But in that fault the nation itself had been an accomplice. If the Mayors and Aldermen whom it was now proposed to punish had, when the tide of loyal enthusiasm ran high, sturdily refused to comply with the wish of their Sovereign, they would have been pointed at in the street as Roundhead knaves, preached at by the Rector, lampooned in ballads, and probably burned in effigy before their own doors. That a community should be hurried into errors alternately by fear of tyranny and by fear of anarchy is doubtless a great evil. But the remedy for that evil is not to punish for such errors some persons who have merely erred with the rest, and who have since repented with the rest. Nor ought it to have been forgotten that the offenders against whom Sacheverell's clause was directed had, in 1688, made large atonement for the misconduct of which they had been guilty in 1683. They had, as a class, stood up firmly against the dispensing power; and most of them had actually been turned out of their municipal offices by James for refusing to support his policy. It is not strange therefore that the attempt to inflict on all these men without exception a degrading punishment should have raised such a storm of public indignation as many Whig members of parliament were unwilling to face.
As the decisive conflict drew near, and as the muster of the Tories became hourly stronger and stronger, the uneasiness of Sacheverell and of his confederates increased. They found that they could hardly hope for a complete victory. They must make some concession. They must propose to recommit the bill. They must declare themselves willing to consider whether any distinction could be made between the chief offenders and the multitudes who had been misled by evil example. But as the spirit of one party fell the spirit of the other rose. The Tories, glowing with resentment which was but too just, were resolved to listen to no terms of compromise.
The tenth of January came; and, before the late daybreak of that season, the House was crowded. More than a hundred and sixty members had come up to town within a week. From dawn till the candles had burned down to their sockets the ranks kept unbroken order; and few members left their seats except for a minute to take a crust of bread or a glass of claret. Messengers were in waiting to carry the result to Kensington, where William, though shaken by a violent cough, sate up till midnight, anxiously expecting the news, and writing to Portland, whom he had sent on an important mission to the Hague.
The only remaining account of the debate is defective and confused. But from that account it appears that the excitement was great. Sharp things were said. One young Whig member used language so hot that he was in danger of being called to the bar.
Some reflections were thrown on the Speaker for allowing too much licence to his own friends. But in truth it mattered little whether he called transgressors to order or not. The House had long been quite unmanageable; and veteran members bitterly regretted the old gravity of debate and the old authority of the chair.553 That Somers disapproved of the violence of the party to which he belonged may be inferred, both from the whole course of his public life, and from the very significant fact that, though he had charge of the Corporation Bill, he did not move the penal clauses, but left that ungracious office to men more impetuous and less sagacious than himself. He did not however abandon his allies in this emergency, but spoke for them, and tried to make the best of a very bad case. The House divided several times. On the first division a hundred and seventy-four voted with Sacheverell, a hundred and seventy-nine against him. Still the battle was stubbornly kept up; but the majority increased from five to ten, from ten to twelve, and from twelve to eighteen.
Then at length, after a stormy sitting of fourteen hours, the Whigs yielded. It was near midnight when, to the unspeakable joy and triumph of the Tories, the clerk tore away from the parchment on which the bill had been engrossed the odious clauses of Sacheverell and Howard.554Emboldened by this great victory, the Tories made an attempt to push forward the Indemnity Bill which had lain many weeks neglected on the table.555 But the Whigs, notwithstanding their recent defeat, were still the majority of the House; and many members, who had shrunk from the unpopularity which they would have incurred by supporting the Sacheverell clause and the Howard clause, were perfectly willing to assist in retarding the general pardon. They still propounded their favourite dilemma. How, they asked, was it possible to defend this project of amnesty without condemning the Revolution? Could it be contended that crimes which had been grave enough to justify resistance had not been grave enough to deserve punishment? And, if those crimes were of such magnitude that they could justly be visited on the Sovereign whom the Constitution had exempted from responsibility, on what principle was immunity to be granted to his advisers and tools, who were beyond all doubt responsible? One facetious member put this argument in a singular form. He contrived to place in the Speaker's chair a paper which, when examined, appeared to be a Bill of Indemnity for King James, with a sneering preamble about the mercy which had, since the Revolution, been extended to more heinous offenders, and about the indulgence due to a King, who, in oppressing his people, had only acted after the fashion of all Kings.556On the same day on which this mock Bill of Indemnity disturbed the gravity of the Commons, it was moved that the House should go into Committee on the real Bill. The Whigs threw the motion out by a hundred and ninety-three votes to a hundred and fifty-six.
