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VOTES of January 26, 1775.

A motion was made, and the queftion being propofed, "That the Chaplain to this House do

preach before this House, at St. Margaret's, "Westminster, upon Monday next the thir"tieth day of this inftant January, &c."

THE Lord Mayor, Mr. Wilkes, faid, that

he was for the obfervance of the day, not in the usual manner by fafting and prayer to deprecate the pretended wrath of heaven, but in a very different way from what fome other gentlemen had propofed; that it should be celebrated as a festival, as a day of triumph, not kept as a faft; that the death of the first Charles, a determined enemy of the liberties of his country, who made war on his people, and murdered many thousands of his innocent subjects, an odious, hypocritical tyrant, who was,

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in the great Milton's words, ipfo Nerone neronior, fhould be confidered as a facrifice to the public juftice of the nation, as highly approved by heaven, and ought to be had in solemn remembrance as the moft glorious deed ever done in this, or any country, without which we should at this hour have had no conftitution, degenerated into the most abject slaves on the face of the earth, not governed by the known and equal laws of a limited monarchy, but subject to the imperious will of an arbitrary fovereign.

VOTES of Feb. 1, 1775

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A motion was made, and the question being put, "That leave be given to bring in a bill for "fhortening the duration of parliaments, &c."

The Lord Mayor, Mr. Wilkes, faid, that the queftion now before the house had been fo

fre

* In another place Milton fays, Eam animi magnitudinem vobis, ô cives, injecit Deus, ut devictum armis veftris et dedititium regem judicio inclyto judicare, et condemnatum punire, primi mortalium non dubitaretis. Poft hoc facinus tam illuftre nihil humile aut anguftum, nihil non magnum atque excelfum, et cogitare et facere debetis....amore libertatis, juftitiæ, honeftatis, patriæ denique caritate accenfos, tyrannum puniisse.

Joannis Miltoni, Angli, pro populo
Anglicano defenfio.

frequently and fo ably spoken to by the honourable gentleman*, who made the motion, and that it was in general so perfectly well understood, that he should trouble the house with few words on that occafion, and that he rofe chiefly to return the worthy member thanks. for this truly patriotic endeavour, and noble perfeverance in a business of such importance. He added, Frequent Parliaments, Mr. Speaker, are the ancient conftitution of England, and the right of the people to them arifes from the nature of all delegated power, and the neceffity of a controul. If a reprefentative in the firft feflion of a parliament,acts contrary to the duty of the truft repofed in him, is it fit that his conflituents fhould be compelled to wait till the end of a tedious period of seven years before they can have an opportunity of depriving him of a power, which he fo early abused? I think the cafe now mentioned actually exifts in the very dawn of this new parliament. Several gentlemen have talked of the laft parliament in the terms of reproach and indignation, which that profligate affembly moft juftly merited. I fear, fir, the prefent parliament are treading in

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* Mr. Alderman Sawbridge, Member for London.

the fame steps, which conducted their immediate predeceffors to the utter hatred of the nation. They feem to advance with giant ftrides to a like deteftation from this age, and from all pofterity, The people without doors, especially in the capital, make no fcruple to affirm that the majority of this houfe have even thus early, in one great inftance, acted contrary to the plain duty, which they owe to their country, and to the facred trust repofed in them. I allude, fir, to the contempt fhewn of the Petition of fo respectable a body as the Merchants of the city of London trading to North America. This the majority have done in defiance of all decency, and of the great principles of the conftitution. I am forry to obferve, that the alarm is already become general, that from this

early

The second petition of the Merchants, Traders, and others of the City of London, prefented by Mr. Alderman Hayley, Member for London, to the House of Commons, Jan. 26, 1775, ftates, "that by the re"folution to which the house hath come, refpecting "the reference of their faid petition, [the firft Peti

tion of Jan. 23, 1775,] they are abfolutely pre"cluded from the benefit of fuch a hearing, in support "of their faid petition, as can alone procure them that "relief, which the importance and prefent deplorable "state of their trade require.”

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