ABSTRACT
“Popular” Oppositions occasionally meet trouble when the prejudices of the “people” or of a large part of them run, on a particular issue, sharply counter to the normal Opposition pose of special solicitude for the unfairly penalised or oppressed. Edmund Burke had distinguished himself by widening the suggestions made for liberating Irish trade from restrictions, and another Opposition leader had even advanced into the province of the Irish Parliament by calling for the end of the Irish Penal Laws. The unchallenged departure of the French Toulon squadron for American waters in mid-April was the principal theme of Opposition censure, and dark charges of incapacity and dark prophecies of woe in America and the West Indies abounded. On June 2nd 1777, Sir James Lowther should have attempted, from the “independent” angle, to substitute short adjournments for the usual prorogation, must only have increased Administration’s profound pleasure in obtaining what might prove a long freedom from Opposition’s activities.
