An appendix to the second edition of Mr. Lofft's 'Observations on a late publication, entitled "A dialogue on the actual state of Parliaments;" ... By Granville Sharp

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APPENDIX.

THE supposed opinion of Mr. Hatsell, (in his ‘Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons,’ under the title of ‘King calls the Parliament,’) as compendiously stated by my worthy and very learned friend, Mr. Lofft, in p. 5 of his Observations, is a much more favourable construction than Mr. Hatsell's own words can really warrant; though all persons, who are acquainted with that gentleman's very amiable character, (including the writer of this remark,) have reason to wish, for his sake, that his opinion (whatever it may be) had been so expressed as to be really limited by the moderate and very friendly construction which Mr. Lofft has put upon it. Mr. Lofft supposes the opinion of Mr. Hatsell to be, that ‘the intent of the statutes of Edward, and the ancient law and constitution of the kingdom, require parliaments to SIT once at least in every year, but NOT that they should be ANNUALLY, OR OFTENER, ELECTED;’ but Mr. Hatsell himself, if we may judge by his manner of writing, is far from admitting that the constitution requires parliaments even to SIT once a year, or that ‘the king is obliged to call a parliament once at least in every year;’ for this he has contemptuously treated merely as 'a notion' (that) ‘has been sometimes entertained;’ (p. 196, n.) and he, asserts, that ‘those persons, who maintain THIS DOCTRINE,’ (i. e. the doctrine last cited in his own words, as a general doctrine, having two different acceptations, arising from the 4th and 36th Edward III.) 'do not mean' (says he) ‘that, according to these statutes, A SESSION of parliament shall be holden every year, but that A NEW ELECTION shall be had, &c.’— In answer to which, it may be sufficient to oppose one eminent example for all: viz. that the learned commentator, Judge Blackstone, notoriously denied, as well as himself, that the latter doctrine 'ever was' the meaning of those ancient statutes, though he actually was one of ‘those persons who maintained’ the former general construction of the said statutes (the only operative construction they are now capable of bearing since the traverse of the modern acts for triennial and septennial elections) as being still in force to bind the king. See 1 Com. c. 2, p. 152 & 153: where the learned writer, having mentioned that ‘the king only can convoke a parliament,’ immediately adds, ‘and THIS, by the ancient statutes of the realm, HE IS BOUND TO DO EVERY YEAR, or oftener if need be; ’ for which, in a note, he expressly cites these statutes of K. Ed. III. and immediately afterwards he mentions the two different acceptations of the said statutes. —'Not' (says he) 'that he' (i. e. the king) ‘is, or •ver was, obliged by these statutes to call a NEW parliament every year; but on¦ly to permit a parliament to SIT annually, ’ &c. The words,—'to permit,'—being a verb in the infinitive mood, do manifestly require a repetitio• (to be understood) of the preceding verb, 'is obliged,'—viz. ‘is oblige• to permit;’ which confirms, by necessary grammatical construction, th• doctrine of the preceding sentence, that the king 'is bound' by the sai• ancient statutes. This doctrine is strongly confirmed by the nationa• declaration in the preamble to the statute of 16 Charles I. c. 1. ‘that by the laws and statutes of this realm, the parliament ought to be hol¦den AT LEAST ONCE EVERY YEAR for the redress of grievances, ’ &c• which (though the act is repealed) is stated, as being still an existing principle of parliamentary doctrine, by Judge Hales, in his ‘Original Institution, Power, &c. of Parliaments,’ p. 57. and which is still farther confirmed by the constant 'usage and custom of parliament ever since the revolution, as well as by the obvious reason and necessi¦ty of it; whereby the 'lex et consuetudo parliamenti' upon this poin• must surely be sufficiently clear not to be mistaken by persons o• much less intelligence in those matters than the clerk of the house of commons! Yet Mr. Hatsell does not admit even this general construction of the ancient statutes; and, as a proof that he does not, I need only to observe, that, though he is writing expressly concerning what he call• ‘the undoubted prerogative of the crown to judge of the expediency of calling 〈◊〉 parliament, and to determine at what time the writs shall issue; yet this prerogative’ (says he) ‘is limited by two acts of parliament, the 16th Ch. II. c. 1, and the 6th of Wm & Mary, c. 2; both of which, ’ &c.—‘enact, that from henceforth a parliament shall be holden once in three years at the least;’ ‘so that, in obedience TO THESE LAWS,’ (says he, without citing any other limitation, either of statute or usage, but these two acts for triennial parliaments,) ‘the ministers of the crown’ (says he) ‘are bound to take care,‘that THE SITTING and holding of parliaments shall not be INTERMITTED or DISCONTINUED above three years at the most. ’’ ‘And it is their duty’ (says he) ‘to give directions for issuing the writs of summons ACCORDINGLY,’—i.e. according to the two acts for triennia• parliaments, or rather to a part of one of them, viz. the part he has selected for the direction of 'the ministers of the crown' to ‘take care, that the SITTING, &c. shall not be INTERMITTED or DISCONTINUED above three years at the most; ’ whereby he leaves ‘the ministers of the crown’ at liberty to ‘intermit and discontinue for three years’ even the SITTING of parliament, for he has cited no other limitation of the prerogative on this head: and, with respect to the two ancient statutes of K. Edward III. he did not (it seems) think them worthy even to be named in his text, but only in a note, (to shew that he had not forgot them,) where he has treated even their general construction merely as "a notion, &c." See p. 196-199.

But, though the original meaning and force of these ancient statutes are materially affected and injured by the modern acts for triennial and septennial parliaments, yet they are certainly still in force (as Judge Blackstone has allowed) to oblige the king 'to permit a parliament to sit annually for the redress of grievances and dispatch of business;' and this, without impediment from the words 'if need be' in the 'loose and vague' manner that the Judge has applied them, contrary to the necessary grammatical construction of the whole sentence: (see 'Declaration of the 'People's Rights, p. 166 to 169, n.)—For our right to an annual session of parliament is founded on the ancient constitution of the kingdom, — on laws that are almost coeval with our national existence in this island. See the 'usage perpetual' ordained by K. Alfred, and cited by Lord Coke, 1 Inst. p. 110. viz. 'Le Roy Alfred' (fist) ‘assembler les Counties, &c. et ordeina, pur USAGE PERPETUEL, que deux foitz par an, ou pluis sovent, pour mister ’ (mestier) ‘in temps de peace, se assemblerent a Londres, a parliamenter sur le guidament del people de Dieu, &c.’— The testimony of Knighton, (‘one of our best historians,’ as Mr. Petyt calls him in his preface to the Ancient Right of the Commons, p. 41.) ‘that, by an ancient STATUTE and CUSTOM, laudable and approved, which nobody could deny, the king was ONCE IN A YEAR to convene his LORDS and COMMONS to his Court of Parliament, ’ &c. Mr. Nevill's testimony concerning an ancient statute of Edward I. ordering that ‘a parliament shall be held every year, and oftener if need be;’ for which see his Plato Redivivus, p. 110-112. — The same doctrine declared in the very next reign, as proved by Mr. Petyt (p. 77) from Rot. Claus 10 Edw. II. m. 28, intus; that "upon a petition to the king," (K. Edw. II.) 'he granted that "SEMEL IN ANNO TENEATUR parliamentum," &c. whence it is evident, that the act of 4 Edw. III. c. 14, was not a new law, but a declaration of the old constitution, viz. ‘That a parliament shall be holden every year once, and more often if need be;’ which was again confirmed by statute in the 36 Ed. III. c. 10. And the USAGE of those times (proved by the writs issued for general elections frequently ‘MORE OFTEN’ than 'ONCE' in a year) excludes all 'doubtful'-ness from these ancient statutes; so that new parliaments must necessarily have been understood, until (by the traverse of modern acts) they became applicable only to the annual sitting of parliament.

The opposers of the original meaning (viz for annual elections, and more often) have rendered that construction still more obvious by their own miserable shifts to evade it! One says, — the words are ‘loose and vague,’ though such a charge is applicable only to his own ungrammatical construction; and another would render the acts doubtful, by boldly excluding the only just criterion for ‘clearing up doubts’ in such a case, viz. the USAGE of the times in which the acts were made; and, instead of it, would have us refer ONLY to ‘the practice’ and to 'the opinion' of persons who lived from 200 to 400 years after those times! But the proposer seems not to be aware, that this mode of 'explaining ancient statutes' is exactly similar to one of the most gross and delusive practices of popery! The apostate church of Rome, for obvious reasons, cannot submit the determination of what ought to be esteemed apostolic doctrine to the evidence of apostolic times; and, of course, she is driven to this wretched subterfuge of referring for evidence (in favour of her innovations and unscriptural practices) to the traditions of more modern times, and to the practices and opinions of persons who lived from 200 to 400 years afterwards; in order to invalidate all cotemporary evidence of facts and primitive usages. — And surely this dishonest and arbitrary mode of 'settling doubts' is equally unjustifiable in legal and political, as in religious, questions. Yet Mr. Hatsell boldly ventures to tell us that, ‘where the expressions of acts of parliament,’ (speaking of the acts of Edward,) ‘passed above FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO, are DOUBTFUL,’ (says he, though the contrary is evident,) ‘nothing can clear up and settle these DOUBTS but the OPINION of all the wisest and best-informed persons, ’ &c. ‘from the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth to the present time.’ (P. 198, n.) Thus, even the commencement of the time, here proposed as the best for affording information, is actually more than two hundred years AFTER the times in which the acts were made; and he cuts off all cotemporary, as well as intermediate, evidence, by a single bold assertion, that ‘nothing can clear up —but,’ &c. taking care to secure to himself the ample space of another two hundred years, (still more distant from the times in question,) that he may range more securely in his search for precedents of innovations both in practice and opinion. And indeed he has most industriously displayed the practices of the Stuarts, reminding us, in the course of argument, even of 'intermissions of parliaments' for several years together: — 'an intermission of Parliament of six years,' by K. James I. — 'an intermission of parliaments for twelve years' together, by K. Charles I. These were surely most unpropitious times for parliamentary knowledge; and Mr. Hatsell does not seem to be aware, that the fear of similar intermissions was probably the principal cause which withheld the patriots of those days from urging their election-rights at a time when the sum total of all their rights was at stake, even the right to have any parliament at all! so that their silence respecting annua• elections does not at all assist Mr. Hatsell's argument against them. — The people of England, in those times, were rendered so deplorably abject, by the unlimited, and therefore illegal, rule of Tudors and Stuarts that it was considered as a crime, in the preceding reign of James I even to urge the expediency of calling a parliament at all: — ‘I would fain know the man that durst persuade the king unto it,’ — says THE MI¦NISTER OF STATE in Sir Walter Rawleigh's Dialogue on the Prero¦gative of Parliaments, (p. 2.) so that this was undoubtedly the language of those times to which Mr. Hatsell has referred us for acts, opinions and speeches, whereby (with the addition of some still more modern in formation) he thinks ‘the true intent and meaning of the words used in th• statutes of Edward III,’ (though made almost 300 years before) ‘migh• be best explained:’ but, to look for explanatory 'opinions' and 'speeche•▪ in such arbitrary times, when men dared not to speak their opinions upo• the subject, is too great an absurdity! so that Mr. Hatsell is peculiarl• unfortunate in fixing his aera for parliamentary information. And ye• if 'the wisest and best-informed men' of those times had shewn a littl• more regard to the nation's rights than to the security of their own persons and property, (for rich men are commonly the worst citizens, for various reasons,) and had ventured, like honest men rather than like wise and prudent [*] men, to speak their opinions in favour of that SACRED TRUTH, our indispensible right to the actual sitting of a new parliament 'every year once' at least, 'and more often if need be' — (a truth never to be concealed, a claim never to be relaxed!) — they might probably, with God's blessing in the cause of truth and right, have so checked the progress of unconstitutional doctrines, as to deter their kings and statesmen from changing a limited monarchy to an absolute tyranny; and might thereby have prevented the horrible effects of misrule which speedily broke out and overwhelmed the state! and indeed the infringement of our parliamentary rights was the true source of all the mischiefs that shortly followed: for, when the able patriots (named by Mr. Hatsell) were struggling, almost in despair, to retain the mere existence of a parliament, under K. Charles I. they did not seem to apprehend that their full constitutional claim to an annual election was a subject proper to be discussed at such a time; but their only aim, when they met, ('after an intermission of parliaments for twelve years,') seems to be how they might prolong their SITTING at any rate for the redress of grievances; whereby it is manifest, that the obstinate monarch's unwillingness to permit a parliament to SIT, together with the previous criminal intermissions, (as one illegality is apt to beget another,) became, eventually, the parents of a still greater evil—a long parliament without any election at all, which severely repaid the royal perfidy in kind, by 'an 〈◊〉 intermission,' in return, of regal government,—an exclusion of that per •ured monarch's family from the throne for exactly the same number of years that he had presumed to intermit the sitting of parliaments, viz.—for 'TWELVE YEARS at one time,' and even the SIX YEARS intermission, •n his father's reign, was severely repaid in a bloody SIX YEARS war, until the son's imprisonment and death!

These are awful examples, worthy the serious attention of all parties; •hough we are bound, at the same time, to discriminate between examples (or facts) and precedents, that such baneful examples may not (by the critical observations of ingenious men) be drawn into precedents for proceedings, but that the legal acceptation of the word precedent may always •e duly maintained.

Mr. Hatsell's argument, upon the whole, is certainly a very extraor •inary one: not only because the arbitrary times, to which he has limited the commencement of our parliamentary researches, seem to be utterly incapable of affording the least information upon the particular point in question, and are also near three hundred years AFTER the only proper time for ascertaining the usage of the times when the statutes to be explained were made, — but also because he peremptorily excludes all other evidence whatever— ‘Nothing can clear up, &c. but the opinion, &c. from the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth! &c.’

I am far more willing to attribute such an unaccountable argument to inattention, and a superficial manner of writing, than to suspect any rea• design of the ingenious author to promote a mode of explaining ancient statutes so dangerously presumptuous and arbitrary! And, to justify the more moderate conclusion of the two, he has luckily furnished me with an easy and obvious proof of it in the very next chapter but one, to which he has given the running title of— ‘King adjourns the Parliament,’ — 'King adjourns the Parliament,' — for several pages together, (i. e. from 204 to 211.) so that that one would naturally suppose that he really meant what he had so often written: but, at length, (though not till the very last page of that head,) he kindly guards us against that baneful error by an explicit stating of what HE HIMSELF believes to be ‘the true parliamentary doctrine,’ viz. ‘That the king has no authority to adjourn the parliament;’ and, of course, his 'superficial manner' of expressing himself (I mean on this particular head) must be corrected, in his next edition, to 'the true parliamentary doctrine,' — ‘King does NOT adjourn the Parliament: —’ so that he must put a negative upon his present title throughout all these pages!

But, to return to my subject, I trust that the necessity of at least ONE SITTING of the parliament every year, and of our national right to such SITTING, is so sufficiently understood and acknowledged, by the majority even of all parties, that THE CONTRARY DOCTRINE, which arises too apparently from Mr. Hatsell's manner of treating the king's prerogative on that subject, will need no particular refutation: and yet so respectable is the authority of the writer, (not only by his office of clerk of the house of commons, but also by the personal esteem which is certainly due to him from a very numerous and respectable body of friends and acquaintance,) that I thought myself obliged to take some notice of his manner of treating the subject before us, in order to warn the public against a possible construction of it which might hereafter (if not seasonably censured) have dangerous consequences. At the same time I sincerely profess, that my censure is aimed more at this gentleman's manner of writing than his intention, and that I am much more willing to believe that the opinion he intended to express was truly what Mr. Lofft has supposed; or that I myself may perhaps be mistaken in conceiving that his words are liable to a different construction; rather than to suspect that the worthy clerk of the house of commons could really intend to favour a doctrine which is repugnant to the established usage of parliament for near a century, and is equally inimical to the just privileges of the Lords as to those of the Commons, and, of course, to the welfare of the whole nation.

GRANVILLE SHARP.
Old Jewry, May 30, 1783.

Notes

*
'The prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.'—Amos v. 13.
↵

AN APPENDIX To the Second Edition of Mr. Lofft's 'OBSERVATIONS On a late Publication, entitled ‘A Dialogue on the actual State of Parliaments;’ and on some other Tracts equally inimical to the Constitution of 'Free Parliaments:' BEING A FARTHER EXAMINATION Of the Argument, lately published by Mr. HATSELL, (in his Precedents of Proceedings, &c.) against ‘the antient Law and Constitution of this Kingdom, that the King ought to hold Parliaments elected annually.’

By GRANVILLE SHARP.

Great is the TRUTH, and stronger than all Things; — it liveth and conquereth for evermore.

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An appendix to the second edition of Mr. Lofft's 'Observations on a late publication, entitled "A dialogue on the actual state of Parliaments;" ... By Granville Sharp

Sharp, Granville, 1735-1813.

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1106008774

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9781106008770

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— An appendix to the second edition of Mr. Lofft's 'Observations on a late publication, entitled "A dialogue on the actual state of Parliaments;" ... By Granville Sharp, Sharp, Granville, 1735-1813.. 8p. ; 8⁰. [London,. 1783?]. [Dated at the end: Old Jewry, May 30, 1783.] [Reproduction of original from the British Library.] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT27316.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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