the
chimney fires of their manor houses. The muster of zealous Whigs was
strong. As soon as the bill had been reported, Sacheverell, renowned in
the stormy parliaments of the reign of Charles the Second as one of the
ablest and keenest of the Exclusionists, stood up and moved to add a
clause providing that every municipal functionary who had in any manner
been a party to the surrendering of the franchises of a borough should
be incapable for seven years of holding any office in that borough.
The constitution of almost every corporate town in England had been
remodelled during that hot fit of loyalty which followed the detection
of the Rye House Plot; and, in almost every corporate town, the voice
of the Tories had been for delivering up the charter, and for trusting
every thing to the paternal care of the Sovereign. The effect of
Sacheverell's clause, therefore, was to make some thousands of the most
opulent and highly considered men in the kingdom incapable, during seven
years, of bearing any part in the government of the places in which
they resided, and to secure to the Whig party, during seven years, an
overwhelming influence in borough elections.

The minority exclaimed against the gross injustice of passing, rapidly
and by surprise, at a season when London was empty, a law of the highest
importance, a law which retrospectively inflicted a severe penalty on
many hundreds of respectable gentlemen, a law which would call forth the
strongest passions in every town from Berwick to St. Ives, a law which
must have a serious effect on the composition of the House itself.
Common decency required at least an adjournment. An adjournment was
moved: but the motion was rejected by a hundred and twenty-seven votes
to eighty-nine. The question was then put that Sacheverell's clause
should stand part of the bill, and was carried by a hundred and
thirty-three to sixty-eight. Sir Robert Howard immediately moved that
every person who, being under Sacheverell's clause disqualified for
municipal office, should presume to take any such office, should forfeit
five hundred pounds, and should be for life incapable of holding any
public employment whatever. The Tories did not venture to divide, [551]
The rules of the House put it in the power of a minority to obstruct
the progress of a bill; and this was assuredly one of the very rare
occasions on which that power would have been with great propriety
exerted. It does not appear, however, t