PETITION OF KENT.

This faction had, since the beginning of this session, employed their emissaries in exciting a popular aversion to the tory ministers and members, and succeeded so well in their endeavours, that they formed a scheme of obtaining petitions from different counties and corporations that should induce the commons to alter their conduct, on the supposition that it was contrary to the sense of the nation. In execution of this scheme, a petition signed by the deputy-lieutenants, above twenty justices of the peace, the grand jury and freeholders of the county of Kent, had been presented to the house of commons on the eighteenth of May, by five gentlemen of fortune and distinction. The purport of this remonstrance was to recommend union among themselves, and confidence in his majesty, whose great actions for the nation could never be forgotten without the blackest ingratitude; to beg they would have regard to the voice of the people; that their religion and safety might be effectually provided for; that their loyal addresses might be turned into bills of supply; and that his most sacred majesty might be enabled powerfully to assist his allies before it should be too late. The house was so incensed at the petulance of the petition, that they voted it scandalous, insolent, and seditious; and ordered the gentlemen who had presented it to be taken into custody. They were afterwards committed to the Gate-house, where they remained till the prorogation of parliament; but they had no reason to repine at their imprisonment, which recommended them to the notice and esteem of the public. They were visited and caressed by the chiefs of the whig interest, and considered as martyrs to the liberties of the people. Their confinement gave rise to a very extraordinary paper, entitled, “A memorial from the gentlemen, freeholders, and inhabitants of the counties of———, in behalf of themselves and many thousands of the good people of England.” It was signed Legion, and sent to the speaker in a letter, commanding him, in the name of two hundred thousand Englishmen, to deliver it to the house of commons. In this strange expostulation, the house was charged with illegal and unwarrantable practices in fifteen particulars; a new claim of right was ranged under seven heads; and the commons were admonished to act according to their duty, as specified in this memorial, on pain of incurring the resentment of an injured nation. It was concluded in these words—“For Englishmen are no more to be slaves to parliaments than to kings-our name is Legion, and we are many.” The commons were equally provoked and intimidated by this libel, which was the production of one Daniel de Foe, a scurrilous party-writer in very little estimation. They would not, however, deign to take notice of it in the house; but a complaint being made of endeavours to raise tumults and seditions, a committee was appointed to draw up an address to his majesty, informing him of those seditious endeavours, and beseeching him to provide for the public peace and security.

The house, however, perceiving plainly that they had incurred the odium of the nation, which began to clamour for a war with France, and dreading the popular resentment, thought fit to change their measures with respect to this object, and present the address we have already mentioned, in which they promised to support him in the alliances he should contract with the emperor and other states in order to bridle the exorbitant power of France. They likewise proceeded in earnest upon the supply, and voted funds for raising about two millions seven hundred thousand pounds to defray the expense of the ensuing year. They voted thirty thousand seamen, and resolved that ten thousand troops should be transported from Ireland to Holland, as the auxiliaries stipulated in the treaty of 1677 with the states-general. The funds were constituted of a land-tax, certain duties on merchandise, and a weekly deduction from the excise, so as to bring down the civil list to six hundred thousand pounds, as the duke of Gloucester was dead, and James’ queen refused her allowance. They passed a bill for taking away all privileges of parliament in legal prosecutions during the intermediate prorogations; their last struggle with the lords was concerning a bill for appointing commissioners to examine and state the public accounts. The persons nominated for this purpose were extremely obnoxious to the majority of the peers, as violent partizans of the tory faction; when the bill, therefore, was sent up to the lords, they made some amendments which the commons rejected. The former animosity between the two houses began to revive, when the king interrupted their disputes by putting an end to the session on the twenty-fourth day of Juno, after having thanked the parliament for their zeal in the public service, and exhorted them to a discharge of their duties in their several counties. He was, no doubt, extremely pleased with such an issue of a session that had began with a very inauspicious aspect. His health daily declined; but he concealed the decay of his constitution, that his allies might not be discouraged from engaging in a confederacy of which he was deemed the head and chief support. He conferred the command of the ten thousand troops destined for Holland upon the earl of Marlborough, and appointed him at the same time his plenipotentiary to the states-general, a choice that evinced his discernment and discretion; for that nobleman surpassed all his contemporaries both as a general and a politician. He was cool, penetrating, intrepid, and persevering, plausible, insinuating, artful, and dissembling.