Conclusion

The events of 25 April 1774 and 6 September 1774 offer parallel develop­ments which frame this chapter. On the former date the House of Commons adopted eight new procedures which it elevated to the status of Standing Orders; on the latter date the Continental Congress adopted four proce­dures.

In 1774 Congress’ attention to rule-making was primitive; Commons’ attention was, by that time, mature. In October and November 1775, the House of Commons revisited rules adopted in March and April 1774; it then considered amendments to these rules. When Congress returned to a second round of procedural rule-making in July 1776, it threw out its exist­ing rules and wrote new ones.

Commons’ procedural rules enabled opponents of the American war to debate the government’s policies. Members engaged each other in public discussion of government’s war aims and methods. This free-wheeling style of debate took place even as British forces achieved repeated success on the battlefield, a run of victories interrupted only by a serious reverse at Sara­toga (17 September 1777). Shortly before the Battle of Saratoga, Congress 26 ‘Orders indispensably necessary’ approved procedures governing roll-call votes. Congress approved Consti­tution I on 15 November 1777, forwarding that instrument to the states for their ratification.

Burke and his fellow opponents of the war and, on the other side of the North Atlantic, Adams and his colleagues, took advantage of the differ­ing tactical opportunities presented to them as armed conflict between the two nations intensified. Congress experimented with legislators serving as administrators.

In the interval 1774 through 1781 the Continental Congress might be taken for a parliamentary institution suffering serious episodes of disor­ganisation. On the other hand, North’s supporters were able to fund and support the war in America while Burke and his allies vigorously debated whether it was in the nation’s interest to fight the American war. Within a generally accepted framework, politicians were able to avoid the dangers of disequilibrium within each political society until their envoys entered into final negotiations to bring the war to an end. Whether these negotiations would lead to recolonisation or national recognition was an outcome that hung in the balance. By September 1777 - following the news of the Battle of Saratoga - the issue had passed out of the hands of the civilian leaders of the contending war machines. The armed conflict which engulfed the home­land and these 13 provinces had, not surprisingly, acquired a life of its own. Under its own power, parliamentary procedure likewise evolved towards a destiny of its own making.

Notes

1 Letters to Members, 1:8-9.

2 Adams, Papers, 4: 234-35.

3 Congress Journal, 1:25-26.

4 Hatsell, Members/Speaker, 55 n. 1.

5 Jefferson, Parliamentary Writings, 5.

6 Congress Journal, 5:573-74.

7 Ibid., 34:605; 2 March 1789.

8 Hadfield, Canal Age, 39-40. Hadfield’s work named the canals (completed by 1790) which established the transportation network radiating outward from the Trent-to-Mersey Canal. At 211-13.

9 Brindley, History, 1.

10 Commons Journal, 30:451; 15 January 1766. For a summary of research into women’s holdings in joint stock corporations, see Freeman, Shareholder, 125-127.

11 Brindley, History, 1.

12 Darwin, Garden, 17.

13 Blackstone, Commentaries, 1:134-35.

Ibid, 135.

Edward Christian’s remarks on merit outcomes are quoted in Chapter 6, this volume, at 133-34. He brought out the Blackstone’s Commentaries (12th ed.).

Section I authorised the Company to make ‘a Cut or Canal from the River Trent, near Wilden Bridge, below an ancient Ferry called Wilden Ferry, in the County of Derby, through or near Swarkstone and Willington in the said County, Wicknor, Rudgley, Stone, and Burslem, in the County of Stafford; and through or near Lawton and Middlewich, and near Northwich in the County of Chester, and to the River Mersey, at or near a certain Place called Runcorn Gap’.

Blackstone, Commentaries, 135.

The Worshipful Company of Cheesemongers assured Commons, in its counter­petition, that the canal project was unnecessary: these merchants were ‘in that Respect served upon reasonable Terms, both as to Price and Dispatch’. Com­mons Journal, 30:643; 11 March 1765.

Commons Journal, 34:676; 25 April 1774. Further discussion in Chapter 4, this volume, centres on Hatsell’s 1774 Standing Orders.

Roe, Tool Builders, 1-5.

Ibid., 34:670, 686.

Commons Journal, 33:95; 28 January 1771.

Ibid.

Trenchard and Gordon, Collection, 2:420.

Hatsell, Standing Orders, 1, 1774.

Ibid.

Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser (London), Wednesday, 8 June 1774; Issue 1573, 3.

Commons Journal, 34:676; 25 April 1774.

Ibid., 1:75-80; 20 October 1774. Articles of Association.

Ibid., 1:105-13, 112; 26 October 1774. Letter Addressed to the Inhabitants of Quebec.

Ibid.

Adams, Papers, 4:234-35.

Congress Journal, 5:813-17; 24 September 1776.

Adams, Papers, 3:337-342.

Congress Journal, 1:27; 6 September 1774.

Franklin, Private Life, 78. ‘I propos’d to render the benefit from books more common, by commencing a public subscription library’.

Congress Journal, 5:813-17; 24 September 1776.

6 Geo. 3 c. 96, Section XLII.

3 Stat. 375, Res. 8; 27 March 1818.

Bentham, Essay, 314-315.

Congress Journal, 8:599; 2 August 1777.

Word count by author.

Congress Journal, 4:85; 24 January 1776.

Ibid., 5:434-35; 12 June 1776.

Ibid., 6:1041; 26 December 1776.

John Adams to Timothy Pickering on 6 August 1822. Founders Online, National Archives, last modified 28 December 2016; last retrieved 31 January 2017. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7674.

Jillson and Wilson, Congressional Dynamics, 93.

Adams, Papers, 3:342.

Sanders, Evolution, 8.

Cobbett, Parliamentary History, 18:33; 20 November 1774.

Ibid.

52 Ibid., 18:40-42; 5 December 1774.

53 Ibid., 18:45-46; 5 December 1774.

54 Figures computed by author from Cobbett’s, Parliamentary History.

55 Ibid.

56 Brooke, History, 294-295.

57 Coston and Watson, Law and Working, 1:398.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibzd., 1:399.