of Dowdeswell," says Chatham, "is a compound of connection, tyranny and absurdity."[1] It was by expressions such as these that the Opposition showed their mutual affection. Of the two measures an Enacting Bill would perhaps have stood the better chance of passing into law; either proposal, however, was almost equally certain to be rejected by the majority; while an admission that the law as laid down by Mansfield was not incorrect was likely to be used as an argument in the future, in order to prove that even the Opposition acknowledged that the decision "as to libel or no libel" rested with the judge: the very position against which Glyn and Dunning had argued in speeches of great force and learning.[2] Be that as it may, the result of these dissensions was that Dowdeswell persevered with his bill, and on March 7th was beaten by a majority of 146. "You see, my Lord," writes Barré to Chatham, "what a glorious day yesterday was for the Opposition, and particularly for its leaders! Nothing under the humour of a Swift or a Rabelais can describe it to you. I went down to the House very angry with them, but in less than an hour they forced me to pity them. Poor things! They told me that they would never do the like again."[3]
The Opposition being in this distracted and divided condition, it was natural that not a day went by without some fresh illustration of the omnipotence of the King's Friends. Rights actually in dispute in the courts of law were summarily disposed of by Act of Parliament in order to favour a private speculation of the Adams, the well-known architects, then in high favour at Court, and to humiliate the City, which claimed the foreshore at the point where the former proposed to erect the building afterwards called the Adelphi. The famous proceedings against the printers of the Parliamentary debates were the next exploit of the majority. Against the Durham Yard Embankment Bill Shelburne signed a separate protest, and his friends were conspicuous in the
