n apprehension that the gold would be
lowered still farther, the two houses resolved that the standard of the
gold and silver coins of the kingdom should not be altered in fineness,
weight, or denomination, and they ordered a bill to be brought in to
prevent the melting down of the silver coin. At this period, one James
Shepherd, a youth of eighteen, apprentice to a coachmaker, and an
enthusiast in jacobitism, sent a letter to a nonjuring clergyman,
proposing a scheme for assassinating king George. He was immediately
apprehended, owned the design, was tried, condemned, and executed at
Tyburn. This was likewise the fate of the marquis de Palleotti, an
Italian nobleman, brother to the duchess of Shrewsbury. He had, in a
transport of passion, killed his own servant; and seemed indeed to be
disordered in his brain. After he had received sentence of death, the
king's pardon was earnestly solicited by his sister the duchess, and
many other persons of the first distinction; but the common people
became so clamorous, that it was thought dangerous to rescue him from
the penalties of the law, which he accordingly underwent in the most
ignominious manner. No subject produced so much heat and altercation
in parliament during this session, as did the bill for regulating the
land-forces, and punishing mutiny and desertion: a bill which was looked
upon as an encroachment upon the liberties and constitution of England,
inasmuch as it established martial law, which wrested from the civil
magistrate the cognizance of crimes and misdemeanors committed by the
soldiers and officers of the army; a jurisdiction inconsistent with the
genius and disposition of the people. The dangers that might accrue from
such a power were explained in the lower house by Mr. Hutchinson, Mr.
Harley, and Mr. Robert Walpole, which last, however, voted afterwards
for the bill. In the house of lords, it was strenuously opposed by the
earls of Oxford, Strafford, and lord Harcourt. Their objections were
answered by lord Carteret. The bill passed by a great majority; but
divers lords entered a protest. This affair being discussed, a bill was
brought in for vesting in trustees the forfeited estates in Britain
and Ireland, to be sold for the use of the public; for giving relief to
lawful creditors by determining the claims, and for the more effectual
bringing into the respective exchequers the rents and profits of the
estates till sold. The time of claiming was prolonged;