A FAMOUS PREAMBLE.

83

and the preamble continued: "and whereas it hath been found by experience that the said clause both proved very grievous and burdensome, by occasioning much greater and more continued the expenses in order to elections of members to serve in Parliament, and more violent and lasting heats and animosities among the subjects of this realm than were ever known before the said clause was enacted; and the said provision, if it should continue, may probably at this juncture, when a restless and popish faction are designing and endeavouring to renew the rebellion within this kingdom and an invasion from abroad, be destructive to the peace and security of the Government: Be it enacted," etc. The proposed enactment was that "this present Parliament, and all Parliaments that shall at any time hereafter be called, shall and may respectively have continuance for," and then followed a blank, which afterwards was filled up by the insertion of the number of years contem

plated by the ministry in introducing the

measure.

The proposition to repeal the Triennial Act seems to have taken the country by surprise. As recently as in the preceding Parliament the mere suspicion of a repeal of the Triennial Act had occasioned an outcry in the country, and vehement protestations were heard against such a course from the very men who, now that their own party was in power, were advocating the measure. Ephemeral publications bearing the same date as the year of the Act, show great eagerness to pacify the feeling of constituencies who had rather been accustomed to discuss annual Parliaments than to anticipate septennial ones. The resolution to introduce this bill was probably first foreshadowed in a speech from the throne, on the royal assent being giving to the first bills passed in the George I. then acquainted the Parliament with the Pretender's flight before his

session.

forces, and bespoke the zeal and wisdom of the Parliament to take such measures "as may deprive our enemies at home of the power, since that alone can deprive them of the inclination, again to attempt the disturbance of my government." This was on February 17th, and by the time the bill was actually introduced into the House of Lords (the 10th of April) we find that means had been employed to win opinions over in its favour. A sample of the current apologies for the suspension of triennial Parliaments, in the favourite form of a letter to a country gentleman, dated on the very day of the bill's introduction, begins, "You will be surprised that I, who so lately expressed myself uneasy at the design of altering the Triennial Bill, should so quickly have changed my mind and appear an advocate for the design." In the pleas then urged to conciliate the people, it was as a suspensory measure that the bill was spoken of. "Not one word in this

tract," says one writer, "is to be understood to mean the absolute repeal, but a temporary suspension of the law, the limitation to expire at a certain time, and the law then to return to its full force unless these limitations should be further extended by the same authority and upon the like necessity, of which necessity Parliament shall always be the judge." The public were assured that the reigning prince and the existing Parliament might be trusted not to do anything to endanger liberty. The practice of occasionally suspending the Militia Act and Habeas Corpus Act was adduced as an instance of suspension of laws most essential to the liberties of the people, and the great importance of frustrating the hopes of the Jacobites at the next election was strongly urged. "If this Parliament continue," wrote a pamphleteer already quoted, "the Jacobites are again entirely lost; their cause can never have a resurrection in this country... the Pretender may

PRETEXTS AND PROTESTS.

87

e'en go and buy land in Swisserland or in Mount Helliard, or wherever he pleases. He will never find any more in Great Britain than what his coffin should take up when they come to bury him." Another writer, giving what he calls "particular reasons sufficient and strong for the present suspension," alludes to the fact that the "unhappy deluded people of this nation are so far from being cured of their frenzy by the late rebellion that they appear as barefaced. and open against the Government as ever." He therefore proposed to deprive the King's enemies of the power of doing mischief under the Triennial Act. There was no pretence of concealing the unpopularity of the proposal. One letter-writer refers to his correspondent as expostulating with unusual warmth on the rumoured design among the great men of the Whig party to get a law either to suspend the Triennial Act for four years or to repeal it.. Other writers argue that when a thing ought