Though this was the last debate in that Parliament, another had intervened of more weight, but I chose not to intermingle the subjects.
On the 17th of February Sir George Saville moved to renew a bill drawn by Lord Chief Justice Coke, and passed in the reign of James the First for quieting the minds of those who possessed Crown lands, by preventing the Crown from suing for the recovery of them after they had been enjoyed by private persons for sixty years. Sir George made the proposal in very general terms, and with great decency, though in a style too metaphoric. The intention was evidently suggested by the recent case of the Duke of Portland, but he affected not to allude to it, nor to pass any censure on that act. The case they knew would present itself to every man, and the less animosity they discovered the more easily they hoped the bill would find its way through the House and be at once a silent reproach to and a real check upon the Crown. Sir Anthony Abdy seconded the motion. Lord North objected on the impropriety of the time, the very end of a parliament; and he urged that such bills should only arise out of grievances: he called to know if any such existed. Lord Clare said, that the Crown having actually in contemplation to give up or sell to the public many forests and wastes for cultivation and increase of provisions, such a bill would impede that scheme. Charles Yorke, in a very long deduction, argued against vexatious revisals. Himself, when Attorney-General, he said, had been consulted by persons who had obtained such grants and had condemned them. So had Lord Mansfield, whose abilities and merits were only exceeded by slander. He then stated the case of the Duke of Portland, which, he said, had been treated with incaution and precipitation; and that the Duke ought to have had the preference given to him, as being in possession, over Sir James Lowther. Norton replied that the case had been four months in agitation; that the preference could not be given to the Duke, who contested the right of possession with the Crown, and did not sue for it. That though his Grace’s grant dated sixty-three years before the dispute, the encroachment was not of equal antiquity, the lands in question having appertained to the Queen Dowager, who had granted them on lease, which had not expired till the year 1724, when the Dukes of Portland had appropriated them to themselves. He challenged Yorke to meet him in any court in England, and fight out that cause. Yorke evaded the challenge; though Norton and Rigby again called on him to be explicit. Much complaint was made of the surveyor’s refusal of the sight of necessary papers. Sir William Meredith spoke, with more applause than he had ever done, in behalf of the bill. Grenville trimmed with all his art, not to offend Lord Bute and Sir James Lowther. Lord Barrington, in order to get rid of the bill at that time, approved of passing it in another Parliament, and said he should be desirous of taking away the _nullum tempus_[77] from the clergy likewise. Lord John Cavendish, throwing out insinuations against the Duchy Court of Lancaster for issuing vexatious notices, Stanley said he had been desired by Lord Strange to defy in his name any accuser. Lord North, to avoid putting a negative on so popular a bill, moved for the orders of the day, and at eleven at night his motion was carried by 134 to 114, many courtiers voting in the minority as favourers of the bill.