trates in Westminster be elective; let the people have a power to vote for them and choose them by their suffrages; the election would then be pure, no jealousy of government could prevail, and the end of such a police would be most fully answered. Perhaps it might not be unworthy the attention of those in power, to consider for a moment the police of the City of London, a police abundantly better regulated and more effectual than that of Westminster. The city was divided into wards, and subdivided into parishes, each of which, both in the division and subdivision, had its separate police so constituted as to make a part of the whole police of the city. Might it not be worth the while of Government to copy the example, and make Westminster a corporation as London was? The project was not difficult, and all the danger of altering the police lay entirely with Government. If they perverted the alteration to an extension of influence, they would do harm, and increase the mischiefs of the present system of police; if they avoided assuming fresh power, and left the people at liberty to elect for their magistrates those whose character, ability, and independence served to point them out as proper in their eyes to fill the office of magistrates, they would act wisely, and would find by the effect that they had done what was right, and that they had instituted a police answering every good and desirable end, both public and private."[1]
The ultimate suppression of the riots was due to the courage of the Attorney-General, Wedderburne, who was rewarded with the Barony of Loughborough and the Lord Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas. While London was burning, the Privy Council was discussing whether the troops could fire till after the Riot Act had been read, and one hour had elapsed. This was the theory embodied in a War Office Order on the subject; the question however was if it contained the law on the subject. The Attorney-General gave it as his opinion, that when a felony was being committed, and the Civil power lacked
- ↑ Parliamentary History, xxi. 680-681. It was during these debates that Lord Rockingham sarcastically observed that he had heard many voices shouting "no Popery," but had felt several hands trying to get at his watch.
