Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/398

Almost the first act of the lords justices was to give a broad hint to Bolingbroke by appointing Addison their secretary and directing the postmaster-general to forward to him all letters addressed to the secretary of state. This not sufficing, they (3 Aug.) dismissed Bolingbroke from his office by the summary process of taking the seal from him, turning him out, and locking the doors. On 21 Sept. Cowper was reappointed lord chancellor of Great Britain at St. James's, taking the oath the next day, and on 23 Oct. he went in state to Westminster Hall and again took the oath there. While still lord justice he had composed for the benefit of the new king a brief political tract which he entitled ‘An impartial History of Parties,’ and of which a French translation by Lady Cowper was presented to the Hanoverian minister, Count Bernstorff (24 Oct. 1714), and by him laid before the king. In this memoir he traces the history of the whig and tory parties from their origin to the date of writing, defines their respective principles as dispassionately as could reasonably be expected, and with great clearness and condensation describes the existing posture of affairs and suggests the propriety of avoiding coalition cabinets while admitting the opposition to a fair share in the subordinate places. The history was first printed by Lord Campbell as an appendix to his life of Cowper in the fourth volume of his ‘Lives of the Chancellors.’ Trevor, the lord chief justice of the king's bench, one of the twelve peers created in 1712, was, by Cowper's advice, removed from his office, being succeeded by Sir Peter King. Certain minor changes in the constitution of the judicial bench were also made. On 21 March 1715 he read the king's speech, and on the following day he took part in the debate raised by Trevor and Bolingbroke on the lords' address. Exception being taken to an expression of confidence that the king would ‘recover the reputation of this kingdom in foreign parts,’ Cowper replied by drawing a distinction between the queen and her ministry, and the address was carried by sixty-six to thirty-three. He spoke in the debate on the articles of impeachment exhibited against the Earl of Oxford on 9 July 1715, arguing against Trevor that they were sufficient to ground a charge of high treason. On the outbreak of the rebellion of 1715 Cowper exerted himself to infuse some of his own spirit into the king and his colleagues on the bench. Probably it was at his suggestion that the Riot Act, which had not been in force since the reign of Elizabeth, was in that year re-enacted, strengthened, and made perpetual. Cowper presided as high-steward at the trial of Lord Winton, the only one of the rebel lords who did not plead guilty, in March 1716. Winton's complicity in the rebellion was clearly proved, but he made persistent efforts to obtain an adjournment on the alleged ground that he had not had time to bring up his most important witnesses, deprecating with some wit being subjected to ‘Cowper law as we used to say in our country, hang a man first and then judge him,’ a play upon the common Scotch expression ‘Cupar law’ and the name of the lord chancellor. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. In the debate on the Septennial Bill (10 April) Cowper spoke at length, reviewing the history of the Triennial Act, and giving an unqualified support to the measure. Cowper made what appears to have been a powerful speech in favour of the Mutiny Bill, which proposed to establish a standing army of sixteen thousand men, and was violently opposed by Oxford in February 1718. On 18 March he was created Viscount Fordwiche and Earl Cowper in the peerage of Great Britain. On 15 April he resigned office, the ostensible reason being failing health. The true cause is probably to be sought either in intrigues in the royal household or in the jealousy of other members of the cabinet, combined with the opposition which he had offered in the preceding January to a projected bill for providing the king with an annuity of 100,000l., with an absolute discretion to assign such portion thereof as he might think proper to the maintenance of the Prince of Wales. Cowper was a small patron of literature. He had been the correspondent and host of the poet, John Hughes, and in November 1717 appointed him secretary to the commission for appointing justices of the peace, and on his resignation he wrote to his successor, Lord Parker, begging him to continue Hughes in that office, a request with which Parker complied. This elicited a brief ode in honour of Cowper from the grateful poet (Works, ii. ode xx.). Cowper voted with the tories in the successful opposition which they offered to the repeal of the ‘act for preserving the protestant religion’ (10 Anne c. 6, which imposed disabilities on papists), and the more obnoxious clauses of the Test and Corporation Acts, proposed by Lord Stanhope in December 1718. He opposed the Peerage Bill, which proposed to fix a numerical limit to the house of peers, on its introduction in February 1719. The bill was dropped owing to the excitement which it created in the country, but was reintroduced in November, when Cowper again opposed it. Having passed the House of Lords with celerity, it was thrown out by the commons. Cowper also opposed the bill for enabling the South Sea Company to increase their capital.