It cannot be said that this enactment had been specially present to the mind of George II. at any period of his reign. Murray had defended the treaties thinly against the charge of infringement by declaring that if this treaty violated the Act of Settlement all our defensive treaties had done the same, and had ended by the quaint and almost cynical remark that 'we could not enjoy the blessing of the present Royal Family without the inconveniences.'
Pitt can have had, and in fact had, but little difficulty in dealing with Murray. 'It is difficult to know where to pull the first thread from a piece so finely spun. Constructions ought never to condemn a great minister, but I think this crime of violating the Act of Settlement is within the letter. If the dangerous illegality of this is to be inquired into, it should be referred to a committee of the whole House, not to a Committee of Supply. Inquired into it must be, for I will not suffer an audacious minister to escape the judgment of Parliament. For if a Cabinet have taken upon them to conclude treaties of subsidy without the consent of Parliament, shall they not answer for their action?'
He derided Murray's precedents. For in 1717 or 1718 Ministers stated that there was danger to be apprehended from Sweden, and then asked for money. Would any lawyer plead that when his Britannic Majesty speaks of dominions in a treaty, he can mean any but his British dominions? We were not to be explained out of our liberties.
He then criticised the conduct of the Hessians in the last war; except on one occasion, when they were forced at Munich, they had not behaved well.
There Horace Walpole's notes branch off into a tangle of headings and exclamations which it is difficult and unnecessary to unravel. Pitt emphatically denied that the Crown had a power of concluding treaties of subsidy that led to war. He was sorry to hear it avowed that Hanover was concerned in all the treaties which had been cited. It was clearly a time to make a stand, now that we had arrived at that pitch of adulation that we were ready to declare openly that Hanover was at the back of all. He wished that the circumstances of this country would enable us to extend this protecting care to Hanover, but they would not. For no consideration would he have set his hand to these treaties.
Fox in reply defended Hume Campbell with spirit, and made ironical retorts to Pitt, some of them now obscure, none of them now pertinent to this narrative. Such speeches become trivial within forty-eight hours of their delivery. The bones of Pitt's preserved by Walpole scarcely claim any better right of survival. To tell the bare truth, what survives of these debates is incomparably tedious and confused. But it is evident that Pitt had amazed the House by disclosing a new weapon, the power of ridicule. 'His antagonists endeavoured to disarm him. But as fast as they deprive him of one weapon, he finds a better. I never suspected him of such an universal armoury; I knew he had a Gorgon's head, composed of bayonets and pistols, but little thought that he could tickle to death with a feather.'
Whatever the relative arguments may have been, the legions were faithful, and voted the treaties by 318 to 126.
1755.
On December 12 the general engagement on the treaties was renewed, when Barrington brought them forward in Committee, and Charles Townshend distinguished himself by a speech which, Pitt declared, displayed such abilities as had not appeared since that House was a House. He himself spoke at length, but poorly and languidly, not deigning to answer Hume Campbell, who once more appeared, with manner and matter both 'flat and mean.'
Pitt said, in the few sentences into which Walpole condenses his speech, that he did not pretend to eloquence, but owed all his credit to the indulgence of the House. He looked with respect on the King's prejudices, he added with the finesse of a courtier or the irony of a foe, and with contempt on those who encouraged them. Was everything to be called invective that had not the smoothness of a court compliment? Old Horace Walpole had said that if one spoke against Hanover it might cause a rebellion. That was the chatter of a boarding-school miss. Lord Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole had withstood Hanover. 'Sir Robert thought well of me, died in peace with me. He was a truly English minister, and kept a strict hand on the Closet; when he was removed the door was flung open (to dangerous advisers?). His friends and followers had then transferred themselves to that minister, Lord Granville, who transplanted (sic) that English minister. Even Sir Robert's own reverend brother has gone over to the Hanoverian party!'