the other hand, besides the arguments founded on the admitted greatness
of the evil to be remedied, it was shown that the institution of
committees, such as the bill proposed the appointment of, was sanctioned
by numerous precedents; and though the committees--sometimes consisting
of as many as two hundred members--were by far too large to make it
probable that all would bestow a careful attention on the whole case,
there was "nothing in the journals of the House to show that their
decisions were not regarded as final, or as requiring no subsequent
confirmation from the whole House." Generally speaking, Lord North could
trust the steadiness of his majority; but, to his great surprise, on
this occasion he found himself deserted by the country gentlemen, who
voted in a body for the bill, although their spokesman, Sir W. Bagot,
had been in no slight degree offended by some remarks of Burke, who,
with a strange imprudence, had claimed a monopoly of the title of
"friends of the constitution" for himself and his party, and had sneered
at the country gentlemen, as "statesmen of a very different description,
though, by a late description given of them, a Tory was now the best
species of Whig." And the union of the two bodies proved irresistible;
the bill was carried by a majority of sixty-two, and the government did
not venture to carry on their resistance to it in the House of Lords,
any interference by which would, indeed, have been resented by the
Commons, as a violation of their privileges.

At first the duration of the bill was limited to seven years; but in
1774 it was made perpetual by a still larger majority, the experience of
its working having converted many who had at first opposed it, but who
now bore willing testimony to its efficacy. Unhappily, though the House
could make the bill perpetual, at least till formally repealed, it could
not invest its good effects with equal durability. After a time, the
same complaints were advanced against the decision of election