[1702/6/63]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
Thereafter her majesty's high commissioner made the following speech:
My lords and gentlemen,
The cheerfulness and unanimity of your proceedings in this session of parliament, in recognising her majesty's royal authority, securing the Protestant religion and presbyterian government and expediting the other acts that have been passed for her majesty's service and the good and safety of the kingdom, will, I am persuaded, be very acceptable to her majesty and satisfying to all her good subjects, and I do assure you is very obliging to me.
But I must regret that, when I was expecting we should have parted in the same happy manner, a proposal which I had some ground to think was laid aside was offered the other day to my surprise, as well as that of her majesty's other ministers, which occasioned some debate and difference in the house. My early engaging and firm adherence to the present establishment is so well known that none can doubt my readiness to enter into all measures for her majesty's service and securing our happy settlement according to the Claim of Right, and I am confident that you are all of that mind.
Since then we are all perfectly the same as to our dutiful and faithful adherence to her majesty and that the Claim of Right is our unalterable security, I judge it fit, for her majesty's service and your own interest, to prevent further contest and debate amongst persons I know to be so entirely well affected to her majesty, and for whom I have all imaginable honour, to dismiss this session of parliament.
We have had no particular acts or ratifications that do require an act salvo, and I do render you hearty thanks in her majesty's name for the loyalty you have testified by your public acts, and which I shall be careful to report to her majesty. And shall only recommend to you to let the country know the gracious assurances her majesty has been pleased to give us, and to dispose them to their duty and to comply with her majesty's royal intentions for their own welfare and happiness. And thus I do, in her majesty's name and by her authority, adjourn this parliament until Tuesday 18 August next, which my lord chancellor is to declare in the usual form.