s proposal is only a partial remedy - it is too theoretical and abstract. Detailed investigation is necessary. The House needs to consider what would become of electors of disenfranchised boroughs. Russell proposes to infringe on their rights. Castlereagh concluded by reiterating his complete agreement.
Tierney thanked Castlereagh for the ministerial agreement to reform. He noted that householders in boroughs were mortal and their votes end with their lives. We just have to cease permitting new ones to take-up the same rights. He understood Castlereagh to say he would bring-in a Bill to disenfranchise Grampound and transfer those seats elsewhere.
Russell then withdrew his proposals, pending for Castlereagh’s Grampound Bill.
Sat 3rd June 1820
George III died at 8.30 pm at Windsor Castle. All the church bells in London are being tolled. The late King was born on 24th May 1738 (which became 4th June after the 11-day correction of the calendar). He was enthroned in Oct 1760 and married in Sept 1761. The couple had seven sons and five daughters of whom six and four remain alive. The Regency commenced on 6th Feb 1811.
Sat 17th June 1820
George IV has dismissed parliament and indicated its recall in a couple of weeks. He is reported to have dismissed the ministry as well but they decline to be dismissed. The ministry’s newspaper the Courier denies it whilst the others refer to advices from confidential friends of ministers that they have all been sacked.
Sat 24th June 1820
Bells’ Weekly Messenger, 13th March - The British ministry has been obliged by the new King to call a General Election. There is a general feeling that some measure of parliamentary reform is requisite and that parliament should be something more than the instrument of the King whom it has historically rewarded with a Civil List beyond the means of the people to pay.
Castlereagh is heading the financial reform. He occasionally gets an addition to the Civil List approved on the grounds that some previous allowance will be discontinued and in this way – give a bit, take a lot - has whittled it down quite successfully. It could not have happened under George III. Its the most public aspect of increased power of the landowners over the Regent whose reduced position facilitated the parliamentary coup.
Sun 13th Aug 1820 Extraordinary
Excluding members of his own Royal Family, George III created three hereditary Dukedoms during his reign. They were conferred on the Percy and Montagu families in 1766 and the Wellesleys in 1814.
The Montagu Dukedom expired the year of its creation with the death of the childless Duke.
The other Dukedoms that expired during George III’s reign were on the Fitzroy, Powlett, Douglas, Bertie, Pierrepoint, Holles-Pelham, Brydges and Egerton families. They were respectively Dukes of Southampton, Bolton, Dover, Ancaster & Kesteven, Kingston, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Chandos and Bridgewater.
Another list of Marquisates given and surrendered is also published.
Sat 14th Oct 1820
House of Lords, 16th May – Lord Archibald Hamilton queried a ministerial proposal to create a fifth Baron of the Exchequer for Scotland. The Scottish Judges had said it was unnecessary. The business of the Scottish Treasury is done by the Remembrancer who delegates it ‘lock, stock and barrel’ to his nominee. That man calls the Barons to assemble and reports to them. They have only to agree or dissent. The Barons’ job involves less than two months a year, mainly travelling time from London. The nominee’s duties are said to be so great that no fixed reward is placed on them - effectively he sets his own salary. This is arrant jobbing, Hamilton thought.
Sir Walter Scott is a Principal Clerk of Sessions in the Scottish Judiciary. The job is supposedly demanding and full time yet Scott produces more private publications than Hamilton has time to read.
Hamilton is a deputy Lieutenant of a county. He is ashamed to be the man who calls out the army to suppress starving people when this sort of patronage exists and seems to be increasing.
Castlereagh for the ministry said its actually an economy. The Scottish Exchequer Court could not be assimilated to the English one because in Scotland it was a court without appeal. The appointment of Sir Peter Murray as fifth Baron had in fact saved Scotland £1,000 a year.
Tierney disagreed. He thought it was a disgrace. The gallery was then cleared for an hour whilst discussion continued. When the reporters re-entered, Hamilton’s motion was defeated 189/177. Anecdotally the political reporter later learned from co-operative MPs that it had been revealed the Lord President of the Scottish Exchequer was Sir Peter Murray’s brother-in-law.
Sat 9th June 1821
The elective franchise of Scotland is composed of 3,100 Scots, mainly freeholders. The ministry, at least since the days of Dundas Sr., has been well aware of the value of these voters. Whoever has the ear of this small group controls Scotland and the remaining populace of 2 millions is politically irrelevant.
Ministerial patronage is naturally focused on the voters but recently it seems to have been inadequate to retain their submission. There have been Freeholders Meetings around Scotland that are mostly in favour of political reform.
Sat 15th June 1822
The Royal Burghs of Scotland are the jewel in the Ministerial crown – who ever controls the Burghs controls Scotland. They are the means whereby the country can be bought for a fraction of its value. The Commons is debating them but any expectation of reform is out of the question. Their value was so clearly displayed by Dundas in Pitt’s ministry that it is inconceivable they would voluntarily be interfered with.
There are references to the Chiltern Hundreds above which is explained in the next article:
Sat 29th March 1823
The Chiltern Hundreds are divisions of counties made by King Alfred and since then annexed to the Crown. The Hundreds retain their own judiciary appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Each judicial steward receives a salary of £1 per annum. As it thus qualifies as an office of the Crown, anyone accepting a Stewardship is automatically disqualified from serving in the House of Commons. This is the significance of the Chiltern Hundreds today – it provides a simple means of resigning from an elected position in the Commons.
The effect of this control of access to parliament was in assuring the preponderance of successful candidates were open to persuasion in favour of the King and minister.
Sat 4th Jan 1823
Brougham has addressed the Commons on the King’s influence on parliament. One part of his speech dealt with the India Company. The Company and the ministry were always tolerably well together, he said. In 1790 the number of cadets appointed to the Company’s service was 120; in 1820 it was 570.
It is said in Whitehall that the ministry had one fourteenth of the appointments directly, i.e. in 1790 it had had 8 and by 1820 it controlled the appointments of 38 jobs. Indirectly, the ministry now influenced some 400 more annual appointments.
Brougham also reviewed a long list of other items of monarchical patronage.
Sat 12th April 1823
Considerable numbers of Scottish Earls, Viscounts and Barons forfeited their peerages during the reigns of William III, George I and George II. A good many of them were restored by arrangement with George III but there are still over 30 families (15 Earls, 3 Viscounts and 14 Barons) who remain commoners.
Sat 21st June 1823
House of Commons, 20th Feb – Lord John Russell mentioned the borough system of representation. He intends to make a motion for electoral reform on 11th March and had been shocked to hear the ministry was opposed it.
Canning said the ministry needed more time. It thought that examining the Charters whereby the boroughs were owned was too inquisitorial of the owners. Its not a question of the numbers of voters – everyone knows Old Sarum has two – its commercial discretion; boroughs are just another form of investment. Parliament should not be directing commercial men how to invest their capital.
Abercromby said the information was available from the returning officers without inspecting the Charters.
Peel for the ministry said eventually it would involve examination of the Charters.
Lord John Russell said he would be satisfied with the returns.
Peel said he could not commit the ministry.
On a division the ministry won 128/90
Scotland is also a ‘rotten borough’:
Sat 4th Oct 1823
The people of Edinburgh have petitioned in late May for improvement of their representation in House of Commons. The city has over 105,000 inhabitants who occupy buildings with a rental value of over £400,000. Since Union, Edinburgh has returned one representative to parliament.
The number of qualified electors is 33 of whom 19 select their successors. The inhabitants are thus excluded from the selection of any of these 19 people. The other 14 are called Deacons and are elected by a very restricted franchise. The property owned by these 33 electors is worth £2,800.
Dundas, the MP for Edinburgh, said the electorate is fixed in the Act of Union. Any attempt to reform the electorate of Edinburgh will infringe on the chartered rights of the city’s corporation. The petition was tabled.
Sat 20th Sept 1794
Burke’s anti-sinecure Bill (This debate is reported over several editions and consolidated here):
Harrison wanted to amend the Bill to curtail placemen and pensions. He did not mean to deprive the King’s friends of their sinecures. He was solely concerned to reduce the cost of administering the country which fell disproportionately on the poor. He wished the rich to make a greater contribution. Ministers had just called on the landowners and merchants to support the state (by creating militias) and he thought his motion would work in the same way. Those whose wealth derived from the general labour of the country should be foremost in alleviating distress.
He proposed to tax all work-free sinecures over £200 and working sinecures over £500. Of these sinecures, those that required no effort should pay 50%. Placemen holding more than one sinecure should be taxed 50% of the balance above £500. He thought this would be a suitable contribution from placemen to the national emergency and expected, when placemen share in the national distress, they might more clearly see the advantages of peace.
Here Harrison digressed to mention a distressed Norfolk industrialist who had formerly supported his local parish but was now thrown upon it for help. He said parish rates had become enormous and they were still scarcely sufficient to care for their parishioners.
He continued by noting that in the Exchequer are places worth thousands of pounds a year that require no work - they need regulation. He would exclude judges and the Speaker of the House, similar to the plan proposed in 1778. Harrison thought the discontent in England was not serious, certainly nothing like as serious as ministers suggested. Ministers should meet the people and listen to their concerns to reassure themselves.
The complaints of labourers and industrialists were against the men in power. For this the labourer is labelled seditious. The evils afflicting France were caused in the same way – by men in power. What the ministry was doing was arming one citizen against another; it was dragooning the people into submission by thwarting free speech. This revealed that the rottenness in the system extended to its foundations. Ministers must act equitably to inculcate justice before generosity. Justice to the English people at large should precede generosity to the government’s supporters.
Coke of Norfolk seconded. He lamented the demise of the trade of his county and the thousands of workers who were thrown on the poor rates although it had been augmented to £21,000. Drake, MP for Norwich, said his constituency was healthy and he supposed the motion had been brought solely to embarrass the government. Harrison confirmed the parlous state of Norfolk and was corroborated by Coke.
Hobart (Grey) said the war was not the cause of Norfolk’s distress. It was the arbitrary act of the Tsarina in proscribing the importation of thatch (of the type Norfolk produced) that caused the distress. It had thrown 10,000 men into unemployment. Hawkins Browne thought it unfair to single-out the men who governed the country to subscribe to its defence. The burden should fall on everyone equally. Montagu said rewards for public service were absolutely necessary. People would not work without reward. He considered daily attendance in the Commons qualified MPs for rewards.
He noted all executive functions in France were undertaken without reward. Such men, on receiving the nation’s trust, abused it and contributed to the oppression of the people. We should recognise the danger.
Curwen demurred. He thought most men sought public service for personal gain and he wanted all sinecures abolished.
Burke ridiculed Harrison’s amendment. He thought it would raise hopes in the poor that were unobtainable. He had expected Harrison to produce an account of the savings to be made and proposals for the useful applications of the savings. It turned out that the amounts involved were tiny. He thought a Grant from the Crown was as good a piece of property as any other. Was not Harrison’s estate comparable to a sinecure? He received the rents without doing any work. Burke thought the motion would do very little to help the poor.
He then adverted to the dangers, using the French experience as an example. The Revolution commenced due to the intolerable expense of the government. The first response was to abolish sinecures; then the numbers of real appointments was reduced; then landed property was attacked; then commercial profits were attacked - thus was the security of capital diminished. This motion has the same tendency. If it is carried there can be no telling how far it might go.
Sheridan supported the motion. He noted those MPs most affected by the motion had remained silent. He was astonished at what had been said. He recalled Burke’s Economical Bill wherein the doctrine now proposed was originally found. In that debate Burke said the amount of patronage was immense; now he says it is tiny. Another opponent of the motion had previously proposed the salaries of Secretaries of State be limited.
Any matter involving the public purse was precisely a matter requiring the attention of parliament. However much the savings made, they would still alleviate distress. Sheridan then referred to a single (unidentified) nobleman who had done nothing for his country but had received £500,000 in public money over the years. He thought the matter of sinecures was like the matter of political reform - because some people wanted total change, the entire project was deemed dangerous and rejected.
He noted one spoken objection was that any change would become known to the French who might conclude our finances were poor. This was inappropriate from people who had supported public subscriptions to the war effort. The Member for Norwich (Drake) might reasonably have contributed £15,000 but had actually donated £50. It required more than mere words to convince the public of the government’s determination to prosecute the war. Sheridan then produced a list of the sinecures held by one MP (George Rose of the Treasury, Pitt’s patronage manager) – Clerk of Pleas in the Exchequer; Superintendent of Green Wax, Secretary of the Treasury - and suggested 4 years of sinecure income would be a proper donation from Rose.
Sheridan then averred voluntary subscriptions would not come near to the amount that could be accumulated by abolition of sinecures. He noted that for 10 years past, the national finances were delinquent and expenditure repeatedly exceeded income. Every ministry spoke of balancing the books but always the task was deferred and the loans increased. He gave his warmest assent to the motion.
Rose resented being named. He said Pitt was reforming the Exchequer – sinecures, places, Customs, Auditor of the Imprest, etc – which had already saved £170,000 per annum. All former ministers took commissions from subscribing bankers to the national loans, on government contracts, on sale of lottery tickets, etc. Formerly British Chancellors distributed national loans to their banker friends, now they went to the highest bidder. Similarly the award of contracts was now done by a well-paid Commissary which provided everything for the army. He indicated the costs of the present war were comparatively less due to the absence of those commissions paid in the last war. There now remained only £10,000 on the civil list that might be used at the minister’s discretion and such a small sum could hardly buy the slightest favour, he said. He noted that it had been the practice, sometimes for a century or more, to not require Tellers of the Exchequer to audit their accounts. Pitt had required a general settlement with the Tellers which had produced a negotiated £800,000 for the national account.
“As for my own places”, Rose continued, “I was called to be Secretary of the Treasury in 1782. Pitt gave me the Clerk of Pleas job but its worth nothing.” Another sinecure had followed an address in the House of Lords long before he had held any public post. And he denied being Superintendent of Green Wax, having quitted the job as soon as he could. Rose noted that even Fox had a sinecure and two pensions. He categorised Sheridan’s speech as an appeal to popular prejudice.
Fox said he had been Clerk of the Pells in Ireland. He had received the place from George II in consequence of some service his father had performed. After his father died it passed to his elder brother and then to him but to accommodate the Irish Government he had agreed to exchange it for a pension. He was, according to Rose, also Receiver of South Wales but Fox himself did not mention it. Fox wished to state his view that private property was sacrosanct. If a sinecure was unworthily bestowed by a minister it was the fault of the minister but, provided it was done legally, the recipient could not be relieved of it.
He approved of the motion but, in light of current interest in the voluntary subscriptions, and their doubtful legality, he thought it right that those with sinecures should show their zeal by contributing whatever the instant Bill required. He noted that both Secretaries of State (Dundas and Grenville) had publicly declined to receive the whole salaries of their offices. It was said that Dundas took the salary of Treasurer of the Navy and declined the Home Secretary’s salary; and Grenville had declined the emoluments of the Auditorship of the Exchequer. In fact Fox knew that both Secretaries had the ‘unpaid’ salaries transferred to the Civil List and not to the general revenue (i.e. to be used as patronage).
Fox also disputed Rose’s contention that the Civil List held only £10,000 for the minister to play with. He said the expenses on the Civil List could never be limited. Foreign ministers are continually dipping into it, he said. However overall he thanked Burke for the proposed legislation and the effect it had of reducing the power of the King. Less sinecures = less King’s friends.
On those sinecures that entailed work, he thought some were well rewarded and others less so but overall the compensation was about right. He regretted that Burke had not taken Ireland into account. He thought it unfortunate that the influence of the King and his minister in Ireland through sinecures was so strong. He also noted new sinecures in India since the creation of the Board of Control. Fox castigated Rose for saying the country was in a flourishing condition. Only the government revenue was flourishing and that resulted from £1 million of new taxes. He supposed the tax on alcohol was salutary but had no doubt the people would resent the tax on sugar when tea had become the national drink and sugar was the sole nutrient in it.
Rose reiterated that commerce was flourishing considering we were at war.
Fox thought this might easily be evaluated by comparing the state of commerce before and during the last war with the state now. He thought generally that the cost of government in England was not unduly expensive except in comparison with France. He would vote for this Bill should it survive the debates. He would propose to exempt all places where the holder had a legal vested right. The others should be considered case by case and the appropriate value awarded. He reiterated that his support derived from ministers approaching the public for supposedly voluntary donations. Had they followed the usual means of funding, he would not concern himself.
He then turned to Rose’s comments on the tiny savings to be made from ending sinecures and the matter of contracts and loans etc. Fox noted that great fortunes had been made by abuses in the Pay Office. He recalled his father when Paymaster had been a beneficiary and so were the Paymasters before and after him. The modus operandi of the sinecure holder was to produce no accounts.
Pitt defended the voluntary contributions as reflecting the opinion of the people and as involving them in the national effort. They had been zealous in subscribing and zeal was what England needed to overcome France. He noted Fox would exempt all places where the holder had a legally vested right and said this would exclude 90% of sinecures. He said England got good value from its Secretaries of State who performed several duties without taking all the emoluments attached to those duties. He agreed the savings went to the Civil List but were barely sufficient to support the King’s dignity. He said the cost of the Royal household and representation at foreign courts had steadily increased and, had it not been for the reduction in pensions, the Civil List would be inadequate for its purposes despite its careful management. Finally he thought it was unfair to tax people, like placemen, who had more to do in wartime.
Concerning the national debt he noted that expenditure was increasing due to war but he would continue to reduce the debt. War had reduced commerce and thus revenue but income was now increasing and he had a balance of £230,000 to pay over to Ways and Means. The increase came from taxes in last quarter of 1793 that were greater than taxes in last quarter of 1792. He thought the entire debate suggested the country was in financial difficulty when it was not the case and he suspected the opposition had brought it on to create embarrassment when we should all unite to vigorously prosecute the war.
The House divided - 48 for Harrison’s amendment, 117 against.
Friend of China 8.9.42 edition
Corruption of democracy in England:
Sudbury is an outstanding example of a rotten borough. An Indian named Dyce Sombre, grandson of the Begum Somroo of Sirhana (Sombre’s wife is a daughter of the Earl St Vincent), wished to become an MP. He bought this borough for himself and his colleagues. A flagrant case has since been made out against him to the Election Committee and it appears quite likely that they have no choice but to disenfranchise Sudbury.
It is a borough of weavers and 150 are on the register as freemen but only very few of those inhabit the sort of housing that is sufficiently valuable to entitle them to vote. The Governor of the Court of Guardians for the relief of the poor of Sudbury, John Crisp Gooday, said men openly receive money or its promise from both Whig and Tory candidates but still take the Oath (that they have not been bribed) and vote. He says this increases immorality.
What some voting weavers say is that it is easy to omit the word 'not' when mumbling the Oath to the clerk (that they have not received money) and thus they swear to the truth. Another way to avoid the Oath is to hold the Bible in such a way that one kisses one's own thumb instead of the book-cover when making Oath. But as a general rule, most voters nowadays do not scruple at all and just perjure themselves. Gooday has commented as follows:
“After the general election of 1835 a man came to me who wanted to be a witness in a trial I had coming on. I knew that what he proposed to say was untrue and told him so. He said he came to serve the party and asked me what he should swear. I told him to go away. He said he did not mind which side paid him. Later he appeared as a witness at Bury St Edmonds for the other side and gave evidence exactly opposite to what he had offered to say for my client. Of course he was broken in cross-examination but his guilt remains. After deliberately perjuring themselves these people become callous to the truth. This is a solitary case but it corresponds with the general system of demoralisation produced by the vices and crimes consequent upon the drunkenness, debauchery and bribery at elections in this borough.30
“The January 1835 election was more corrupt than any prior or since. I have calculated the expenses attending that election in Sudbury and, to my knowledge, if equally divided amongst all the electors, it comes to £30 - 35 per head. I know that some respectable people were not bribed and that 25 people did not vote. This means the actual receipt per voter was nearly £35.
“The candidates and their election committees know these poor men cannot resist such handsome bribes. There are 600 men on the electoral register. I know 400 were bribed and deliberately perjured themselves. Since then there have been two further elections but no candidate has come forward to contest the seat because of its high cost. As a result the same corrupt MP who has long ‘represented’ Sudbury has been returned unopposed each time and he had hardly to pay anything.”
Mr Gooday then gave details of the last ten elections, inter alia:
“The general election of June 1837 was exceptional. The voters had neglected their work as voting day approached in the expectation of large bribes but the candidates had agreed not to bribe anyone. Much hardship resulted. The candidates and the resident committee men are the cause of this trouble. The bribery oath must be repealed - the voters are overwhelmed by temptation and the oath serves no useful purpose.”
1 Primarily the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall – about £15,000 a year.
2 It caused the only serious spat George had with Pitt whose officials were then on the Russian frontier awaiting news. Paul’s death was part of a Machiavellian scheme to destroy the Armed Baltic Neutrality that Paul led and was ‘part one’ of a two-part plot, the latter of which, in event of failure in Petersburg, was the capture of the Danish fleet, the only capable element in the Armed Neutrality’s fleet (see text for better information). There was also a difference over Catholic disabilities which George sought to continue in light of the terms of his Coronation Oath, but it seems a reasonable bet, given the mercenary policy of the time and the constant flow of wealth from Ireland to England, that Catholic exclusion was too valuable to be foregone.
3 The British people at this time refer to George III’s family as the House of Brunswick, Anglicised from Braunschweig. The appellation appears in popular English songs and poems of the 18th and early 19th centuries
4 The Diet of 1803 will shortly re-organise the number of German states from over 300 to 131 members and increase the number of secular Electors to nine by addition of Baden, Hesse-Cassel, Wurtemburg and Salzburg. There are five ‘arch’ positions in the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor as King of Bohemia is arch-cupbearer, his brother Charles is President of the Rhine Confederation and arch-chancellor, King Frederick Augustus of Saxony is arch-marshal, King Frederick William of Prussia is arch-chamberlain and George III is arch-treasurer.
5 Devonshire appears to have seceded from parliament along with the liberal Whigs.
6 John Stockdale was prosecuted in 1789 for a libel on the House of Commons. The pamphlet complained against was a defence of Warren Hastings’ administration of India. A few paragraphs of Erskine’s Defence may be found in the first Asia chapter introducing the articles concerning Hastings’ trial. Notes of the Stockdale proceedings were most recently republished in 1974. Erskine’s defence is still considered important in determining the rights of the Press.
7 Reeves is a law clerk serving in Lord Hawkesbury’s office and the author of a scholarly history of the laws of England.
8 There have been a series of trials of democrats for sedition, resulting in heavy sentences and effectively cowing dissenting opinion.
9 There are two large Republics at this time of Western history – the American and the French – and a few small ones in Italy.
10 Bishops of the Anglican Church are appointed by the King and they in turn approve the clergy. This allows the King a direct voice in the villages, through the local vicar, and is an important base of his power. The list of Constitutional documents in his address, to which should be added Magna Charta, comprised the then Constitution of Great Britain.
11 This is a spat between George III and his eldest son whom the King suspects of sympathising with Fox’s Republican ideals. The King declines to pay and Pitt has to support him
12 Merchants in the Danish case; naval officers in the Spanish.
13 This was true at the time but not for much longer due to the insertion of paper-money between value and work, which facility was beyond political will to control.
14 Both these reliefs were obtained by rebellion but the insurrectionists had other aims and the relief obtained was incidental
15 This may have been solicited by the Dundas family which enjoys peculiar authority in Scotland. As appears later in the text, Scotland at this time was controlled by 3,100 elected and hereditary representatives, many resident in London.
16 In the few months of the Whig ministry several Enquiries were initiated into government spending resulting in some embarrassing discoveries – see the main text.
17 The reed was hollow and was said to be capable of delivering a projectile at lethal speed, like a blow-pipe. It was called ‘the pop-gun plot’ in the newspapers. The public had not conceived of the possibility of le Maitre succeeding in this offence – like the later émigré assertions of an assassination plot against Louis XVIII with a carrot, see below.
18 The term appears to have originated in a comment of the King’s reported by Lord Temple (Buckingham, one of the Grenvilles) to the House of Lords that whoever voted for Fox’s India Bill was not the King’s friend but his enemy.
19 The borough was actually sold by Camelford in 1802 to the Earl of Caledon. Alexander was one of the sitting MPs until 1806. At this election the candidates were Vansittart and Josias du Pre Porcher, the East India trader, both in the minister’s stable.
20 See the main text for details of this Address.
21 Burdett was given such short notice of the date fixed to debate his motion that he was unable to arrive from his country residence in time. The other liberals were either unprepared or lacked the information to argue on his behalf and his motion was easily defeated.
22 He wrote of influencing a tyrannical King and a slavish aristocracy. MacIntosh would be pleased with the way the representation has developed in Britain.
23 The Convention of Cintra was advantageous to France; the Walcheren expedition was expected to be given the keys to Antwerp. Neither failure resulted in serious ministerial criticism. Interestingly no MP is saying that revolution and political reform in France facilitated military despotism – that is only in the newspapers.
24 The medical reports are reproduced in the newspaper but not cited here.
25 Actually Walsh bought his seat and, if expelled, may have to buy another – since the trial Walsh has declared himself bankrupt with a single prominent item in his Statement of Assets - £5,000 being the cost of one parliamentary seat.
26 Pitt brought them into the loans bidding to break the City ring. This shortage relates to part of Melville’s unauthorised payments at the Admiralty.
27 He had received a barrage of abuse from the sick King after the death of Tsar Paul.
28 Willis is the man who uses physical restraint and psychology to treat the King
29 Some English militias have been hesitant to shoot English democrats but the Irish have less trouble on that score, and vice versa. Emancipation is the overt reason the Regency remains limited.
30 See the Europe 1810 – 23 chapter and particularly the denunciation by Lloyd’s of London in the Sat 6th June 1812 newspaper for an early statement of ‘vices and crimes’ in the community.