tioned. This Act was in substance re-enacted by a majority of 2 (the number being 149 against, and 151 for it) in the convention parliament in 1660, and the excise, in direct contravention of the assurance of the Commons stated above, and placed on record on the Lords' Journals, was substituted as an equivalent for the revenue arising from the Court of Wards. After a debate, in which one member said that if this bill was carried, every man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, must pay excise to excuse the Court of Wards, which would be a greater grievance upon all, than the Court of Wards was to a few; and another, one of the most learned of English lawyers, spoke strongly against the gross injustice of making those who had no lands pay an equivalent for the rent-charge, which was the condition on which the land of England had originally been granted to be held as private property.1

As the House of Commons, or the body which called itself the House of Commons, was now the sole governing power in England, it would be desirable to ascertain the exact number of members composing that assembly at this time. But that, I apprehend, is impossible, for the following reason. Immediately after the king's execution certain of the secluded members were permitted, on certain conditions, to resume their seats in the House. But while the journals contain the entries of the orders for the re-admission of six of those secluded members, namely, of Colonel Bingham, Mr. Edward Ashe, and Mr. Armyne, on the 2nd of February; of Mr. Gould, and Mr. John Ashe, on the 3rd of February; and of Sir William Masham, ou the 8th of February; there is ground for believing that at the same time several other members were re-admitted, and took their seats. For immediately before the entries of

1 Commons' Journals, Nov. 21, 1660. Parl. Hist., vol. iv. pp. 148, 149.

the orders for the readmission of Colonel and Mr. Edward Ashe, there are two entries erased, and in the margin is written "Obliterated by order of Feb. 22, 1659." And between the entries of the order for the readmission of Mr. Edward Ashe and of that for the readmission of Mr. Armyne, there are several entries erased. Again, immediately before the order for the admission of Mr. Gould, there are three entries erased, and in the margin is written "Nulled, by order of Feb. 22, 1659;" and immediately after the order for the admission of Mr. John Ashe, there is also an entry erased. There are, moreover, in other places, several entries erased, and the words written in the margin "Nulled, by order of Feb. 22, 1659."3

But though, for this reason, the number of members cannot be exactly ascertained, a very close approximation to it may be obtained in this way. When there was a contest for power and place, the number of members present, which, upon other occasions when the business of the nation only was to be done, very seldom exceeded 50, and very often fell below 40, amounted to more than 100, the highest number being 122. This contest for power and place was the greatest when the annual elections of a new Council of State took place. Thus, at the election of a new Council of State in February, 163, there was a House of 98 members; at the same election in 1659 there was a House of 121 members; in 165, there was a House of 120; in 1653, there was a House of 122.7 We may therefore conclude that 122 was the

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1 Commons' Journals, Die Veneris, 2 Feb., 1648.

2 Commons' Journals, Die Sabbati, 3 Feb., 1648.

3 Commons' Journals, Die Lunæ, 5 Feb., 1648; Die Jovis, 8 Feb, 164§.

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4 Commons' Journals, Die Mercurii, 20° Februarii, 1638.

5 Commons' Journals, 7 Feb., 1659. 6 Commons' Journals, 24 Nov., 1651. 7 Commons' Journals, 24 Nov., 1652.

greatest number the House could assemble; and that the ordinary business of the government was carried on by a number not exceeding 50 on an average, though often falling below 50. It is evident that a government consisting of this number of men, who, as we shall see, shrunk from any appeal to the general sense of the nation, and retained their power by means of an army, had about the same title to call itself the commonwealth of England, that the three celebrated tailors of Tooley Street had to style themselves the people of England.

On the 7th of February, the House "ordered that the Committee of Safety, and the Committee at Derby House, and the powers to them and either of them given by any order or ordinance of Parliament, be absolutely dissolved and taken away." On the same day it was ordered, "that there be a Council of State erected to act and proceed according to such instructions as shall be given to this House."2 At the same time, Mr. Lisle, Mr. Holland, Mr. Scott, Colonel Ludlow, and Mr. Robinson, were appointed to present to the House instructions to be given to the Council of State; and likewise the names of such persons as they conceived fit to be of the Council of State, not exceeding the number of 40; and power was given to them to send for papers and writings from Derby House, or elsewhere.

On the 8th of February Sir Thomas Widdrington and Mr. Whitelock, two of the commissioners for the Great Seal, brought the Great Seal into the House, and delivered it into the hands of the Speaker, the House then sitting. The House then ordered the Great Seal to be broken; and a workman was brought into the House with his tools,

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who, in the face of the House, upon the floor, broke the seal in pieces. The House then ordered the several pieces of the said seal thus broken and the purse to be delivered to Sir Thomas Widdrington and Mr. Whitelock, to be disposed of at their pleasure.' After this, the House passed an Act for establishing the new Great Seal to be the Great Seal of England; and Whitelock, L'Isle, and Keeble were appointed Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal.2 The Commons also published, on the 21st of March, a long elaborate declaration, in English, Latin, French, and Dutch, stating their reasons for establishing what they called a republic or commonwealth. But names have not the power of changing the nature of things. Nevertheless, the bold and able men who then ruled England have so far succeeded in getting their names accepted for realities that histories have actually been written of their doings under the title of histories of the commonwealth of England, meaning of the republic of England; for commonwealth was used formerly to express the established form of government, and is thus used by Sir Thomas Smith, one of the principal secretaries of state to King Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth, and by Queen Elizabeth herself in her speeches to her parliaments. However, if these men imagined that by abolishing the king and House of Lords, and constituting themselves the sole governing power in England, they thereby established that form of government which the Greeks called a democracy, and the Romans a republic, they committed a great error. Whether, if they had been so minded, they could have established a republic, is, at least, very doubtful; but they never tried. They

1 Commons' Journals, Die Jovis, 8 Feb., 1648. Whitelock, p. 378.

2 Ibid.

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3 Parl. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1292-1304. The English Commonwealth, in three books, first published in 1584.

perhaps supposed that if, in accordance with the requisitions of the writing intituled "An Agreement of the People of England and the places therewith incorporated," being, in fact, a draft of a parliamentary reform bill drawn up chiefly by Ireton, they had dissolved themselves on the last day of April, 1649, to make room for the election of a new parliament, and that if every reasonable degree of freedom of election had been permitted, all that they had done would have been undone at once, and they themselves hanged for doing it. But this could not have happened while the victorious army, from the officers of which proceeded the petition accompanying "The Agreement of the People," existed. It might be said, indeed, that elections made under the protection of this army could not be reckoned free elections. At the same time, there is, undoubtedly, a great show of fairness in the proposal to tender the agreement to the people throughout the whole country, to be subscribed by those who should approve of it, as petitions of a voluntary nature are; and that it may be carried into effect if, upon the amount of subscriptions, to be returned by commissioners to be appointed for that purpose in April next, there should appear a general reception of it among the people, or the well-affected of them. Now, at least in the neglect of this fair and reasonable proposal, the treatment of this document by the Parliament appears not quite honest; and if it be said, in defence of the Parliament, that not only the principle of policy, but the still more powerful instinct of self-preservation dictated imperatively the course they pursued, it may be answered that they would have taken a

1 Parl. Hist., vol. iii. pp. 12671277. The first article of this "Agreement," is "That to prevent the many inconveniences apparently arising from

the long continuance of the same persons in supreme authority, this present Parliament end and dissolve upon the last day of April, 1649."