SECESSION OF THE CHIEF MEMBERS IN THE OPPOSITION.

Then sir William Wyndham, standing up, made a pathetic remonstrance upon this determination. “This address,” said he, “is intended to convince mankind, that the treaty under our consideration is a reasonable and an honourable treaty. But if a majority of twenty-eight in such a full house should fail of that success; if the people should not implicitly resign their reason to a vote of this house, what will be the consequence? Will not the parliament lose its authority? Will it not be thought, that even in the parliament we are governed by a faction? and what the consequence of this may be, I leave to those gentlemen to consider, who are now to give their vote for this address: for my own part, I will trouble you no more, but, with these my last words, I sincerely pray to Almighty God, who has so often wonderfully protected these kingdoms, that he will graciously continue his protection over them, by preserving us from that impending danger which threatens the nation from without, and likewise from that impending danger which threatens our constitution from within.” The minister was on this occasion deserted by his usual temper, and even provoked into personal abuse. He declared, that the gentleman who was now the mouth of his opponents, had been looked upon as the head of those traitors, who, twenty-five years before, conspired the destruction of their country and of the royal family, in order to set a popish pretender upon the throne; that he was seized by the vigilance of the then government, and pardoned by its clemency; but all the use he had ungratefully made of that clemency, was to qualify himself according to law, that he and his party might sometime or other have an opportunity to overthrow all law. He branded them all as traitors, and expressed his hope, that their behaviour would unite all the true friends of the present happy establishment. To such a degree of mutual animosity were both sides inflamed, that the most eminent members of the minority actually retired from parliament; and were by the nation in general revered as martyrs to the liberty of the people.