The claims of Ireland seeming, for the moment, to be happily satisfied, Ministers now proceeded to carry out those reforms for which they had loudly called during the many years that they had been in opposition. They adopted and introduced the Bills of Sir Philip Clerke and Mr. Carew for excluding contractors from the House of Commons, and revenue officers from voting at elections. The Bill against the contractors passed the Commons with little difficulty; but the Ministers immediately felt the mischief of allowing Lord Thurlow to retain his place of Chancellor. He opposed the measure vehemently, and divided the House upon it. Lord Mansfield gave it his cordial resistance, and the new Lord Ashburton, though created by the present Administration, tacked to it a clause exempting all gentlemen who merely contracted for the produce of their estates. The clause, however, was lopped away again on the return of the Bill to the Commons, and the Act passed without it. The Bill for disqualifying revenue officers was opposed with equal pertinacity by Thurlow and Mansfield; though Lord Rockingham stated that the elections in seventy boroughs depended chiefly on revenue officers, and that nearly twelve thousand of such officers created by the late Ministry had votes in other places. The Bill passed, after exempting all officers who held their posts for life, and therefore were charitably supposed to be beyond the reach of undue influence, as if no such thing as promotion had its effect.But, in spite of the importance of these measures, there was one question which engrossed the attention of both parliament and the public far more than any other. This was the demand by Burke for the impeachment of Warren Hastings, late Governor-General of Bengal, for high crimes and misdemeanours there alleged to have been by him committed. It therefore becomes necessary at this point to resume our narrative of Indian affairs from the year 1760, which our connected view of the events of the American war necessarily suspended.
FORE:The mesquites were directly ahead. A horseman came out from behind them and placed himself across the road. There was a sheen of moonlight on a revolver barrel and a shouted "Halt there!"
CHAPTER XXXIV THE EMERALDS ARE FOUNDMr. Whiteside nodded.Lets make whoever knows anythingerlets make them work it out for us, suggested Dick. Lets bait a trap with the life preserverleave it where it is, get Mr. Everdail to call everybody together, and well tell what we found and what we think is in itand see what we see.Their speed sent them through the air so fast that the wind was a gale there on the unprotected top fabric of the fuselage.Then his attention was fixed and his mind became mystified.Trooping around to the rear, at one corner, Sandy bade them bend down and examine the bolted metal sheaths, large plates of sheet iron, that composed the walls of the edifice.