‘Any gentleman entitled to my friendship would have been prejudiced’
In this and the following two sections, I offer examples of distortions of the law-making process. These are dated 9 March 1775, 13 March 1780 and 21 February 1783. Hatsell offered ‘a rule to go by’ to fortify an assembly from the worse effects of ‘tumultuous majorities’ or strongmen.
In his Members/ Speaker (1781, rev. ed. 1785) Hatsell brought up the subject of the majorÂity’s ‘strict adherence’ to rules. Hatsell reasoned that the ‘only weapons by which the minority can defend themselves... are the forms and rules of proceeding [which are] the Standing Orders of the House’.27 These quotaÂtions appeared in Chapter 2, this volume.In 1775 North rejected the request of a member of Commons to resign his seat. The First Lord of the Treasury ‘made it a rule never to grant an
opportunity of this nature to any person to oppose his friends’. Nathaniel Bayly was not one of North’s friends. The Treasury Lord denied Bayly a government posting in-name-only; this title would have enabled his deparÂture from the House of Commons. It was an ancient but highly useful workÂaround: a member of the House of Commons wishing to resign his seat would ask the Treasury Lord for appointment to the ‘Stewardship of the Three Chiltern Hundreds, or of the Manor of East Hundred’. In Members/ Speaker Hatsell went on to explain that the Minister had these offices at his disposal for the sole purpose of vacating the seats of such Members as wished to quit their present seat in Parliament’.28
The Treasury Lord’s private letter to Bayly was read to the House of Commons. To North’s great annoyance, his motives became the subject of parliamentary discourse.
Downing-street, March 9, 1775.
My lord;
It gives me great concern that I am not able to comply with Mr. Bay- ly’s request. The cases have certainly been very few, in which I have excused myself from granting vacated offices to members of parliament; but I have made it my constant rule to resist every application of that kind, where any gentleman entitled to my friendship would have been prejudiced by my compliance.
Mr. Mayor would, therefore, have just reason to complain of my conduct towards him, if I should make his case an exception to my general rule. I trust in your lordship’s equity, and in Mr. Bayly’s, that you will think me well justified in declining to obey your commands upon this occasion, which I assure you I shall do with great pleasure, whenever it is in my power. I am, &c.North.29
A bully may observe a ‘constant rule’ of exerting himself for his friends only, so that to be fair to all is to ‘make an exception to my general rule’. North could get away with this rank unfairness because he was backed by a complaisant majority. By elevating his personal choices as he did, North exhibited egoistic behaviour. This was not what Hatsell had in mind when he isolated ‘a rule to go by’ as a standard for rule-writers.