HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN. GEORGE III. turn. BOOK XXII. State of Parties. Proceedings relative to the Westminster ReMotion of Mr. Sawbridge for an Enquiry into the State of the Representation. Mr. Pitt's second India Bill. Zeal of Mr. Burke for the Reform of Abuses in India. Bill for the Prevention of Smuggling. Commutation Act. King's Debts a fourth Time discharged. Restoration of the forfeited Estates in Scotland. Short Interval of Happiness and Repose. State of Ireland. National Convention held at Dublin. Mr. Flood's Motion for a Reform of Parliament. Mr. Flood's second Motion of Reform.. Triumph of the Court. State of the Irish Commerce. Second National Convention. Commercial Propositions moved by Mr. Ordi. Mr. Flood's third Motion of Reform. Farther Pricelding on the Westminster Return. Mr. Pitt's ultimate Plan of Parliamentary Reform. Beneficial Regulations of Office Strip Toes. Unjust Imposition on Hawkers and Pedlars. Irish Propositions introduced into the VOL. VIII. BOOK XXII. 1784. State of of the Shop Tax. English House of Commons. Irish Propositions altered and Charge respecting Presents. Mr. Hastings impeached at THE established appellations of WHIG and TORY, as descriptive of the two grand political parties which under these or equivalent terms of distinction will doubtless subsist so long as the present constitution of government shall remain, though greatly changed from their original signification, it would nevertheless be fastidious to reject. The gradations of sentiment and principle which mark their progress it is however of XXII. 1784. indispensable importance occasionally to specify. BOOK The principles of Whiggism may indeed in this respect be said to have gained a complete triumph over those of the ancient Tories, inasmuch as the once favourite maxims of Toryism-passive obedience, non-resistance, and the divine and indefeasible right of monarchy-have fallen into general contempt. Nor can any doctrines bearing the most distant analogy to these monstrous absurdities be now maintained, without the use of such artificial and ambiguous phraseology as, however magnificent in sound and show, shall vanish from the touch of reason as mists and vapors from the noon-day sun. Agreeably then to the vicissitudes which have in a long series of eventful years taken place in the views and sentiments of the opposing parties of the state, a WHIG must now be understood to mean a man who, in addition to the speculative principles of liberty civil and religious which have descended to him from his ancestors, entertains a lively, and well-founded jealousy lest the preroga tive of the crown should, in consequence of the prodigious increase of its influence, ultimately absorb the whole power and authority of the other branches of the government, and with them the liberties of the nation at large, in its vast and tremendous vortex. A modern Whig acknow ledges and deeply regrets the improvidence of his BOOK ancestors in contributing, by the facility of their XXII. 1784. compliances, to the accumulation of an immense public debt, and the establishment of a standing army, both of which are yet in a state alarmingly progressive. He can scarcely forgive those extravagant ebullitions of loyalty which could sacrifice the most sacred principles of the constitu tion to the interest or ambition of the reigning family, in prolonging, by a most unjustifiable stretch of power, the existence of parliaments to a term of dangerous duration, and in furnishing to a minister, little scrupulous of expedients, and regardless of consequences, the means of universal and unbounded corruption. Whatever palliations of the fatal system then adopted, the peculiarity of that minister's situation, and the situation of the country at large in a political view, might then afford, had, it was affirmed, been long since entirely at an end; but the same system is nevertheless resolutely and uninterruptedly pursued, recovering, Antæus-like, from every apparent or accidental fall with renewed and redoubled vigor. On the other hand, the modern Tories, although the descendents of those who long entertained a most inveterate enmity against the family upon the throne, and who from motives not of the purest patriotism, vehemently opposed in the former reighs the unconstitutional measures of the Whigs, having at length entirely XXII. 1784. shaken off their old attachments, and being taken BOOK into favour and invested with power under the marked and too partial protection of the court, suddenly became its open and zealous advocates -combining, as far as the spirit of the times would admit, the speculative errors of one party with the practical errors of the other. The necessity of strengthening the prerogative of the monarch, and of supporting the DIGNITY of the CROWN, was from this time the incessant theme of their argument and declamation. Concessions and indulgences were in their estimation things incompatible with the majesty of the regal character. The high, harsh, and peremptory tone of AUTHORITY, uniformly marked every act of government under the almost constant predominance of this dangerous faction during the present reign, from the commitment of a printer, or the prosecution of a libeller, to those measures of provocation and oppression terminating in a war which rent in twain and had well nigh subverted the empire. This party, now grown strong and confident by an unexpected return of prosperity, assumed with ostentatious audacity the appellation of the KING'S FRIENDS, in which novel capacity they hesitated not to give their eager and ardent support to those measures, of court policy which had been ever reprobated by the Tories of elder |