equence to the
constitution in church and state; and that whoever advised their being
brought over was an enemy to the queen and kingdom. Animated by the heat
of this inquiry, they passed the bill to repeal the act for a general
naturalization of all protestants; but this was rejected in the house
of lords. Another bill was enacted into a law, importing, that no person
should be deemed qualified for representing a county in parliament,
unless he possessed an estate of six hundred pounds a-year; and
restricting the qualification of burgess to half that sum. The design of
this bill was to exclude trading people from the house of commons,
and to lodge the legislative power with the land-holders. A third act
passed, permitting the importation of French wine in neutral bottoms: a
bill against which the whigs loudly exclaimed, as a national evil, and a
scandalous compliment to the enemy.

HARLEY STABBED AT THE COUNCIL BOARD.

A violent party in the house of commons began to look upon Harley as a
lukewarm tory, because he would not enter precipitately into all their
factious measures; they even began to suspect his principles, when his
credit was re-established by a very singular accident. Guiscard, the
French partisan, of whom mention hath already been made, thought himself
very ill rewarded for his services, with a precarious pension of four
hundred pounds, which he enjoyed from the queen's bounty. He had been
renounced by St. John, the former companion of his pleasures; he had
in vain endeavoured to obtain an audience of the queen, with a view to
demand more considerable appointments. Harley was his enemy, and all
access to her majesty was denied. Enraged at these disappointments, he
attempted to make his peace with the court of France, and offered his
services, in a letter to one Moreau, a banker in Paris. This
packet, which he endeavoured to transmit by the way of Portugal, was
intercepted, and a warrant issued out to apprehend him for high-treason.
When the messenger disarmed him in St. James's Park, he exhibited marks
of guilty confusion and despair, and begged that he would kill him
directly. Being conveyed to the cockpit, in a sort of frenzy, he
perceived a penknife lying upon a table, and took it up without being
perceived by the attendants. A committee of council was immediately
summoned, and Guiscard brought before them to be examined. Finding that
his correspondence with Moreau was discovered, he desired to