In the same year [1766] an attorney named Brecknock, who had been sent to prison by the House of Lords for publishing a book called the Droit du Roi,* avenged himself upon Lord Camden* by laying an information before Judge Fielding, that the Chief Justice and three other judges wore cambric bands in court, contrary to the Act of Parliament.*
The offence of ‘owling’,* or transporting English wool or sheep to foreign countries, was treated with especial severity, as it was supposed to assist the rival woollen manufactures of the Continent, and the penalties against this offence rose to seven years’ transportation.* Penalties but little less severe were enacted against those who exported machines employed in the chief English industries, or who induced artificers to emigrate; and any skilled workman who carried his industry to a foreign market, if he did not return within six months, after being warned by the English ambassador, was declared an alien, forfeited all his goods, and became incapable of receiving any legacy or gift. General warrants,* without specifying names, were especially employed as a means of detaining such workmen when they were preparing to emigrate, and there were complaints that the condemnation of these warrants during the Wilkes case,* by facilitating the emigration, had a prejudicial influence on English industry.
Abridged
From ‘History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. 7’ (1892) by William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838-1903).
* It was published in 1764, and condemned to be burnt. “This pestilent treatise” wrote Horace Walpole “was a collection from old statutes and obsolete customs of the darkest and most arbitrary ages of whatever tended, or had tended, to show and uphold the prerogative of the Crown.” That is to say, that Brecknock was trying to place the King back above Parliament and the law, undoing a century of democratic evolution.
* Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas from 1761 to 1766, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 1766 to 1770. He supported the American colonists in their campaign to be given seats in Parliament as a condition of paying taxes in England.
* Richard Rigby (1722-1788) wrote about this to John, Duke of Bedford, on June 25th, 1766. “I am afraid their Lordships must pay the penalty of five pounds each,” lamented Rigby, “if the Justice allows the credibility of the witness, who will swear to their bands being made of cambric, at the distance he was at across the court of Common Pleas.” Rigby was an MP and a close friend of the Duke, whom Rigby had rescued from a murderous mob at Lichfield races in 1752. Timothy Brecknock was later found guilty of complicity in murder, and hanged.
* The word is thought to derive from the fact that the owl and the smuggler are both creatures of the night.
* At this time, transportation would be to the American colonies. After the American Revolutionary War of 1776-1783, Britain was compelled to find an alternative destination for transported criminals: see The First Fleet.
* General warrants were orders for arrest that did not name the person to be arrested. They were introduced in the Licensing Act of 1662, to allow the restored Monarchy to arrest opponents in the press for supposedly seditious views, and continued to be issued for various crimes after the Act was repealed in 1695. Lord Camden was among the judges who refused to issue them.
* In 1763, John Wilkes published an excoriating attack on the King’s Speech in his paper The North Briton (Vol. 2, No. 45), though he attacked the ministers who wrote it rather than King George III. Those who published the paper were rounded up with general warrants. Wilkes himself was charged with libel, and expelled from Parliament. It was to be a familiar pattern in Wilkes’s turbulent career. He was repeatedly elected MP for Middlesex, and repeatedly barred from taking up his seat; in 1767 he was sentenced in two years in gaol; he was released in 1770, and served as Lord Mayor of London in 1774.
Précis
The regulations on cotton were so severe that they were occasionally used as ‘lawfare’ by the spiteful. Smuggling wool could lead to transportation. Exporting machinery or helping skilled workers to emigrate was punished almost as harshly. The authorities had carte blanche to arrest those deemed a flight risk, and spied on English merchants abroad to make sure they came back. (60 / 60 words)
The regulations on cotton were so severe that they were occasionally used as ‘lawfare’ by the spiteful. Smuggling wool could lead to transportation. Exporting machinery or helping skilled workers to emigrate was punished almost as harshly. The authorities had carte blanche to arrest those deemed a flight risk, and spied on English merchants abroad to make sure they came back.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, besides, if, just, may, not, unless, who.
Archive
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Assist. Suppose. Wool.
2 Manufacture. Prepare. Warrant.
3 Enact. Much. Seventeenth.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
High Tiles Find in Think and Speak
Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?
Your Words ()
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