next occupied by a question of privilege, in which Sir
Francis Burdett, member for Westminster, then a favourite of the
democracy, played a part resembling that of John Wilkes a generation
earlier. Burdett had been for fourteen years a member of parliament, and
had been conspicuous from the first for the vehemence of his opposition
to the government, and more especially to its supposed infringements of
the liberty of the subject. He had more recently taken an active part on
behalf of Wardle's attack on the Duke of York and had supported the
charges of ministerial corruption in the previous session. On the
present occasion one John Gale Jones, president of a debating club, had
published in a notice of debate the terms of a resolution which his club
had passed, condemning in extravagant language the exclusion of
strangers from the house of commons. This was treated as a breach of
privilege, and Jones was sent to Newgate by order of the house itself.
Burdett, in a violent letter to Cobbett's _Register_, challenged the
right of the house to imprison Jones by its own authority, and, after a
fierce debate lasting two nights, was adjudged by the house, on April 5,
to have been guilty of a still more scandalous libel. Accordingly, the
speaker issued a warrant for his committal to the Tower. Burdett
declared his resolution to resist arrest, the populace mustered in his
defence, the riot act was read, and he was conveyed to prison by a
strong military escort, on whose return more serious riots broke out,
and were not quelled without bloodshed. On his release at the end of the
session a repetition of these scenes was prevented by the simple
expedient of bringing him home by water. During his imprisonment he
wrote an offensive letter to the speaker, and his colleague, Lord
Cochrane, presented a violently worded petition from his Westminster
constituents. In the following year he sued the speaker and the
sergeant-at-arms in the court of king's bench, which decided against him
on the ground that a power of commitment was necessary for the
maintenance of the dignity of the house of commons, and its decision
was confirmed, on appeal, by the court of exchequer chamber and the
house of lords.

[Pageheading: _THE CURRENCY QUESTION._]

The most important subject of internal policy discussed in the session
of 1810 was the state of the currency. Since 1797 cash payments had been
suspended, the issue of banknotes had been nearly doubled, an