therein, by which a bad precedent was established for the crown to violate corporation charters at pleasure; that it took away the rights of a great number of honest citizens to vote at wardmote elections, who had enjoyed that privilege from time immemorial; that it abridged the privileges of the common-council; and that it transferred too great a weight of authority and influence from that assembly to the court of mayor and aldermen, thereby, in a great measure, subverting the ancient constitution of the city. Counsel were heard upon the petitions of the common-council, and of several citizens, at the bar of both houses, against this bill; and in favour of it, upon the petitions of the court of mayor and aldermen, and other citizens; and it met with strong opposition. The bill, however, passed; but Sir John Barnard received the thanks of the court of common-council for the active part he took in opposition to it; and the most obnoxious part of it, which granted a negative power to the lord-mayor and aldermen, was repealed in 1746. In the year 1727 he was chosen alderman of Dowgate-ward. The following year he prepared a bill for the better encouragement and regulation of seamen in the merchant-service,' which he carried through the house with great credit to himself. In the same session he took an active part in the inquiry appointed to be made into the state of the gaols. In the year 1730, when a bill was brought into the house by the minister, to prohibit all his majesty's subjects, and all persons residing in the kingdom, from lending money to foreigners, he took the lead in opposition to it. The bill was designed to put a stop to the negotiation of a loan for the service of the emperor of Germany, amounting to £400,000, then in agitation on the Exchange of London. The alderman had no objection to a bill particularly framed to put an end to this negotiation; but he strongly protested against a general prohibition of this kind, as laying a violent restraint on commerce, and as tending to throw a very lucrative branch of trade solely into the hauds of the Dutch, to the benefit of the bank of Amsterdam, and to the prejudice of the merchants and the monied interests of England. In fact, if some amendments had not been made upon this bill, it would not have been safe for any merchant to have advanced money to any foreign correspondent, upon any emergency in the ordinary intercourse of trade; and, as Sir John justly observed, the exchequer would have been converted into a court of inquisition; for there was a clause in it empowering the attorney-general, by English bill in the court of exchequer, to extort discovery, by exacting an oath from suspected persons. The opposition so far succeeded that the bill was considerably amended before it passed.

His next exertion was in the case of the excise scheme of Sir Robert Walpole. In a committee of the whole house, which had been appointed to consider of the most proper methods for the security and improvement of the duties and revenues already charged upon, and payable from, tobacco and wines, the minister expatiated on the frands that had been committed for many years by the smugglers and fraudulent dealers in these articles, to the enriching themselves at the expense of the public revenues. He said that the tobacco planters in America were reduced almost to despair, by the many frauds that had been committed in that trade, by the heavy duties paid on importation, and by the ill usage of their factors and agents in England; he had

therefore a scheme to propose which would remedy these evils, increase the public revenues to the amount of £200,000 or £300,000 per annum, and greatly benefit the fair trader. And, as the laws of the customs had been found ineffectual for preventing the frauds complained of, he proposed "to add the laws of excise to those of the customs, by repealing great part of the duty paid on importation, and, in lieu thereof, laying an inland duty or excise of fourpence per pound on the consumption, to be collected by the excise officers, and subjected to the excise laws." The first regular step in this business was to move in the committee a repeal of the importation duties, granted by several acts in the reigns of Charles II., James II., and Queen Anne. Micajah Perry, as senior alderman, and one of the representatives of the city, opened the debate in opposition to this motion. He admitted that frauds had been committed in the tobacco trade, but not to the amount stated by the minister; and, as to the hardships of the tobacco planters, he alleged that they had been put upon complaining by letters sent to them from the administration for that purpose. He observed, that, if this scheme took effect, they would be in a much worse condition, for no man would be concerned in the trade; whereas now the merchants of this kingdom sent ships to receive the tobacco in America, and advanced the planters ready money, till it could be brought to market and sold. Sir John Barnard took it up in both a commercial and a political light, and said, "It seemed to be the last branch of liberty they had to contend for; that it took away their ancient birth-right—trial by jury-from all persons concerned in this branch of trade. They had already subjected great numbers of the people of this nation to the arbitrary laws of excise; and this scheme, he said, would extend this subjection to so many more, that the most fatal consequences were to be dreaded. It had been said that his majesty was a wise and a good prince; but no argument could be drawn from thence to induce them to surrender their liberties and privileges. Though his majesty should never make a bad use of it, his successors might. A slave that has the good fortune to meet with a humane master, is nevertheless a slave. Their liberties were too valuable, and were purchased at too high a price, to be sported with, or wantonly given up to the best of kings. He hoped they had the same value for their liberties as their ancestors had; if so, they would certainly use all peaceable means to preserve them; and if such should prove ineffectual, he hoped there was no Englishman but would use those methods their ancestors had done, and transmit them to their posterity in the same glorious condition they found them, and not sacrifice the constitution to the poor pretence of suppressing a few frauds in the collecting of the public revenues, the whole amount of which appeared to be no more, according to the confession of the commissioners themselves, than £40,000 per annum, which might be prevented without entering upon such dangerous measures." The boldness of the worthy citizen will be more admired by the reader, in these days, than the correctness of his economical views. All the city-members, however, put a negative upon the motion, yet it was carried through the committee, together with several other resolutions, which were warmly debated for two days. Upon the report being made to the house, all the resolutions of the committee were

agreed to; and upon the question for leave to bring in a bill accordingly, the house divided, for the bill 249, against it 189.

During the debate, the people being alarmed, flocked to Westminster in great multitudes, and filled the avenues to the house of commons; and several members, known friends to the excise-scheme, having been grossly insulted in going to and returning from the house, Sir Robert Walpole complained of it to the house. He said, these people would not have crowded to their door, if they had not been instigated by others of higher rank; that circular letters had been sent by the beadles of the wards in the city, summoning the citizens, almost at their peril, to come down that day to the house of commons; he had one of those letters in his pocket, signed by a deputy of a ward, he said, looking at the same time at Sir John Barnard; and he concluded his speech with the following unguarded expression :-"Gentlemen might call the multitude, now at their door, a modest multitude. But whatever temper they were in when they came there, it might be very much altered now. After having waited so long-till near two in the morning of the 15th-it might be very easy for some designing seditious person to raise a tumult amongst them; he could not think it prudent or regular to use any methods for bringing such multitudes to that place on any pretence. Gentlemen might give them what name they thought fit: it might be said they came hither as humble supplicants, but he knew whom the law called sturdy beggars. And those who brought them there could not be certain they would not behave in the same manner."

Alderman Barnard then rising to speak, the friends of the minister called loudly for the question; but Sir John Cotton overruled it by appealing to the chairman of the committee, in a manner which shows the esteem in which our patriot was held at this early stage of his public life:" Sir, I hope you will call gentlemen to order. There is now

a gentleman got up to speak, who speaks as well as any gentleman in the house, and who deserves attention as much as any gentleman that ever spoke in this house. Besides, Sir, he is one of the representatives of the greatest and richest city in Europe, a city which is greatly interested in this debate, and therefore he must be heard." The committee being called to order, Sir John Barnard made the following reply to Sir Robert Walpole :-" Sir, I know of no unfair or irregular methods made use of to bring people from the city to your doors; but any gentlemen or merchants might lawfully desire their friends, by letters or otherwise, to come down to the court of requests, and solicit their friends and acquaintance against any scheme or project they thought prejudicial to them. This is the undoubted right of the subject, and what has been practised upon all occasions. The honourable member talked of sturdy beggars,' but, I assure him, those I saw at the door deserve the name of sturdy beggars as little as the honourable gentleman himself, or any gentleman whatever. The city of London was well apprized of what we were to be upon this day; where they had their information I do not know, but I am sure they have a right notion of the scheme, and are so generally and so zealously bent against it, that whatever methods might have been used to call them thither, I am sure it would have been impossible to have prevented their coming."

The rash expression of Sir Robert was not readily forgotten, nor ever forgiven; and when the bill was brought to be read a first time, on the 4th of April, the crowd without doors was much greater than before. The mob were very near seizing the minister, and might have done it, if Mr Cunningham, a Scots member, had not drawn his sword and kept them off, till Sir Robert had got into the avenue of the house. Some of the other members in office were likewise ill-treated; and perhaps this behaviour contributed not a little to form the inconsiderable majority by whom the first reading of the bill was carried. The numbers upon the division were 236 for it to 200 against it. No minister would choose to risk his credit upon 36 votes; and by this time, petitions from the city of London, in their corporate capacity, and from several other cities, were brought to the bar of the house. Sir Robert, therefore, very prudently moved, on the day appointed for the second reading, which was the 11th, that it be put off till the 12th of June ; but the opposition now perceiving that they had carried their point, contended for having it absolutely rejected; however, finding that the minister intended likewise to adjourn the committee for the further improvement and regulating of the revenues, into which this scheme had been first introduced, to a distant day, they acquiesced in his motion; and thus ended the excise project.

In 1734, Sir John Barnard brought into the house, and carried the famous bill to prevent stock-jobbing; which put a stop to the most iniquitous branches of that species of gaming. In 1735 he moved in the house of commons for leave to bring in a bill to limit the number of playhouses, and to restrain the licentiousness of players.

Upon the quarrel becoming public between the king and his royal highness, Frederick, prince of Wales, Sir John Barnard, though he did not make himself in any respect a party, by paying his court to the prince at Leicester-house, yet thought proper to join those members of the house of commons, who were for settling an annual income on the prince, of £100,000 per annum, independent of the crown. Accordingly, he seconded Mr Pulteney's motion in the session of 1737, on this principle, that the heir-apparent, or any other prince of the royal blood, ought not to be so totally dependent on the king for his subsistence, that the dread of its being withheld, or kept in arrear, should deter him from speaking his sentiments freely on the conduct of the king's ministers.

In the year 1738, Sir John Barnard was elected lord-mayor of London; and, though he met with a severe domestic affliction in the death of his lady, during his mayoralty, he attended to the duties of his high station with unwearied assiduity, and supported the dignity of chief magistrate with firmness, activity, and impartiality.

In the session of 1740, Sir John supported Mr William Pulteney, Sir William Wyndham, and Mr Lyttleton, in carrying the pension bill through the lower house. This was a bill to exclude all pensioners of the crown from seats in the house of commons. When it came into the house of lords, it occasioned a long and passionate debate; and, upon a division, it was thrown out. Sir John Godschall and Sir John Barnard were within 20 votes of carrying the repeal of septennial parliaments, in 1742. Sir John Barnard was many years alderman of Dowgate-ward; but upon the death of Sir John Thomson, in 1749, he removed, pur

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suant to an act of common-council, and took upon him the custody of Bridge-ward Without, always held by the senior alderman, who upon this removal takes the title of Father of the City.' He was many years president of Christ's hospital, and an active governor of Bethlehem and Bridewell hospitals. At length, oppressed by the infirmities of age, and worn out with the fatigues of public business, in the year 1758, he desired leave to resign his gown; and the sense of his great merit was thus expressed in the vote of thanks of his fellow-citizens, upon a motion of Sir Robert Sadbroke :-" It is unanimously agreed and ordered, that the thanks of this court be given to Sir John Barnard, Knight, late one of the aldermen, and father of this city, for his constant attendance and salutary councils in this court; his wise, vigilant, and impartial administration of justice; his unwearied zeal for the honour, safety, and prosperity of his fellow-citizens; his inviolable attachment to the laws and liberties of his country; and for the noble example he has set of a long and uninterrupted course of virtue in private as well as in public life." At a court of common-council, it was likewise unanimously resolved, "That Sir John Barnard, Knight, so justly and emphatically styled the 'Father of the City,' having lately-to the great and lasting regret of this court-thought proper to resign the office of alderman, the thanks of this court be given him, for having so long and faithfully devoted himself to the service of his fellow-citizens; for the honour and influence which this city has upon many occasions derived from the dignity of his character, and the wisdom, steadiness, and integrity of his conduct; for his firm adherence to the constitution both in church and state; his noble struggles for liberty; and his disinterested and invariable pursuit of the true glory and prosperity of his king and country; uninfluenced by power, unawed by clamour, and unbiassed by prejudice of party." In order to perpetuate the memory of his signal services to the city, a statue was voted by the same courts, and erected in his life-time on the Royal Exchange, representing him in full length, in his magisterial robes. Thus crowned with honour and full of years, he retired to his country-seat at Clapham, where he died in the month of August, 1767. An uncompromising supporter of parliamentary decorum, he once interrupted the course of his argument on observing Sir Robert, then in the height of his power, whispering to the speaker, by exclaiming, "Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, I address myself to you, and not to your chair! I will be heard —I call that gentleman to order !" On another occasion, he insisted that Sir Robert, who was reading a roll of paper which he had taken from the table, should lay it down, and attend to the business of the house. One day, Walpole and Barnard, while riding with different parties, it is said, happened to approach so near to each other, that they were separated only by a thick and impervious hedge; Barnard being engaged in discourse with his friends, one of Walpole's companions inquired, "Whose voice is that ?" "It is one I shall never forget," replied Sir Robert: "I have often felt its power." While Lord Granville was in office, if any representations were made to him by the merchants of London, he was accustomed invariably to ask, "What does Sir John Barnard say to this? What is his opinion?" Pulteney frequently visited and consulted him: the first William Pitt often styled him "the great commoner;" and George the Second once offered him the chancellorship of the exchequer.