TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.
ARLINGTON STREET, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 1764.
My dear Lord,—You ought to be witness to the fatigue I am suffering, before you can estimate the merit I have in being writing to you at this moment. Cast up eleven hours in the House of Commons on Monday, and above seventeen hours yesterday,—ay, seventeen at length,—and then you may guess if I am tired! nay, you must add seventeen hours that I may possibly be there on Friday, and then calculate if I am weary. In short, yesterday was the longest day ever known in the House of Commons—why, on the Westminster election at the end of my father's reign, I was at home by six. On Alexander Murray's affair, I believe, by five—on the militia, twenty people, I think, sat till six, but then they were only among themselves, no heat, no noise, no roaring. It was half an hour after seven this morning before I was at home. Think of that, and then brag of your French parliaments!
What is ten times greater, Leonidas and the Spartan minority did not make such a stand at Thermopylae, as we did. Do you know, we had like to have been the majority? Xerxes[1] is frightened out of his senses; Sysigambis[1] has sent an express to Luton to forbid Phraates[1] coming to town to-morrow; Norton's[2] impudence has forsaken him; Bishop Warburton is at this moment reinstating Mr. Pitt's name in the dedication to his Sermons, which he had expunged for Sandwich's; and Sandwich himself is—at Paris, perhaps, by this time, for the first thing that I expect to hear to-morrow is, that he is gone off.
[Footnote 1: "Xerxes, Sysigambis, Phraates." These names contain allusions to one of Mdlle. Scudéri's novels, which, as D'Israeli remarks, are "representations of what passed at the Court of France"; but in this letter the scene of action is transferred to England. Xerxes is George III.; Sysigambis, the Princess Dowager; and Phraates is Lord Bute.]
[Footnote 2: Sir Fletcher Norton, the Speaker.]
Now are you mortally angry with me for trifling with you, and not telling you at once the particulars of this almost-revolution? You may be angry, but I shall take my own time, and shall give myself what airs I please both to you, my Lord Ambassador, and to you, my Lord Secretary of State, who will, I suppose, open this letter—if you have courage enough left. In the first place, I assume all the impertinence of a prophet,—aye, of that great curiosity, a prophet, who really prophesied before the event, and whose predictions have been accomplished. Have I, or have I not, announced to you the unexpected blows that would be given to the administration?—come, I will lay aside my dignity, and satisfy your impatience. There's moderation.
We sat all Monday hearing evidence against Mr. Wood,[1] that dirty wretch Webb, and the messengers, for their illegal proceedings against Mr. Wilkes. At midnight, Mr. Grenville offered us to adjourn or proceed. Mr. Pitt humbly begged not to eat or sleep till so great a point should be decided. On a division, in which though many said aye to adjourning, nobody would go out for fear of losing their seats, it was carried by 379 to 31, for proceeding—and then—half the House went away. The ministers representing the indecency of this, and Fitzherbert saying that many were within call, Stanley observed, that after voting against adjournment, a third part had adjourned themselves, when, instead of being within call, they ought to have been within hearing; this was unanswerable, and we adjourned.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Wood and Mr. Webb were the Under-Secretary of State and the Solicitor of the Treasury; and, as such, the officers chiefly responsible for the form of the warrant complained of.]
Yesterday we fell to again. It was one in the morning before the evidence was closed. Carrington, the messenger, was alone examined for seven hours. This old man, the cleverest of all ministerial terriers, was pleased with recounting his achievements, yet perfectly guarded and betraying nothing. However, the arcana imperii have been wofully laid open.