[124] Hood, Rodney’s second in command, asserted that if Rodney had fought and pursued vigorously he would have taken not five but twenty French ships of the line. See “Rodney’s Letters and Despatches,” ed. by D. Hannay for the Navy Records Society, p. 103.
[125] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1.
[126] “Life of Romilly,” i, 162. Romilly, who was present, quotes a sentence of the speech, which did not appear in the official report: “This House is not the representative of the people of Great Britain; it is the representative of nominal boroughs, of ruined and exterminated towns, of noble families, of wealthy individuals, of foreign potentates.”
[127] “Speeches of Lord Erskine” (edit. of 1880), p. 293; “The Papers of Christopher Wyvil,” i, 424–5; State Trials, xxii, 492–4.
[128] See Mahon, “Hist. of England,” vii, 17; Porritt, i, 217.
[129] “Buckingham Papers,” i, 50.
[130] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 163.
[131] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 175; “Life of Romilly,” i, 173. Fox had announced to the Cabinet his intention of resigning a few days before Rockingham’s death. See the “Memorials of Fox,” i, 435 et seq.
[132] Sir G. C. Lewis, “Administrations of Great Britain,” pp. 31–48.
[133] Lecky, iv, 239. The original Cabinet numbered five Rockingham Whigs and five Shelburne Whigs.