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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 561: MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.

The first imperial parliament was opened by commission on the 22nd of January. The king did not meet his parliament till the 2nd of February, when, in his speech from the throne, after adverting to the happy accomplishment of the union, and to the adverse course of events on the continent, he announced a fresh storm in the north. The court of Petersburgh, he said, had proceeded to commit outrages against the ships, property, and persons of his subjects; and a convention had been concluded by that court with those of Copenhagen and Stockholm, by which they were engaged to re-establish a new code of maritime law, inconsistent with the rights and hostile to the best interests of the country. His majesty stated that he had taken the earliest measures to repel the aggressions of this confederacy, and he called upon both houses of parliament to afford him the aid required in the emergency. The debates which ensued were of an interesting character. In both houses opposition recommended conciliatory measures; and some even proposed the suspension of the right of search we claimed at sea, or a tacit assent to the principles of the armed neutrality, on the ground that terrible consequences would attend the closing of the corn-ports on the Baltic in this season of scarcity. In the upper house an amendment to the address was moved by Earl Fitzwilliam; but on a division the address was carried. Mr. Grey was the chief opposer of the address in the commons; he likewise moved an amendment; but the address was there carried by a majority of one hundred and eighty-two. Preparations were, therefore, now made for sending the British fleet into the Baltic; and this, it will be seen, together with the death of the Czar Paul, soon put an end to this coalition.