The next step of the Court was weak, and betrayed their timidity. Not satisfied with the interposition of the House of Commons in favour of the condemned chairmen, against which no objection could lie, they had recourse to an expedient, which, however humane, was liable to censure from the novelty, and did occasion a controversy in print. It appeared, that by the negligence of Macquirk’s counsel, no surgeons had been called before the Bench at his trial, to depose whether Clarke had died of his wounds or not. Had he had no counsel, the judges themselves would have ordered surgeons to give their opinion on Clarke’s death. On representation of this neglect to the King, the Chancellor advised his Majesty to refer the consideration to a court of examiners, or surgeons. Bromfield, a surgeon and an apothecary, made a report, that in their opinions, Clarke had not died of his wounds, but from a bad habit of blood, inflamed by strong liquors, after the election. On this Balf was entirely pardoned, Macquirk respited till other favourable circumstances could be examined[203]--and next month he was pardoned too. The grand jury in the meantime found a bill against Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, Tatum, an agent of the Duke of Northumberland, and Broughter, a boxer and yeoman of the guard, for hiring the mob that committed the riot and murder at Brentford--but it came to nothing.
On the 21st a meeting was held at the London Tavern, of the principal gentlemen and merchants of Middlesex in the interest of Wilkes, when three thousand three hundred and forty pounds were subscribed to support him and his cause; and a committee was appointed to promote the same throughout the Kingdom. The Assembly then formed themselves into a society which they denominated the Supporters of the Bill of Rights. The city of Bath also sent instructions to its members to the same tenor with those of the city of London.
On the 24th was read in the committee of the House of Commons, Sir George Saville’s quieting Bill, called the Nullum Tempus, of which an account has been given before. When it had been rejected the last year, there had been a kind of promise that it should be suffered to pass another time; yet the Ministers, to save as much as possible of prerogative, proposed that the prescription should be granted only for the last sixty years, instead of a current and constant prescription of sixty years against the Crown, as there is between subject and subject. This subterfuge of the Court was, however, rejected by 205 against 124--a wonderful event after the late triumphs of the Administration! Many causes contributed; honesty probably operated on some, and indignation at the mean evasion attempted. Others who possessed Crown lands preferred the security of their property to present Court favour. The Bedford faction, for some political view, absented themselves, though probably not expecting the Duke of Grafton[204] would receive so total a defeat in a measure to which his own violence had given occasion. In short, that Parliament had some virtues, or some vices, which now and then prevented its being so universally servile as the preceding.[205]