Cabinet  on  the  subject  of  Spain,  and  the  manner  of  treating
with  a  haughty  and  insidious  power."  To  see  Burke  reduced
to  the  same  helpless  plight  was  a  treat  which  the  Tories
in  the  Lower  House  were  determined  not  to  deny  themselves  ;
and  they  had  this  additional  incentive  to  stir  in  the  matter,
that,  while  the  Lords  had  nothing  to  gain  by  closing  their  doors
except  an  agreeable  immunity  from  the  censorship  of  general
public  opinion,  the  Commons,  by  the  officiousness  of  the
reporters,  were  exposed  to  the  more  particular  and  invidious
supervision  of  their  constituents.  It  was  intolerable,  (such
was  the  catchword  in  the  Government  ranks,)  that  gentlemen
should  be  misrepresented  to  the  people  whom  they  were  chosen
to  represent.^  In  accordance  with  this  one-sided,  but  conve-
nient, view  of  the  case,  Colonel  George  Onslow,  on  the  fifth
of  February  1771,  reminded  the  Commons  that  for  any  person
to  presume  to  give  in  the  newspapers  an  account  or  abstract  of
their  debates  had  been  declared  a  breach  of  privilege,  to  be
visited  on  the  offender  with  the  utmost  severity.  The  resolu-
tions which  embodied  this  imperious  doctrine,  passed  as  long
back  as  the  first  twelvemonth  of  the  late  reign,  had  been
judiciously  allowed  to  slumber  by  the  common  sense  of  six
successive  Parliaments  ;  but  Colonel  Onslow  now  persuaded
the  House  to  revive  and  enforce  them  by  ordering  them  to  be
printed  in  the  votes.  The  next  move  in  the  game  was  entrusted
to  one  Sir  John  Turner,  who,  on  an  afternoon  when  Sir  George
Savile  was  to  bring  forward  in  a  new  shape  the  old  question  of
the  Middlesex  election,  took  upon  himself  to  desire  that
strangers  should  be  excluded  on  the  ground  that  the  House
was   too   full  to   be   pleasant ;   a  pretext  which  immediately

'  The  words  are  those  of  Mr.  Thomas  de  Grey,  member  for  Norfolk,
brother  of  the  future  Lord  Walsingham  ;  and  the  substance  of  them  was  re-
peated in  every  second  speech  that  was  made  during  thirteen  evenings  of
February  and  March  1771.
