The united country interest in the House was extremely set upon passing this Bill.  They had conceived an opinion from former precedents, that the court would certainly oppose all steps towards a resumption of grants; and those who were apprehensive that the treasurer inclined the same way, proposed the Bill should be tacked to another, for raising a fund by duties upon soap and paper, which hath been always imputed, whether justly or no, as a favourite expedient of those called the Tory party.  At the same time it was very well known, that the House of Lords had made a fixed and unanimous resolution against giving their concurrence to the passing such united bills:  so that the consequences of this project must have been to bring the ministry under difficulties, to stop the necessary supplies, and endanger the good correspondence between both Houses; notwithstanding all which the majority carried it for a tack; and the committee was instructed accordingly to make the two Bills into one, whereby the worst that could happen would have followed, if the treasurer had not convinced the warm leaders in this affair, by undeniable reasons, that the means they were using would certainly disappoint the end; that neither himself, nor any other of the Queen’s servants, were at all against this enquiry; and he promised his utmost credit to help forward the bill in the House of Lords.  He prevailed at last to have it sent up single; but their lordships gave it another kind of reception.  Those who were of the side opposite to the court, withstood it to a man, as in a party case:  among the rest, some very personally concerned, and others by friends and relations, which they supposed a sufficient excuse to be absent, or dissent.  Even those, whose grants were antecedent to this intended inspection, began to be alarmed as men, whose neighbours’ houses are on fire.  A shew of zeal for the late king’s honour, occasioned many reflections upon the date of this enquiry, which was to commence with his reign:  and the Earl of Nottingham, who had now flung away the mask which he had lately pulled off, like one who had no other view but that of vengeance against the Queen and her friends, acted consistently enough with his design, by voting as a lord against the Bill, after he had directed his son in the House of Commons to vote for the tack.

Thus miscarried this popular Bill for appointing commissioners to examine into royal grants; but whether those chiefly concerned did rightly consult their own interest, hath been made a question, which perhaps time will resolve.  It was agreed that the Queen, by her own authority, might have issued out a commission for such an enquiry, and every body believed, that the intention of the Parliament was only to tax the grants with about three years’ purchase, and at the same time establish the proprietors in possession of the remainder for ever; so that, upon the whole, the grantees would have been great gainers by such an Act, since the titles of those lands, as they stood