BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF QUAKERS IN THE ARTICLE OF TITHES.

The bill for limiting the number of officers in the house of commons was again revived. The king was empowered to borrow six hundred thousand pounds, chargeable on the sinking fund, for the service of the ensuing year, though this power was not easily granted; and the house resolved to lay a duty of twenty shillings per gallon on all spirituous liquors, after it had appeared to the committee appointed for that purpose, that those spirits were pernicious to the health and morals of the people. To this resolution was added another, which amounted to a total prohibition, namely, that fifty pounds should be yearly paid to his majesty for a license to be annually taken out by every person who should vend, barter, or utter any such spirituous liquors. Mr. Walter Plummer, in a well concerted speech, moved for the repeal of some clauses in the Test act: these he represented as a species of persecution, in which protestant dissenters were confounded with the Roman catholics and enemies to the establishment. He was sustained by lord Polworth and Mr. Heathcote; but sir Robert Walpole was joined by Mr. Shippen against the motion, as dangerous to the established church; and the question being put, it was carried in the negative.

1736

When sir Joseph Jekyll presented to the house, according to order, a bill founded on the resolutions they had taken against spirituous liquors, sir Robert Walpole acquainted them, by his majesty’s command, that as the alterations proposed to be made by that bill in the duties charged upon all spirituous liquors might, in a great degree, affect some part of the civil list revenues, his majesty, for the sake of remedying so great an evil as was intended by that bill to be prevented, did consent to accept any other revenue of equal value, to be settled and appropriated in lieu of his interest in the said duties. The bill was read a second time, and consigned to a committee of the whole house; but that for limiting the number of officers in the house of commons was thrown out at the second reading. Petitions against the bill touching the retail of spirituous liquors, were presented by the traders to the British sugar colonies, by the merchants of Bristol and Liverpool, representing the hardships to which they would be exposed by a law which amounted to a prohibition of rum and spirits distilled from molasses. In consequence of these remonstrances, a mitigating clause was inserted, in favour of the composition known by the name of punch, and distillers were permitted to exercise any other employment. The sum of seventy thousand pounds was voted for making good the deficiencies that might happen in the civil list by this bill, which at length passed through the house, though not without reiterated disputes and warm altercation. Violent opposition was likewise made to a bill for the relief the people called quakers, who offered a petition, representing, that though from motives of conscience they refused the payment of tithes, church-rates, oblations, and ecclesiastical dues, they were exposed to grievous sufferings by prosecution in the exchequer, ecclesiastical, and other courts, to the imprisonment of their persons, and the ruin of them and their families. A bill being prepared for their relief, was read and printed; then petitions were preferred against it by the clergy of Middlesex, and of many other parts of the kingdom. Counsel was heard in behalf of those petitioners, and several alterations proposed in the bill, which after long and repeated debates surmounted all opposition, and was sent up to the lords.

GEORGE II. 1727-1760