Enough has been said to show that the Act to amend, explain and alter that of the 12th Queen Anne, originated in far other than the "doubts and difficulties" which according to their minutes on the above date, rendered it necessary to take that course, instead of paying the reward, which the proper law authorities affirmed they would be perfectly justified in doing—a particular so much in his favour, that it becomes, in a manner, impossible to divest the refusal of private and personal motives. Never was language more perverted than when, after hearing the statements of the Earl of Morton, it is added, that "they duly weighed and considered the same:" for they did no such thing. The slightest cross-examination would have shewn them, there was no foundation for the refractoriness imputed to John
ander Cumming, Thomas Mudge, Andrew Dickie, James Green, and William Frodsham, watchmakers. Eight of them attended two meetings of the Commission. The absentees were, Lord Willoughby, of Parham, for some reason unknown; Mr. Andrew Dickie, because he was not sufficiently prepared; and the Rev. John Michell, who was unavoidably prevented from attending the first meeting, and had not been summoned to the second. Of those who attended, there is evidence that Messrs. Short, Cumming, Green, and Frodsham, who were personal friends of the Candidate, perfectly concurred in opinion with him, as to the mode of explanation required by the obvious intention of the Act: so that supposing the other three to have divided with Lord Morton (thought it is very improbably) yet as four could not be a majority among eight without a casting vote, the effrontery with which he asserted to have had such majority cannot be extenuated.
