the minority that proxies should be called; but this scandalous
proposition was strenuously resisted; and the House, to its great
honour, resolved that on questions which were substantially
judicial, though they might be in form legislative, no peer who
was absent should be allowed to have a voice.

Many of the Whig Lords protested. Among them were Orford and
Wharton. It is to be lamented that Burnet, and the excellent
Hough, who was now Bishop of Oxford, should have been impelled by
party spirit to record their dissent from a decision which all
sensible and candid men will now pronounce to have been just and
salutary. Somers was present; but his name is not attached to the
protest which was subscribed by his brethren of the junto. We may
therefore not unreasonably infer that, on this as on many other
occasions, that wise and virtuous statesman disapproved of the
violence of his friends.

In rejecting the bill, the Lords had only exercised their
indisputable right. But they immediately proceeded to take a step
of which the legality was not equally clear. Rochester moved that
Duncombe should be set at liberty. The motion was carried; a
warrant for the discharge of the prisoner was sent to the Tower,
and was obeyed without hesitation by Lord Lucas, who was
Lieutenant of that fortress. As soon as this was known, the anger
of the Commons broke forth with violence. It was by their order
that the upstart Duncombe had been put in ward. He was their
prisoner; and it was monstrous insolence in the Peers to release
him. The Peers defended what they had done by arguments which
must be allowed to have been ingenious, if not satisfactory. It
was quite true that Duncombe had originally been committed to the