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The House of Lords, Party, and Public Opinion: Opposition Use of the Protest, 1760-1782*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2017

William C. Lowe
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Extract

The role of party in the first half of George III's reign has proved a topic of constant interest to historians. The subject has been examined from a variety of angles, not the least important of which is the relationship between party development and public opinion. Much of the explanation of party development has centered on the House of Commons, and a few attempts have been made to integrate the House of Lords into the story. Less effort has been made, however, to ascertain what, if any, role the upper house played in partisan attempts at influencing public opinion. This essay is an attempt to show how the opposition peers of this period took advantage of one of the privileges of their house, the right of written dissent, in a conscious effort to influence a wider audience, and to demonstrate how this contributed to the growth of party.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Summer 1979 , pp. 143 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1979

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was read at the 1977 Carolinas Symposium on British Studies at Charlotte, North Carolina. I would like to thank Professor Robert R. Rea of Auburn University for his comments on an earlier draft, as well as to express my gratitude to Earl Fitzwilliam and his Trustees for permission to quote from the Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments in the Sheffield Central Library.

References

1 See Brewer, John, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 219-39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 O'Gorman, Frank, The Rise of Party in England: The Rockingham Whigs 1760-1782 (London, 1975), pp. 148-56 and 205-6Google Scholar; and Large, David, “The Decline of the ‘Party of the Crown’ and the Rise of Parties in the House of Lords, 1783-1837,” English Historical Review, 78 (1963): 669-95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Pike, Luke Owen, Constitutional History of the House of Lords (London, 1894), pp. 245-46.Google Scholar

4 Standing Order 114, House of Lords Record Office (hereafter H.L.R.O.). Protests occasionally included more than one set of reasons and separate sets of signatures.

5 At the opening of the 1781-82 session, the Marquess of Cannarthen refused to sign a protest because it described the American war as “unjust” ( Browning, Oscar, ed., The Political Memoranda of Francis, Fifth Duke of Leeds, Camden Society, ns. 32 [London, 1884], p. 47)Google Scholar.

6 See George III's two letters to the Marquess of Rockingham, 13 March 1766, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments, Sheffield Central Library (hereafter W.W.M.), R2-40; and 17 March 1776 in Sir John Fortescue, ed., The Correspondence of King George the Third from 1760 to December 1768 …, 6 vols. (London, 1927-28), 1:277.

7 J.E. Thorold Rogers, ed., A Complete Collection of the Protests of the House of Lords (hereafter C.P.), 3 vols. (Oxford, 1875), 11:45-62. Five of these were the work of Earl Temple. Four were signed only by Temple and one by Temple and Lord Talbot.

8 Ibid., pp. 63-213 contains fifty-two of these. However, Thorold Rogers occasionally omitted protests, especially those lacking reasons. The other five protests may be found in t°e Journals of the House of Lords (hereafter J.H.L.), 31:559, 34:407, 34:577, 35:8 and 35:68

9 See Jarrett, Derrick, “The Regency Crisis of 1765,” English Historical Review, 85 (1970): 282–315 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langford, P., The First Rockingham Administration (Oxford, 1973), pp. 156-57Google Scholar; and Brooke, John, The Chatham Administration 1766-1768 (London, 1956), pp. 142-48Google Scholar.

10 At no time did the opposition come close to defeating the Grafton or North administrations ‘n the upper House on a question of political significance. See MS Minutes, Minute Books 1767/68-1781/82, H.L.R.O.

11 This process is the central theme of O'Gorman's Rise of Party.

12 Ministers in the early 1720s and before had complained of such tactics and attempted to limit them ( Turberville, A.S., The House of Lords in the XVIIIth Century [ Oxford, 1927 ], pp. 28–29 Google Scholar).

13 Rockingham to the Duke of Newcastle, 7 February 1768, British Library, Additional MSS (hereafter B.L., Add. MSS) 32988, f. 204; and Rockingham to the Earl of Dartmouth, 7 February 1768, Dartmouth MSS, Staffordshire Record Office, D (W) 1778/V/270. There are four drafts or partial drafts of the protest among Rockingham's own papers (W.W.M., R1-902, R1-953, R1-954a, and R1-954b.)

14 C.P., 11:96-98.

15 For example, the Earl of Hardwicke thought the language of the protest “too violent” and refused to subscribe (“Memorial of Family Occurences,” B.L., Add. MSS 35428, f.14.)

16 On the role of the “influence of the Crown” in development of Rockinghamite ideology, see Christie, Ian R., Myth and Reality in Late Eighteenth-Century British Politics (Berkeley, 1970), pp. 27–54 Google Scholar; and Reitan, Earl A., “Edmund Burke and the Civil List,” Burke Newsletter, 8 (1966-67): 604-18Google Scholar.

17 See Rudé, George, Wilkes and Liberty; A Social Study of 1763 to 1774 (Oxford, 1962)Google Scholar; and Brewer, , Party and Ideology, pp. 173–200 Google Scholar.

18 See J.H.L., 32:415-19, as well as Rockingham's draft resolutions, W.W.M., Rl-1277a.

19 Rockingham to Lady Chatham, 24 January 1770, Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, ed. William Stanhope Taylor and John Henry Pringle, 4 vols. (London, 1838-40), III:409.

20 Duke of Portland to Rockingham, 3 February 1770, W.W.M., R1-1280; Temple to Rockingham, 3 February 1770, W.W.M., R1-1281; and Rockingham to Chatham, [4 February 1770], Chatham MSS, Public Record Office, 30/8/54, f. 154.

21 C.P., II:101-9.

22 Compare the language of the protests of 2 February 1770 (especially the second) with the City's Remonstance, which can be found either in the Journals of the House of Commons, 32:804, or the Annual Register for 1770, pp. 199-201. In April 1771, after the defeat of Chatham's motion for a dissolution of Parliament, Temple advised “a proper and forcible protest” in order to “point out the proper line for the City” Temple to Chatham, 18 April 1771, Chatham Correspondence, IV:155). In the event, however, none was entered.

23 J.H.L., 32:425, 429; and Cobbett, William, ed., The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, 36 vols. (London, 1813), XVI:824-30Google Scholar. For a fuller description of the affair, see Rea, Robert R., The English Press in Politics, 1760-1774 (Lincoln, Neb., 1963), p. 169 Google Scholar, where it is placed in the context of the ministry's overall campaign against the press.

24 J.H.L., 32:488, 570-75.

25 C.P., II:109-10. The Protest was apparently Chatham's work, corrected by Camden (Chatham to Camden, [2 May 1770], Camden MSS, Kent Archives Office, U840, C99/2).

26 J.H.L., 32:575-76; and Rea, Press in Politics, p. 170.

27 Rea, Press in Politics, pp. 208-11; and Thomas, P.D.G., “John Wilkes and the Freedom of the Press (1771),” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 33 (1960): 86–98 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Beginnings of Parliamentary Reporting in the Newspapers,” English Historical Review, 74 (1959): 623-36.

28 The House was cleared on the motion of Lord Gower, who used the transparent excuse that Spanish agents might be taking notes of the opposition's description of the nation's lack of Preparedness. See Cobbet, , Parliamentary History, XVI: 1313-19Google Scholar, and Walpole, Horace, Memoirs of the Reign of King George III, ed. Russell-Barker, G.F., 4 vols. (London, 1894), IV: 144-46Google Scholar. The Commons reacted by banning peers from their debates.

29 Compare the coverage in Cobbet, Parliamentary History, whose accounts were primarily based on published reports of debates, for the period from January to 10 December 1770 (a total of 182 cols.) with that for the next four years (a combined total of 183 cols).

30 C.P., II:111-12. Exact authorship of the protest is uncertain, though it was certainly a Rockinghamite product (Rockingham to Portland, 11 December 1770, W.W.M., R1-1339.)

31 These subjects are covered in the protests of 4 February 1771, 3 March 1772, 23 December 1772, 10 June 1773, and 19 June 1773 (C.P., 11:113-18 and 124-41).

32 C.P., II:130-134.

33 Letter to Rockingham, 8 October 1770, W.W.M., R1-1414.

34 See Lady Grantham to the Earl of Hardwicke, 4 December (1783), B.L., Add. MSS 35621, f. 239; and Horace Walpole, The Last Journals of Horace Walpole, ed. A. Francis Steuart, 2 vols. (London, 1910), 11:487.

35 J.H.L., vols. 33 and 34.

36 See Richmond's long letter to Rockingham, 10 October 1773, W.W.M., R1-1443, printed in Olson, Alison Gilbert, The Radical Duke. Career and Correspondence of Charles Lennox, Third Duke of Richmond (Oxford, 1961), pp. 154-56Google Scholar.

37 For the passage of these acts, see Donoughue, Bernard, British Politics and the American Revolution. The Path to War 1773-75. (London, 1964), pp. 76–84, 87-104, and 120-26Google Scholar.

38 Dowdeswell to Rockingham, 8 April 1774, W.W.M., R1-1482, printed in the Earl of Albemarle, ed., Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham and His contemporaries, 2 vols. (London, 1852), II:240-41.

39 C.P., II: 142-46. The Rockinghams' second protest, on 18 May 1774 against the Massachusetts Bay Justice Act (ibid., 11:146-48), was much more strident in tone, terming the Act an indemnity “for murders committed under the colour of office.” Chatham's followers refused to subscribe (Richmond to Rockingham, [24 January 1775], Thomas W. Copeland et al., eds., The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, 10 vols. [Cambridge, 1958-1978], II: 106).

40 C.P., II:148-49. The Annual Register for 1775 commented that the protest was “the first we remember to have heard of upon an address, and that too very strong and pointed” (p. 43). Later in the session Burke urged this protest as an argument against adopting a “plan in inaction” (Burke to Rockingham, [24 January 1775], Thomas W. Copeland et al., eds., The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, 10 vols.[Cambridge, 1958-1978], II:106).

41 These included two protests on 7 February 1775, one on 21 March 1775, and one on 12 April 1775 (C.P., II:150-8; and J.H.L., 34:407.) The last of these contained no text.

42 Richmond to Burke, 8 February 1775, Burke Correspondence, III:110; and Richmond to Rockingham, 12 March 1775, W.W.M., R1-1559: “I wish you would get Burke to prepare a Protest… and correct it Yourself so as to have it ready to shew to our Friends on the Day of Debate, for otherwise we are ever much hurried when we are most fatigued and less able to do Business.”

43 C.P., II:155-58.

44 Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 14 February 1775.

45 See Morning Chronicle, 8 November 1775, and Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 29 December 1775.

46 Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 21 December 1775. The Morning Post was to become the principal pro-ministerial daily paper in 1776 (Solomon Lutnick, The American Revolution and the British Press 1775-1783 [Columbia, Mo., 1967], pp. 24-25).

47 Camden to Rockingham, 28 October 1775, W.W.M., R1-1616a. In the event, Camden did not sign the protest.

48 Walpole, Last Journals, I:411-14. The resultant increase in coverage can again be gauged from the Parliamentary History. The Lords’ session of 1774-75 is covered by no less than 168 cols. Compare this with the preceding four sessions cited in note 31 above.

49 As Haig, Robert L., The Gazeteer 1735-1797 … (Carbondale, IL, 1960), pp. 165-66Google Scholar, comments, parliamentary reporting “had by 1775 replaced the animad versions of political essayists as the most important single item of content in the daily papers.”

50 Rockingham to Camden, [27 October 1775], W.W.M., R1-1615. See also Rockingham's letter to Portland of 1 November 1776, urging that the Duke of Devonshire, a party regular, be prevailed upon to sign the protest of 31 October 1776: “Undoubtedly, if his Grace doth not sign at this Important Crisis It will afford Much of Idle Speculation, & which nevertheless may be hurtful” (Portland MSS, Nottingham University Library, PwF9107).

51 J.H.L., 34:577, and 35:8. See also C.P., 2:170-72 and 2:176-77. In addition, independent opposition peers were responsible for the entry of four lightly subscribed protests during the same period (J.H.L., 35:68; and C.P., 2:172-76).

52 Protests (with numbers subscribing) were registered on 7 December 1778(31), 23 March 1779(25), 17 June 1779(21), 29 June 1779(14), 8 February 1780(35), 6 March 1780(19), and 14 April 1780(23), C.P., II:178-204.

53 These totals have been reached by comparing the subscribers of the protests of 1778-1780 with those of earlier protests.

54 See Morning Chronicle, 9 December 1778, and Morning Post, 10 December 1778.

55 The protests of 25 January 1781, 21 March 1781, and 27 November 1781 (C.P., II:205-10) were primarily Rockinghamite efforts.