And this is what happened.
No sooner was the House constituted, with about 320 members present out of the total 460, than it proposed for its first business what was called "The Matter of the Government"; by which was meant a review of that document of forty-two Articles, called the _Government of the Commonwealth_, which was the constitutional basis of the Protectorate.

On Thursday, Sept.

7, accordingly, they addressed themselves to the vital question of the whole document as propounded in the first of the Articles.

"Whether the House shall approve that the Government shall be in one Single Person and a Parliament": such was the debate that day in Grand Committee, after a division on the previous question whether they should go into Committee.

On this previous question 136 had voted _No_, with Sir Charles Wolseley and Mr.Strickland (two of the Council of State) for their tellers, but 141 had voted _Yea_, with Bradshaw and Colonel Birch for their tellers.