Murray followed with covert but bitter innuendoes; defended Pelham's reduction of 2000 men, and had thought that that Minister had at least died in friendship with Pitt. This again brought Pitt on his feet to say that his friendship for Pelham had been as real as Murray's. Murray continued coolly. The sting of his waspish speech was in its tail. He wanted to clear up one particular point for his own information. He understood Pitt to say that he had refused the Secretaryship of State: pray, had he?
He had his enemy at the point of the sword. Pitt had certainly, as we have seen, with incredible rashness, at least insinuated this, if not declared it. He now had to rise and eat his words: 'he had only refused to come into measures'![309]
Walpole apologises for recording this debate, tedious as it is, at such a length. We must do the same, and his excuse is ours. Little was said on the question, and indeed there was scarcely a question to discuss. But the points of the speeches, so far as we can discern them, throw light on the speakers, more especially on the reckless, impetuous character of Pitt, even at this time.
CHAPTER XX.
The bombardment of the new Ministry continued without intermission, for Pitt was determined to wreak his vengeance on Newcastle and Fox. We may, moreover, presume that, seeing the critical condition of affairs and the incompetence of the Ministry to wrestle with them, he, conscious of great powers, was determined to become a directing Minister. He was now forty-seven, in the full ripeness of character and intellect. Neither he nor the country could afford to wait.
Dec. 2, 1755.
Ten days after the last debate, Lord Pulteney, the sole and short-lived hope of his famous father, introduced a Bill to give the prizes captured before a declaration of war to the seamen who had captured them, should war be afterwards declared. Pitt and his section intervened, and the engagement developed from a skirmish into a battle. The debate turned largely on pressing; that practice having brought great complaints from Scotland, where 'mobs are more dangerous and more mischievous than our mobs in England, not contenting themselves with clubs and bludgeons, but possessing themselves of as many firearms and other mortal weapons as they can possibly come at.' This perhaps was not wonderful, when it was admitted that a gang had surrounded a church, and pressed part of the congregation as it came out. But it soon soared from that point to the question of our relations with France.