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THE

CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

OF

ENGLAND

from 1760 to 1860

BY CHARLES DUKE YONGE, M.A.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY, QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST
AND AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH NAVY"
"THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE" ETC.


1882




PREFACE.


Mr. Hallam's "Constitutional History" closes, as is well known, with the
death of George II. The Reformation, the great Rebellion, and the
Revolution, all of which are embraced in the period of which it treats,
are events of such surpassing importance, and such all-pervading and
lasting influence, that no subsequent transactions can ever attract
entirely equal attention. Yet the century which has elapsed since the
accession of George III. has also witnessed occurrences not only full of
exciting interest at the moment, but calculated to affect the policy of
the kingdom and the condition of the people, for all future time, in a
degree only second to the Revolution itself. Indeed, the change in some
leading features and principles of the constitution wrought by the
Reform Bill of 1832, exceeds any that were enacted by the Bill of Rights
or the Act of Settlement. The only absolutely new principle introduced
in 1688 was that establishment of Protestant ascendency which was
contained in the clause which disabled any Roman Catholic from wearing
the crown. In other respects, those great statutes were not so much the
introduction of new principles, as a recognition of privileges of the
people which had been long established, but which, in too many
instances, had been disregarded and violated.

But the Reform Bill conferred political power on classes which had never
before been admitted to be entitled to it; and their enfranchisement
could not fail to give a wholly new and democratic tinge to the
government, which has been visible in its effect on the policy of all
subsequent administrations.

And, besides this great measure, the passing of which has often been
called a new Revolution, and the other reforms, municipal and
ecclesiastical, which were its immediate and almost inevitable fruits,
the century which followed the accession of George III. was also marked
by the Irish Union, the abolition of slavery, the establishment of the
principle of universal religious toleration; the loss of one great
collection of colonies, the plantation of and grant of constitutions to
others of not inferior magnitude, which had not even come into existence
at its commencement; the growth of our wondrous dominion in India, with
its eventual transfer of all authority in that country to the crown;
with a host of minor transactions and enactments, which must all be
regarded as, more or less, so many changes in or developments of the
constitution, as it was regarded and understood by the statesmen of the
seventeenth century.

It has seemed, therefore, to the compiler of this volume, that a
narrative of these transactions in their historical sequence, so as to
exhibit the connection which has frequently existed between them; to
show, for instance, how the repeal of Poynings' Act, and the Regency
Bill of 1788, necessitated the Irish Union; how Catholic Emancipation
brought after it Parliamentary Reform, and how that led to municipal and
ecclesiastical reforms, might not be without interest and use at the
present time. And the modern fulness of our parliamentary reports
(itself one not unimportant reform and novelty), since the accession of
George III., has enabled him to give the inducements or the objections
to the different enactments in the very words of the legislators who
proposed them or resisted them, as often as it seemed desirable to do
so.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

Mr. Hallam's View of the Development of the Constitution.--Symptoms of
approaching Constitutional Changes.--State of the Kingdom at the
Accession of George III.--Improvement of the Law affecting the
Commissions of the Judges.--Restoration of Peace.--Lord Bute becomes
Minister.--The Case of Wilkes.--Mr. Luttrell is Seated for Middlesex by
the House of Commons.--Growth of Parliamentary Reporting.--Mr.
Grenville's Act for trying Election Petitions.--Disfranchisement of
Corrupt Voters at New Shoreham.


CHAPTER II.

The Regency Bill.--The Ministry of 1766 lay an Embargo on Corn.--An Act
of Indemnity is Passed.--