proprietors of Pennsylvania, and the counties of
Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex, in Delaware, praying that the territory
granted by King Charles II. to their father and grandfather might not be
encroached upon by any extension of the frontiers of Canada. Ministers
denied that it was ever intended to entrench upon other colonies, and
the petition was ordered to lie upon the table; leave, also, being given
to the petitioners to be heard by counsel if they thought proper. At the
same time a petition was presented from merchants of the city of London,
trading to the province of Quebec, praying for the preservation or
establishment of the English civil law, in all matters of controversy
relative to property and civil rights, with trial by jury, &c. This
petition was ordered to be referred to the committee on the bill, and
the petitioners were also ordered to be heard by themselves or counsel.
Counsel were heard, and witnesses examined, which occupied the attention
of the house for more than a week; but on the 13th of June the bill
passed the commons as it originally stood--a few boundary amendments,
made in committee, alone excepted. The bill thus passed was sent back
to the lords for their concurrence in the amendments, on which occasion
Chatham rose to reprobate the whole spirit of the bill. It tended, he
said, to establish the worst of despotisms, and denounced it as a most
cruel, oppressive, and odious measure--a measure which destroyed the
very roots of justice and good principle. He called the bill "a child of
inordinate power," and asked, if any on the bench of bishops would hold
it out for baptism? He invoked the bishops to resist a law which would
spread the Roman Catholic tenets over so vast a continent, and asserted,
that parliament had no more right to alter the oath of supremacy than
to repeal the great charter, or the bill of rights. The dangerous
innovations of the bill, he declared, were at utter variance with all
the safeguards and barriers against the return of popery and of popish
influence, so wisely provided against by all oaths and offices of trust,
from the constable up to the members of both houses, and even to the
sovereign in his coronation oath. Chatham concluded by expressing his
fears that such a measure might shake the confidence of his majesty's
Protestant subjects in England and Ireland, and totally alienate the
hearts of all his American subjects. The bill, however, passed by
twenty-six to seven,