PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED.

On the first day of April the parliament was prorogued, and afterwards dissolved by proclamation. Writs were issued out for new elections, together with a proclamation commanding all the peers of North Britain to assemble at Holyrood-house in Edinburgh, on the seventeenth day of June, to elect sixteen peers to represent them in the ensuing British parliament, pursuant to the twenty-second article of the treaty of union. After the dissolution of the parliament, the lords Griffin and Clermont, two sons of the earl of Middleton, and several Scottish and Irish officers who had been taken on board the Salisbury, were brought to London and imprisoned in the Tower or in Newgate. Lord Griffin being attainted by outlawry, for high treason committed in the reign of king William, was brought to the bar of the court of king’s bench, and a rule made for his execution; but he was reprieved from month to month, until he died a natural death in prison. The privy-council of Scotland was dissolved; the duke of Queensberry was created a British peer, by the title of baron of Ripon, marquis of Beverley, and duke of Dover; and the office of secretary at war, vacant by the resignation of Henry St. John, was bestowed upon Robert Walpole, a gentleman who had rendered himself considerable in the house of commons, and whose conduct Ave shall have occasion to mention more at large in the sequel. About the same time a proclamation was issued for distributing prizes, in certain proportions, to the different officers and seamen of the royal navy; a regulation that still prevails.