[Footnote 60:  On the division the numbers were:  for the motion, 90; against it, 182.]

[Footnote 61:  The division in 1782 was:  161 to 141; in 1783, 293 to 149.]

[Footnote 62:  How systematic and open bribery was at this time is shown by an account of Sheridan’s expenses at Stafford in 1784, of which the first item is—­248 burgesses, paid L5 5s. each, L1302.—­Moore’s Life of Sheridan, i., 405.]

[Footnote 63:  “Life of Pitt,” i., 359.]

[Footnote 64:  Lord North was a Knight of the Garter, the only commoner, except Sir R. Walpole, who received that distinction in the last century, and the latest, with the exception of Lord Castlereagh. on whom it has been conferred.]

[Footnote 65:  233 to 315.]

[Footnote 66:  It is perhaps worth pointing out, as a specimen of the practical manner in which parliamentary business was transacted at that time, that this great debate—­in which (the House being in committee) Mr. Dunning himself spoke three times, and Lord North, Mr. T. Pitt, Mr. Fox, the Speaker (Sir F. Norton), the Attorney-general, General Conway, Governor Pownall, the Lord-advocate, and several other members took part—­was concluded by twelve o’clock.]

[Footnote 67:  February 8, 1780, on Lord Shelburne’s motion for an inquiry into the public expenditure.—­Parliamentary History, xx., 1346.]

[Footnote 68:  101 to 55.]

[Footnote 69:  “Constitutional History,” iii., 43.]

[Footnote 70:  His language is said to have been that “there was at all events one Magistrate in the kingdom who would do his duty.”—­Lord Stanhope, History of England, vii., 48.]

[Footnote 71:  “Lives of the Lord Chancellors,” c. clxvii.]

[Footnote 72:  Lord Stanhope’s “History of England,” vii, 56.]

CHAPTER IV.

Changes of Administration.—­The Coalition Ministry.—­The Establishment of the Prince of Wales.—­Fox’s India Bill.—­The King Defeats it by the Agency of Lord Temple.—­The Ministry is Dismissed, and Succeeded by Mr. Pitt’s Administration.—­Opposition to the New Ministry in the House of Commons.—­Merits of the Contest between the Old and the New Ministry.—­Power of Pitt.—­Pitt’s India Bill.—­Bill for the Government of Canada.—­The Marriage of the Prince of Wales to Mrs. Fitzherbert.—­The King becomes Deranged.—­Proposal of a Regency.—­Opinions of Various Writers on the Course adopted.—­Spread of Revolutionary Societies and Opinions.—­Bills for the Repression of Sedition and Treason.—­The Alien Act.—­The Traitorous Correspondence Act.—­Treason and Sedition Bills.—­Failure of some Prosecutions under them.