entitled to the complimentary quotation from Denham, which his friends applied to him,

"Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;

Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full."

The subject of agitation then was the taking of 16,000 Hanoverian troops into British pay. Pitt, heading the discontented Whigs, and backed by the Tories and Jacobites, denounced this act as illegal, unconstitutional, a sacrifice of British to Electoral interests, and a preclude to the introduction of despotism into this country, -and he brought forward a motion for an address to the Crown, praying that these troops should be dismissed.

The duty of the Solicitor General of that day in the House of Commons was not confined to answering a legal question, or introducing a bill to reform the practice of the courts. The brunt of this debate chiefly fell upon him. From defective reporting, we can form a very inadequate notion of his speech; but I will give a few extracts from it. Thus he began :

"Sir, the motion now under our consideration is of such a new and extraordinary nature, and is such a direct attack on the just prerogative of the Crown, that I should think myself very little deserving of the honor which his Majesty has been pleased to confer upon me if I did not rise to oppose it. There are certain powers vested in the King, as there are certain privileges belonging to the people, and an infringement of either would lead to the overthrow of our happy constitution. As the guardians of the liberties of the people, we are bound to respect the royal prerogative. But if there be anything certain it is this,--that to the King alone it belongs not only to declare war, but to determine how the war, when declared, shall be carried on. He is to direct what forces are to be raised; when armies are to march; when squadrons are to sail; when his commanders are to act, and when they are to keep upon the

'Perhaps the reader may be more amused by the description of his eloquence by his principal biographer,-" He was perspicuous without onstraint, mellifluous without exuberance, and convincing without ostentation" (Holliday, p. 54),—although one does not see at first sight how the vice of which he is acquitted, is an excess of the good quality for which he is praised.

defensive. If this motion were carried, I should expect to see a venerable member moving an address that a general engagement shall be immediately ordered in Flanders, although the mover has never been out of England, nor the division of a battle knows more than a spinster." He then takes an enlarged view of the state of Europe, and particularly of the affairs of the Queen of Hungary; and, having shown that the most effectual mode of assisting her, and of baffling the attempts of France, was to send an army into Flanders, thus continues:-" On every side the most happy effects have been produced by the method his Majesty has chosen for assisting the Queen of Hungary. I hope it will not be said that we ought to assist her with our own troops alone. To raise by recruiting at home the army which would be necessary, must be injurious to our industry and injurious to our constitution. We must therefore have foreign troops in our pay, and where shall we find any to be preferred to the Hanoverians?" He next goes on to vindicate his Majesty's countrymen from the false charges of cowardice and insubordination, which, to spite him, were circulated against them, and to show that no improper partiality had ever been shown for them in preference to British troops. Thus he concludes:-"I will not say, sir, that upon no occasion would this House interfere with its advice as to the exercise of the prerogatives of the Crown. If wicked or incapable ministers were bringing disgrace on the British arms, degrading the national honor, and hazarding the national safety, we might be called upon to advise the King to change his measures and his advisers. But our allies have been effectually protected, and the interests of England, in every part of the world, have been vindicated. It is insinuated, indeed, that all our measures are secretly calculated for the benefit of the Electorate of Hanover. This is an insinuation of a most dangerous nature, and it ought not to be resorted to for mere party purposes, because it tends not only to wean the affections of the people from the sovereign on the throne, but from the Protestant succession in the Hanover line, and to bring about a counter-revolution which would be fatal to re

ligion and liberty. Whether the republican faction, or Jacobitish faction, which are now united, shall prevail when the split comes, destruction alike awaits constitutional freedom. What ground is there for the charge? I do not pretend to be in the secrets of the Cabinet, and I am unable to dive into the hidden recesses of the human mind to analyze the true motives of action; but when the measures of the Government are wisely calculated to promote the dignity and prosperity of England, and have actually produced the happy results which might have been expected from them, why should you say that their hidden and sole object is to enrich Hanover and to add a few patches to its territory?"

The motion was negatived by a majority of 231 to 181, and Murray became a special favorite with George II., who highly valued his services, although he sometimes believed him to be a convert from Jacobitism, and sometimes suspected his sincerity.'

The office of Attorney General was held by Sir Dudley Ryder, a sensible man and a good lawyer, but unfit for anything beyond the limits of professional duty; while Mr. Solicitor General Murray might henceforth be considered the Government leader in the House of Commons. For this office he had the very convenient privilege of professing, when it suited his purpose, entire ignorance of ministerial secrets. Without being formally a member of the Cabinet, it is quite clear that he was a party to its most important deliberations and decisions. Yet he would thus begin a speech on the policy of entering a treaty with a continental state to prosecute the war :"The post in which I have the honor to serve his Majesty has no concern with foreign affairs; and as I am not so unreasonable as to expect, much less desire, that ministers should communicate to me those secrets which the duty of their office requires them to conceal, I can know nothing of foreign affairs beyond what I learn from the public gazettes or papers laid before this House and accessible to every member. I know enough, nevertheless, to enable me confidently to oppose this motion, and easily to show its inexpediency.' He then took a masterly view of the diplomatic relations of

1 13 Parl. Hist. 143 246-174.

this country with the different courts of Europe, speaking hypothetically where direct assertion was incommodious.'

Nay, the Government actually depended upon him for vindicating the manner in which the war was conducted by England and her allies, and for meeting such questions as whether the allied powers could best make an impression on France by mustering their forces in Flanders or on the Rhine.' But these discussions, which, while they were going on, were declared, and perhaps believed, to be the most important which had ever occurred in the annals of Great Britain, led to no 'memorable result, and have now lost all their interest.

The connection between England and the electorate of Hanover, which was the great topic of patriotic declamation and ground of popular discontent, has fortunately for ever ceased by the auspicious operation of the law of descent. The supposed grievances arising from this connection were powerfully urged by Pitt and Littleton, who at last actually brought forward a resolution "that no prince holding foreign dominions should be qualified to fill the throne of Great Britain;" intimating that Hanover might be transferred to a younger branch of the House of Brunswick,-if the King, from his extreme and notorious partiality for it, should not choose it for himself.

Murray, in answer, dwelt on the impolicy of proposing a measure which we had no means of carrying; for if it met the approbation of the Parliament of England, it might be rejected by the Diet of the Germanic Empire. He conjured all lovers of constitutional freedom to rest satisfied with the Act of Settlement, which contemplated the possession of foreign dominions by the prince called to the British throne, and, recognizing this arrangement, anxiously and effectually guarded against all the inconveniences which it might by possibility occasion. He then tried to show that the complaints made on this subject by Tory fox-hunters and discontented aspirants to place, were to be ascribed to prejudice or calumny. Pitt thus began his reply:-"Not all the sophistry of the honorable and learned gentleman shall make me Ibid. 396.

113 Parl. Hist. 143, 246, 384, 407.

recede from the true point in debate, which is not at all affected by any one of his arguments."' But we shall find passages of arms between these champions more worthy of our regard.

We approach the rebellion of 1745, which ever must be interesting to the inhabitants of this island. An event had very nearly taken place which would have entirely changed our destiny, and might have had a material influence upon the history of Europe-the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of their ancestors.

Murray must have viewed the struggle with divided feelings. He had cast in his lot with the new dynasty; but his second brother, whom he dearly loved, had been twenty years in the service of the Pretender, had been created by him Earl of Dunbar, and was supposed to be his destined prime minister. Whether or not Mr. Solicitor himself had ever drunk on his knees to "the King over the water," all his early associations must have led him to doubt the title of the reigning family; and, if the will of the people were to prevail, he saw the church and landed aristocracy in favor of a restoration, while the middle and lower orders testified perfect indifference as to the success of the old dynasty or the new.'

Whichever way he might be drawn by this inclination. he was governed by a sense of duty; and, and, remembering the oaths he had sworn, he strictly preserved his allegiance to King George, and used his best endeavors to frustrate the hopes of the Jacobites.

A message being brought down from the King, announcing the meditated attempt by Prince Charles Edward, the Solicitor General zealously supported the bill for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, against George Grenville, who, though a sober-minded man, and well affected to the Protestant succession, was so far blinded by faction as to assert that "the threatened invasion was a mere contrivance of ministers to prolong their own rule." Murray made a very temperate and effective speech, showing that, since the Revolution, the same power had been asked by successive governments 1 13 Parl. Hist. 467-474.

According to old Horace Walpole, they cried, " Fight dog, fight bear."