happen, that those who opposed an inquisition into the grants will be found to have hardly done any very great service to the present possessors. To charge those grants with six years purchase to the publick, and then to confirm the title by parliament, would, in effect, be no real loss to the owners, because, by such a confirmation, they would rise in value proportionably, and differ as much as the best title can from the worst. The adverse party knew very well, that nothing beyond this was intended; but they cannot be sure what may be the event of a second inspection, which the resentment of the house of commons will probably render more severe, and which you will never be able to avert when your number lessens, as it certainly must; and when the expedient is put in practice, without a tack, of making those grants part of a supply. From whence it is plain, that the zeal against that bill arose, in a great measure, from some other cause, than a tenderness to those who were to suffer by it.
I shall conclude, my lord, with putting you in mind, that you are a subject of the queen, a peer of the realm, and a servant of your country; and, in any of these capacities, you are not to consider what
house of lords, by a majority, I think, of twenty-eight; and the whigs had desired their friends to take places, to see lord treasurer carried to the Tower." Journal to Stella, May 31, 1712. — The motion was, "To address her majesty, that she would be pleased to send orders to her general [the duke of Ormond] to act, in concert with her allies, offensively against France, in order to obtain a safe and honourable peace," This passing in the negative, a protest was entered, and signed by twenty-seven lords; but the reasons for it were ordered to be expunged from the journals on the 13th of June following.
