A degeneracy there,
Which his conduct exhibits at home."
[425] In 1778 appeared An Examination of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of Mr. Gibbon's History, etc., by Henry Edward Davis, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford. The author charged Gibbon with inaccuracy and plagiarism. He replied early in 1779 with his Vindication of some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Walpole calls it "the quintessence of argument, wit, temper, spirit, and consequently of victory."
[426] The court-martial held at Portsmouth entirely acquitted Admiral Keppel on February 11. The news reached London that night. It was treated as a triumph for the Opposition. Ladies appeared at the opera in caps à la Keppel, and blue cockades bearing the Admiral's name were worn. His "Head" became a favourite alehouse sign. Houses were illuminated; guns discharged; bells rung; the windows of the houses of Sir H. Palliser, Lord North, Lord G. Germain, and Lord Sandwich were broken. Sir H. Palliser resigned his seat for Scarborough as well as all his employments, and asked for a court-martial, which acquitted him from any charge of misconduct. He underwent the operation to which Gibbon alludes. "Here are the exact, and all the words which the King said to him, the first time he was at Court afterwards—'Sir Hugh, how does your leg do?'" (Warner to Selwyn, May, 1779).
[427] The Opposition used every effort to make political capital out of the dispute between Keppel and Palliser. Motions were proposed by them on December 11, 1778, for the trial of Sir Hugh Palliser; on February 19, 1779, for the dismissal of Sir H. Palliser from the Navy; March 3, for a censure on the Admiralty for sending out Admiral Keppel with too small a force; on April 19, for the removal of the Earl of Sandwich from the Admiralty.
[428] The Sussex Militia were ordered to Exeter.
[429] Admiral Pigot, M.P. for Bridgnorth, brother of Lord Pigot. See Letter 311.
[430] Mr. Stratton was a member of the Madras Council, by which Lord Pigot was arrested.
[431] The House resolved on an address to the Crown for the prosecution of Stratton and other members of the Council. The case was tried in the Court of King's Bench, before Lord Mansfield, Wedderburn being for the prosecution and Dunning for the defence. The jury convicted (December 20, 21), and on February 10, 1780, Messrs. Stratton, Brooke, Floyer, and Mackay were fined £1000 apiece.
[432] In the daily papers of May 15, 1779, it was announced that "fourteen ships of the line" had sailed from Brest to attack Admiral Arbuthnot, who lay with a much smaller force at Torbay. Orders were sent to Portsmouth to fit out every available ship for his support.