is plain enough from the journals that the House has assumed the power
of incapacitation. But as such authority is highly dangerous and
unnecessary for any good purpose, and as, according to all legal rules,
so extraordinary a power could not be supported except by a sort of
prescription that cannot be shown, the final resolution of the House of
Commons, which condemned the votes passed in times of great excitement,
appears far more consonant to first principles."--_Constitutional
History_, iii., 357.]

[Footnote 13: Adolphus, "History of England," i., 484.]

[Footnote 14: An idea of the license which the newspapers complained of
had permitted themselves at this time may be derived from the manner in
which one of them had introduced a speech of Mr. Jeremiah Dyson, M.P.
for Weymouth, and a Commissioner of the Treasury: "Jeremiah Weymouth,
the d----n of the kingdom, spoke as follows." And it may seem that the
Opposition (for the affair was made a party question) can hardly be
acquitted of a discreditable indifference to the dignity of the House in
supporting a resolution of Colonel Barré, that "Jeremiah Weymouth, the
d----n of this kingdom, is not a member of this House." On which the
previous question was moved by the ministers, and carried by 120 to
38.--_Parliamentary History_, xvii., 78. And an instance of rather the
opposite kind, of the guarded way in which the most respectable
publications were as yet accustomed to relate the transactions of
Parliament, may be gathered from the account of the proceedings in the
case of Wilkes, given in the "Annual Register" for 1770--drawn up,
probably, by Burke himself--in which Lord Camden is only mentioned as "a
great law lord;" Lord Chatham as "Lord C----m;" Lord Rockingham as "a
noble Marquis who lately presided at the head of public affairs;" the
King as "the K----;" Parliament as "P.;" and the House of Commons as the