The King's Speech contained the following paragraph, which strikes the reader as something less than candid:—
'With a sincere desire to preserve my people from the calamities of war, as well as to prevent, in the midst of these troubles, a general war from being lighted up in Europe, I have always been ready to accept reasonable and honourable terms of accommodation; but none such have hitherto been proposed on the part of France. I have also confined my views and operations to hinder France from making new encroachments, or supporting those already made; to exert our right to a satisfaction for hostilities committed in a time of profound peace: and to disappoint such designs as, from various appearances and preparations, there is reason to think, have been formed against my kingdoms and dominions.'
Members met to hear the Royal Speech in the electric condition which bodes a crisis. There had been a long political truce; but this was evidently about to come to an end. Ministers had to bear the burden of the Russian and Hessian treaties, which the Speech from the Throne commended to the attention of Parliament. War with France was impending; indeed, a French invasion was daily expected. There was a new leader, and, consequently, a new opposition. Pitt was evidently prepared to launch thunderbolts at the Administration. Leicester House was said to be behind him. There was an animating sense of conflict in the air.
Once more the parliamentary history fails us, and disdains to record one of the most memorable passages in its annals; so once more we are thrown on the authority and the sketches of Walpole; sometimes brilliant, but more often confused and defective.
The debate in the Commons lasted till near five in the morning, an hour then almost unprecedented.
It was distinguished by that famous effort which gave Single-speech Hamilton his nickname. Walpole, in recording and eulogising it, says: 'You will ask, what could be beyond this? Nothing but what was beyond what ever was, and that was Pitt.' Pitt, indeed, after sitting through the eleven hours of the debate, rose and delivered, with inimitable spirit and all the dramatic force that the greatest actor of his age could impart, a speech of an hour and a half, which contains his most famous figure, and which perhaps he never exceeded.
'His eloquence,' says Walpole, 'like a torrent long obstructed, burst forth with more commanding impetuosity.' For ten years he had been muzzled, and now he revelled in his freedom. 'He spoke at past one (in the morning) for an hour and thirty-five minutes. There was more humour, wit, vivacity, fine language, more boldness,—in short, more astonishing perfections, than even you who are used to him can conceive.'
He 'surpassed himself, and then I need not tell you that he surpassed Cicero and Demosthenes. What a figure would they with their formal laboured cabinet orations make vis-a-vis his manly vivacity and dashing eloquence at one o'clock in the morning, after sitting in that heat for eleven hours!'
This enthusiasm from the least enthusiastic of men adds to our regrets that so faint a memory of this dazzling speech remains. And yet perhaps we were wise to be grateful that we have only the description. It seems not impossible that the words taken down verbatim by some old parliamentary hand in the reporters' gallery would seem cold or tawdry without the soul and grace which animated them, and which haunted Horace Walpole for long years afterwards. Some of the allusions which have been noted down seem forced, some of the bursts incoherent, some of the irony obscure. But those who heard it palpitated with emotion, they saw the divine fire of the orator, while posterity can only grope among the cold ashes for the burning fragments poured forth in the wrath of the eruption.