^{page 1 note 1} This introduction was written after March 1729. See Introduction, above, and pp. 91–92, below.

^{page 1 note 2} See 13 March 1729.

^{page 2 note 1} See Sandys' diary, Appendix A, for other entries of this session.

^{page 2 note 2} Interpellation by Knatchbull.

^{page 3 note 1} 15 October resumed.

^{page 3 note 2} See Finch MSS, Appendix B.

^{page 4 note 1} Ross, who served on the Secret Committee investigating the South Sea Bubble, had reported an attempt by Thomas Vernon, M.P., to bribe him to favour Vernon's father-in-law, John Aislabie, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer. Vernon had in consequence been expelled from the House of Commons.

^{page 5 note 1} See Finch MSS, Appendix B.

^{page 5 note 2} MS. has 236 v. 165.

^{page 5 note 3} MS. has this under 29 Oct. But cf. Journals and Chandler.

^{page 7 note 1} MS. omits date.

^{page 7 note 2} Formerly M.P. for Coventry.

^{page 8 note 1} MS. omits date.

^{page 8 note 2} See figures in Sandys, Appendix A.

^{page 8 note 3} See figures in Sandys, Appendix A.

^{page 9 note 1} Should have been inserted by Knatchbull earlier.

^{page 10 note 1} Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkyns were executed in 1696 for treason despite an offer by the Commons to commute their sentences if they named their fellow conspirators.

^{page 12 note 1} See figures in Sandys, Appendix A.

^{page 14 note 1} MS. has 158 v. 90.

^{page 15 note 1} MS. has 282 v. 152.

^{page 16 note 1} Torbuck : The Commons, having sat very late, adjourned themselves to Wednesday, the 13th of March.

^{page 16 note 2} MS. has 156 v. 82.

^{page 19 note 1} MS. has 261 v. 122.

^{page 19 note 2} Nicholas Paxton, Solicitor to the Treasury.

^{page 20 note 1} Political State has 224 v. 112.

^{page 21 note 1} Mentioned extensively in the Report as a plotter who had fled overseas.

^{page 23 note 1} Political State, 1723, xxv, p. 524: They who were against the Bill, taking advantage of the absence of several who were for it (being then in the Lords' House to hear the Bishop of Rochester speak in his defence), resolved to clog it, by inserting in it a clause for including both the Papists and Nonjurers in Scotland in the tax intended to be laid on Papists and Nonjurers in England, which they carried by a majority of five voices only.

^{page 24 note 1} MS. has 178 v. 110.

^{page 26 note 1} Philip V of Spain abdicated in favour of his son Louis on 4 January 1724; Louis died on 31 August and Philip resumed the Crown. See debate on 23 November 1724.

^{page 26 note 2} MS. omits date.

^{page 28 note 1} MS. has 215 v. 75.

^{page 28 note 2} This was the bill to compel Papists and Nonjurors to register their names and estates.

^{page 30 note 1} 181 v. 102 (Journals).

^{page 31 note 1} Once a charter had been forfeited for such a breach of its provisions a new charter had to be obtained, and this afforded an opportunity for packing the corporation.

^{page 32 note 1} MS. omits date.

^{page 32 note 2} MS. has Nov. 3, as has also Political State.

^{page 33 note 1} MS. is wrong here; the bill for the divorce was already through the Lords and was ordered for 2nd reading in the Commons on this date.

^{page 35 note 1} 116 v. 49. For this bill and the circumstances of its origin, see Henderson, A. J., The City of London and the National Government, 1721–42 (Durham, N.C., 1945Google Scholar).

^{page 36 note 1} The Duke of Montagu had married the Dowager Duchess of Albermarle, so that she was known under both titles.

^{page 36 note 2} I.e. the Bank of England.

^{page 41 note 1} MS. has 138 v. 42.

^{page 42 note 1} 146 v. 74 (Journals).

^{page 42 note 2} In fact Yorke was already appointed as Attorney-General.

^{page 45 note 1} The Royal Exchange Assurance and the London Assurance paid £300,000 in June 1720 towards the Civil List arrears. See Scott, W. R., The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint Stock Companies to 1720 (Cambridge, 1911), iii, pp. 401 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 46 note 1} MS. has 211 v. 98.

^{page 49 note 1} MS. omits date.

^{page 51 note 1} A Siquis was a public intimation that legal action was in progress and invited further information.

^{page 53 note 1} On 4 March.

^{page 54 note 1} No action was taken beyond this second reading.

^{page 54 note 1} See Ashford, L. J., The History of the Borough of High Wycombe from its Origins to 1880 London, 1960), pp. 173–76Google Scholar.

^{page 55 note 1} Richard Hampden, grandson of the 17th-century Parliamentary leader, had used public funds for speculation during the period of the South Sea Bubble, and had lost heavily.

^{page 57 note 1} Historical Register (1726), p. 124: The House having sat very close, without admitting any strangers, we cannot yet present our Readers with all the particulars of that remarkable Debate.

^{page 58 note 1} MS. has 271 v. 89.

^{page 59 note 1} [Benjamin Hoadly], An Enquiry into the Reasons of the Conduct of Great Britain with Relation to the Present State of Affairs in Europe (1727).

^{page 59 note 2} Scots peers who had already succeeded to their Scottish titles could not be given a British title to enable them to sit in the House of Lords in their own right. To get round this it was now proposed to confer British peerages on their heirs; no one could prevent these peers sitting in the House of Lords even if they had subsequently inherited Scottish titles. This procedure was followed till the reversal of the earlier resolutions of the Hoxise of Lords in 1782.

^{page 61 note 1} The Marquis de Puezobueno was the Spanish ambassador in London.

^{page 63 note 1} MS. has 197 v. 99.

^{page 63 note 2} MS. has 191 v. 89.

^{page 65 note 1} MS. omits date.

^{page 66 note 1} An interpellation by Knatchbull.

^{page 67 note 1} The ‘Occasional Writer’, written by Henry St John, formerly Viscount Bolingbroke, appeared in 1727; four numbers of it were published. The ‘Answer’ was an attack on it.

^{page 68 note 1} Almost certainly the debate mentioned in the Journals, which gives the figures 229 v. 109.

^{page 69 note 1} Knatchbull probably attended this debate in the Lords; there was no Commons' business that day.

^{page 70 note 1} See also 29 March 1723, p. 18.

^{page 71 note 1} Political State gives 209 v. 82.

^{page 72 note 1} Knatchbull appeared on 15 June and having been sworn in himself was appointed one of the deputies to the Lord Steward to swear in others (Journals).

^{page 73 note 1} See Introduction for the circumstances.

^{page 73 note 2} On 4 March 1728.

^{page 74 note 1} In fact there was a division on the motion which was lost 199 v. 95 (Journals).

^{page 74 note 2} Knatchbull is again mistaken. The motion was carried without a division. The figures given by Knatchbull are so close to those given in the preceding foot-note that it is clear he confused the two in his notes.

^{page 76 note 1} Presented 2 April. See also 16 February 1727.

^{page 79 note 1} For two further accounts of this debate by John Perceval, 1st Earl of Egmont, see Appendix C.

^{page 80 note 1} Admiral Hosier (1673–1727) was sent to the West Indies in 1726 to prevent the Spanish fleet from sailing. He unsuccessfully besieged Portobello, returned to Jamaica, and died there.

^{page 81 note 1} This part of the debate is reported in Chandler.

^{page 81 note 2} MS. has 249 v. 86.

^{page 82 note 1} The indulto was a tax paid to the King of Spain on all imported goods. The London Gazette (3276) announced that an indulto of 4 per cent had been laid by the Spanish King on all silver etc. in the flota.

^{page 82 note 2} The First Convention of the Pardo, January 1729.

^{page 83 note 1} For the Gaol committee see the Egmont Diary, passim, and Ettinger, A. A., James Edward Oglethorpe (Oxford, 1936Google Scholar).

^{page 93 note 1} The figures were 150 v. 119.

^{page 95 note 1} MS. has 186 v. 106.

^{page 96 note 1} For further details of this debate and others, see the Parliamentary notes of Thomas Tower, M.P., in Appendix D.

^{page 97 note 1} Historical Register, 1730, vol. lix, p. 202Google Scholar : ‘The compiler of this did intend to have given in this Register an Historical Account of the Proceedings of the last Session of Parliament, together with the Debates and most remarkable Speeches in both Houses, having provided himself with the most necessary Materials for that Purpose; but was prevented by an unavoidable Accident, which has obliged himself to refer it to another opportunity.’

Ibid., p. 300: ‘Instead of giving the Reader as usual the order of the Proceedings of the House of Commons from day to day, which may possibly produce some inconvenience to us, we shall here lay before him an Account of the laws that have been passed this Session’. In fact the House had been asserting its privileges against all reporting, and this session is almost completely unreported in the periodical publications.

^{page 98 note 1} Marshall Könisegg had been the Emperor's envoy to Madrid following the Treaty of Vienna.

^{page 99 note 1} Probably a reference to the paper presented 15 February 1726.

^{page 100 note 1} See Egmont Diary, i, p. 7.

^{page 100 note 2} See Tower's notes, Appendix D.

^{page 100 note 3} See Tower's notes, Appendix D.

^{page 101 note 1} MS. has 148 v. 62.

^{page 101 note 2} See Tower's notes, Appendix D.

^{page 102 note 1} The anniversary of the execution of Charles I.

^{page 102 note 2} See Tower's notes, Appendix D.

^{page 104 note 1} See also Mantoux, Paul, Notes sur les Comptes-Rendus des Seances du Parlement Anglais (Paris, 1906), pp. 51–52Google Scholar, and 51 n.

^{page 105 note 1} Mantoux, op. cit., p. 51n: ‘la séance commença à, 10 heures du matin et dura jusqu'à, près de 4 heures après minuit.’

^{page 106 note 1} MS. has 183 v. 144.

^{page 107 note 1} This is the only debate reported this session by either the Historical Register (pp. 225–36) or Political State (xxxix, pp. 539–51).

^{page 108 note 1} MS. has £320,000.

^{page 113 note 1} See Hughes, Edward, Studies in Administration and Finance (Manchester, 1934), pp. 291–94Google Scholar.