ons of the realm."
Another was so absurd as to call on the House to declare that whoever
should advise a dissolution would be guilty of high treason. A third
gave utterance to a sentiment which it is difficult to understand how
any assembly of civilised and Christian men, even in a moment of strong
excitement, should have heard without horror. "They object to tacking;
do they? Let them take care that they do not provoke us to tack in
earnest. How would they like to have bills of supply with bills of
attainder tacked to them?" This atrocious threat, worthy of the tribune
of the French Convention in the worst days of the Jacobin tyranny,
seems to have passed unreprehended. It was meant--such at least was the
impression at the Dutch embassy--to intimidate Somers. He was
confined by illness. He had been unable to take any public part in the
proceedings of the Lords; and he had privately blamed them for engaging
in a conflict in which he justly thought that they could not be
victorious. Nevertheless, the Tory leaders hoped that they might be
able to direct against him the whole force of the storm which they had
raised. Seymour, in particular, encouraged by the wild and almost savage
temper of his hearers, harangued with rancorous violence against the
wisdom and the virtue which presented the strongest contrast to his own
turbulence, insolence, faithlessness, and rapacity. No doubt, he said,
the Lord Chancellor was a man of parts. Anybody might be glad to have
for counsel so acute and eloquent an advocate. But a very good advocate
might be a very bad minister; and, of all the ministers who had brought
the kingdom into difficulties, this plausible, fair-spoken person was
the most dangerous. Nor was the old reprobate ashamed to add that he was
afraid that his Lordship was no better than a Hobbist in religion.

After a long sitting the members separated; but they reassembled early
on the morning of the following day, Tuesday the ninth of April. A
conference was held; and Seymour, as chief manager for the Commons,
returned the bill and the amendments to the Peers in the manner which
had been prescribed to him. From the Painted Chamber he went back to the
Lower House, and reported what had passed. "If," he said, "I may venture
to judge by the looks and manner of their Lordships, all will go right."
But within half an hour evil tidings came through the Court of Requests
and the lobbies. The Lords had divided on the question whether