strike out the clause which granted bounties. But when the bill thus
amended came back to the Commons, even those who disliked the principle
of bounties resented this act of the Lords in meddling with that
question, which they regarded as a violation of their peculiar and most
cherished privilege, the exclusive right of dealing with questions of
taxation. Governor Pownall, who had charge of the bill, declared that
the Lords had forgotten their duty when they interfered in raising money
by the insertion of a clause that "no bounty should be paid upon
exported corn." And on this ground he moved the rejection of the
bill.[31] In the last chapter of this volume, a more fitting occasion
for examining the rights and usages of the House of Lords with respect
to money-bills will be furnished by a series of resolutions on the
subject, moved by the Prime-minister of the day. It is sufficient here
to say that the power of rejection is manifestly so different from that
of originating grants--which is admitted to belong exclusively to the
Commons--and that there were so many precedents for the Lords having
exerted this power of rejection in the course of the preceding century,
that they probably never conceived that in so doing now they were
committing any encroachment on the constitutional rights and privileges
of the Lower House. But on this occasion the ill-feeling previously
existing between the two Houses may be thought to have predisposed the
Commons to seek opportunity for a quarrel. And there never was a case in
which both parties in the House were more unanimous. Governor Pownall
called the rejection of the clause by the Lords "a flagrant encroachment
upon the privileges of the House," and affirmed that the Lords had
"forgotten their duty." Burke termed it "a proof that the Lords did not
understand the principles of the constitution, an invasion of a known
and avowed right inherent in the House as the representatives of the
people," and expressed a hope that "they were not yet so infamous and
abandoned as to relinquish this essential right," or to submit to "the