passed in the negative. A clergyman having insinuated in conversation
that sir William Milner, baronet, member for York, received a pension
from the ministry, the house took cognizance of this report; the
clergyman acknowledged at the bar that he might have dropped such a hint
from hearsay. The accused member protested, upon his honour, that he
never did nor ever would receive place, pension, gratuity, or reward
from the court, either directly or indirectly, for voting in parliament,
or upon any other account whatever. The accusation was voted false and
scandalous, and the accuser taken into custody; but in a few days he
was discharged upon his humble petition, and his begging pardon of the
member whom he had calumniated. The duty upon salt was prolonged for
eight years; and a bill passed against stock-jobbing.

MOTION FOR THE REPEAL OF THE SEPTENNIAL ACT.

But the subject which of all others employed the eloquence and abilities
on both sides to the most vigorous exertion, was a motion made by Mr.
Bromley, who proposed that a bill should be brought in for repealing
the septenntal act, and for the more frequent meeting and calling of
parliaments. The arguments for and against septennial parliaments have
already been stated. The ministry now insisted upon the increase of
papists and Jacobites, which rendered it dangerous to weaken the
hands of the government; they challenged the opposition to produce one
instance in which the least encroachment had been made on the liberties
of the people since the septennial act took place; and they defied
the most ingenious malice to prove that his present majesty had ever
endeavoured to extend any branch of the prerogative beyond its legal
bounds. Sir John Hinde Cotton affirmed, that in many parts of England
the papists had already begun to use all their influence in favour of
those candidates who were recommended by the ministers as members in the
ensuing parliament. With respect to his majesty's conduct, he said he
would not answer one word; but as to the grievances introduced since the
law was enacted for septennial parliaments, he thought himself more at
liberty to declare his sentiments. He asserted, that the septennial law
itself was an encroachment on the rights of the people; a law passed by
a parliament that made itself septennial. He observed, that the laws of
treason with regard to trials were altered since that period; that in
former times a man was tried by a jury