[443] The ladies, returning from Spa, embarked at Ostend on the Fly sloop for Calais. On the voyage the sloop was attacked (September 17) by two French cutters. After a long engagement the French were beaten off.
[444] In 1779 a Mémoire Justificatif was put forth both at Paris and Madrid to explain the zeal of two despotic monarchies for the new-born republic of the United States. Gibbon was requested by the Lord Chancellor and Lord Weymouth, then Secretary of State, to vindicate, against the French manifesto, the justice of the British arms. His Mémoire, written in French, was approved by the Cabinet, and delivered as a State Paper to the courts of Europe. The Mémoire is published in English in the Annual Register for 1779 (pp. 397-412), preceded by translations of the Spanish and French manifestoes. Beaumarchais wrote a reply to the Mémoire, which he attributes to Lord Stormont (Observations sur le Mémoire Justificatif de la cour de Londres. Œuvres de Beaumarchais. Edition 1809, vol. v. pp. 1-50).
[445] Parliament met November 25, 1779.
[446] On December 1, Lord Shelburne in the Lords, and, on December 6, Lord Ossory in the Commons, moved a vote of censure on the Government for their conduct in Ireland. The Volunteer movement spread rapidly; a French invasion was dreaded; the cry for "free trade" rose higher and higher; a non-importation agreement was entered into; and the relief of Dissenters from the sacramental test was demanded. In consequence of this pressure, Lord North (December 13, 1779) proposed and carried a series of resolutions granting free export trade to Ireland.
[447] "The character of my friend (Mr. Holroyd)," says Gibbon in his autobiography, "had recommended him to a seat in Parliament for Coventry, the command of a regiment of light dragoons, and an Irish peerage." The seat for Coventry was vacant by the death of Walter Waring, M.P.
[448] Towards the end of 1779, and in January, 1780, Yorkshire, Middlesex, Hampshire, and many other counties petitioned the House of Commons to grant no more taxes till the expenses of Government were reduced and sinecure places abolished. The tone of several of these county meetings seemed almost to threaten Civil War. Devonshire is said to have voted a fund for buying arms. The Yorkshire petition was presented by Sir George Saville, February 8, 1780.
[449] In Lord Sheffield's edition of this letter (Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii. p. 239), the words are given as "I hear your Sussex protest gathers signatures in the country." The protest was suggested and promoted by Colonel Holroyd.
[450] Brooks's Club, originally in Pall Mall, was moved to 60, St. James's Street, in 1778. Gibbon, proposed by Mr. St. John, was elected in 1777. In Richard Tickell's verses celebrating the Hon. John Townshend's return for Cambridge in 1780, occur the following lines:—
"And, know, I've bought the best champagne from Brookes.
From liberal Brookes, whose speculative skill