The effect of Sacheverell's clause, therefore, was to make some thousands of the most opulent and highly considered men in the kingdom incapable, during seven years, of bearing any part in the government of the places in which they resided, and to secure to the Whig party, during seven years, an overwhelming influence in borough elections.
The minority exclaimed against the gross injustice of passing, rapidly and by surprise, at a season when London was empty, a law of the highest importance, a law which retrospectively inflicted a severe penalty on many hundreds of respectable gentlemen, a law which would call forth the strongest passions in every town from Berwick to St.Ives, a law which must have a serious effect on the composition of the House itself.
Common decency required at least an adjournment.

An adjournment was moved: but the motion was rejected by a hundred and twenty-seven votes to eighty-nine.

The question was then put that Sacheverell's clause should stand part of the bill, and was carried by a hundred and thirty-three to sixty-eight.

Sir Robert Howard immediately moved that every person who, being under Sacheverell's clause disqualified for municipal office, should presume to take any such office, should forfeit five hundred pounds, and should be for life incapable of holding any public employment whatever.

The Tories did not venture to divide, [551] The rules of the House put it in the power of a minority to obstruct the progress of a bill; and this was assuredly one of the very rare occasions on which that power would have been with great propriety exerted.