could confide.  Harley, Foley and Howe carried every thing before them.  A resolution, affirming that those who had advised the Crown on this occasion were public enemies, was carried with only two or three Noes.  Harley, after reminding his hearers that they had their negative voice as the King had his, and that, if His Majesty refused then redress, they could refuse him money, moved that they should go up to the Throne, not, as usual, with a Humble Address, but with a Representation.  Some members proposed to substitute the more respectful word Address:  but they were overruled; and a committee was appointed to draw up the Representation.

Another night passed; and, when the House met again, it appeared that the storm had greatly subsided.  The malignant joy and the wild hopes which the Jacobites had, during the last forty-eight hours, expressed with their usual imprudence, had incensed and alarmed the Whigs and the moderate Tories.  Many members too were frightened by hearing that William was fully determined not to yield without an appeal to the nation.  Such an appeal might have been successful:  for a dissolution, on any ground whatever, would, at that moment, have been a highly popular exercise of the prerogative.  The constituent bodies, it was well known, were generally zealous for the Triennial Bill, and cared comparatively little about the Place Bill.  Many Tory members, therefore, who had recently voted against the Triennial Bill, were by no means desirous to run the risks of a general election.  When the Representation which Harley and his friends had prepared was read, it was thought offensively strong.  After being recommitted, shortened and softened, it was presented by the whole House.  William’s answer was kind and gentle; but he conceded nothing.  He assured the Commons that he remembered with gratitude the support which he had on many occasions received from them, that he should always consider their advice as most valuable, and that he should look on counsellors who might attempt to raise dissension between him and his Parliament as his enemies but he uttered not a word which could be construed into an acknowledgment that he had used his Veto ill, or into a promise that he would not use it again.

The Commons on the morrow took his speech into consideration.  Harley and his allies complained that the King’s answer was no answer at all, threatened to tack the Place Bill to a money bill, and proposed to make a second representation pressing His Majesty to explain himself more distinctly.  But by this time there was a strong reflux of feeling in the assembly.  The Whigs had not only recovered from their dismay, but were in high spirits and eager for conflict.  Wharton, Russell and Littleton maintained that the House ought to be satisfied with what the King had said.  “Do you wish,” said Littleton, “to make sport for your enemies?  There is no want of them.  They besiege our very doors.  We read, as we come through the lobby, in the face