inquiry would detect many traitors who had hitherto been permitted to
escape with impunity, and that a large addition would thus be made
to the extensive territory which had already been confiscated. It was
popularly said that, if vigorous measures were taken, the gain to the
kingdom would be not less than three hundred thousand pounds a year; and
almost the whole of this sum, a sum more than sufficient to defray the
whole charge of such an army as the Commons were disposed to keep up
in time of peace, would be raised by simply taking away what had been
unjustifiably given to Dutchmen, who would still retain immense wealth
taken out of English pockets, or unjustifiably left to Irishmen,
who thought it at once the most pleasant and the most pious of all
employments to cut English throats. The Lower House went to work with
the double eagerness of rapacity and of animosity. As soon as the report
of the four and the protest of the three had been laid on the table
and read by the clerk, it was resolved that a Resumption Bill should
be brought in. It was then resolved, in opposition to the plainest
principles of justice, that no petition from any person who might think
himself aggrieved by this bill should ever be received. It was necessary
to consider how the commissioners should be remunerated for their
services; and this question was decided with impudent injustice. It
was determined that the commissioners who had signed the report should
receive a thousand pounds each. But a large party thought that the
dissentient three deserved no recompense; and two of them were merely
allowed what was thought sufficient to cover the expense of their
journey to Ireland. This was nothing less than to give notice to every
man who should ever be employed in any similar inquiry that, if he
wished to be paid, he must report what would please the assembly which
held the purse of the state. In truth the House was despotic, and was
fast contracting the vices of a despot. It was proud of its antipathy to
courtiers; and it was calling into existence a new set of courtiers who
would study all its humours, who would flatter all its weaknesses, who
would prophesy to it smooth things, and who would assuredly be, in no
respect, less greedy, less faithless, or less abject than the sycophants
who bow in the antechambers of kings.

Indeed the dissentient commissioners had worse evils to apprehend than
that of being left unremunerated. One of them, Sir R