There the honourable gentleman and his friends might be regaled with those snatches and silver touches of melody, which they shaped and expanded into harmonies on so grand and swelling a scale, for the admiration of the house and the country."

The house laughed, but Rolle's remarks had made an impression; and Fox, who had been unaccountably absent from the debates, was compelled to appear: he now became the challenger in turn." He stood there prepared to substantiate every denial that had been made by his honourable friend (Sheridan). He demanded investigation. He defied the sharpest scrutiny, however envenomed by personal feelings, to detect in the conduct of the prince, as a gentleman, or as the hope of an illustrious line, any one act derogatory to his character. He came armed with the immediate authority of his royal highness to assure the house, that there was no part of his conduct which he was either afraid or unwilling to have investigated in the most minute manner."

This bold defiance, delivered with the haughtiest tone and gesture, raised a tumult of applause; which was interrupted only by his suddenly fixing his eyes full on the minister; and, as if he disdained to pour his vengeance on minor culprits, heaping the whole reprobation upon him, whom he intimated to be the origin of the calumny.

"As to the allusions," said he, scornfully, "of the honourable member for Devon, of danger and so forth to church and state, I am not bound to understand them until he shall make them intelligible; but I suppose they are meant in reference to that falsehood which has been so sedulously propagated out of doors for the wanton sport of the vulgar, and which I now pronounce, by whomsoever invented, to be a miserable calumny, a low, malicious falsehood."- He had hoped, that in that house a tale, only fit to impose upon the lowest persons in the streets, would not have gained credit; but, when it appeared that an invention so monstrous, a report of what had not the smallest degree of foundation, had been circulated with so much industry as to make an impression on the mind of members of that house, it proved the extraordinary efforts made by the enemies of his royal highness to propagate the grossest and most malignant falsehoods, with a view to depreciate his character, and injure him in the opinion of the country. He was at a loss to imagine what species of party could have fabricated so base a calumny. Had there existed in the kingdom such a faction as an anti-Brunswick faction, to it he should have certainly imputed the invention of so malicious a falsehood; for he knew not what other description of men could have felt an interest in first forming and then circulating, with more than ordinary assiduity, a

tale in every particular so unfounded. His royal highness had authorised him to declare, that as a peer of parliament he was ready, in the other house, to submit to any the most pointed questions; or to afford his majesty, or his majesty's ministers, the fullest assurances of the utter falsehood of the statement in question, which never had, and which common sense must see never could have, happened.

After this philippic, to which Pitt listened with the utmost composure, but which produced an extraordinary interest in the house, Fox adverted to the original purpose of the application: "Painful and delicate the subject undoubtedly was; but however painful it might be, the consequences were attributable solely to those who had it in their power to supersede the necessity of the prince's coming to parliament, to relieve him from a situation embarrassing to himself and disgraceful to the country.'

This speech may be taken as a specimen of Fox's vituperative style, the reiterated phrases of scorn, the daring defiance, and the reckless weight of contempt and condemnation, which he habitually flung upon his adversary. But the full effect can be conceived only by those who have heard this great speaker. His violent action, confused voice, and ungainly form, were forgotten, or rather, by one of the wonders of eloquence, became portions of his power. A

strong sincerity seemed to hurry him along: his words, always emphatic, seemed to be forced from him by the fulness and energy of his feelings; and in the torrent he swept away the adversary.

This speech decided the question. Rolle still persisted in his alarms, and still brought down upon himself the declamation of Sheridan and the retorts of Fox, who bitterly told him, that though what he had said before was, he thought, sufficient to satisfy every candid mind, he was willing still to re-state and re-explain, and, if possible, satisfy the most perverse.”

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The member for Devon at last declared that he had spoken only from his affection for the prince; that "he had not said, he was dissatisfied," and that he now left the whole matter to the judgment of the house. Pitt covered his friend's retreat, by a defence of the privileges of speech in the legislature.

But such contests were too hazardous to be wisely provoked again. Misfortune, which in private life has a singular faculty of stripping the sufferer of his friends, in public life often gathers the national sympathy round him. The man who would have been left to perish in his cell, brought to the scaffold, is followed by the outcry of the multitude. The general voice began to rise. against the severity of government; and in a few days after the debate,* the prince was informed by

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• May 3.

the minister, that if the motion intended for the next day were withdrawn, every thing should be settled to his satisfaction. Accordingly, Alderman Newnham communicated to the house, in which four hundred members were present, the intelligence that his motion was now rendered unnecessary; and all was mutual congratulation.

The ministerial promise was kept; but kept with a full reserve of the royal displeasure. A stern rebuke was couched in the message to parliament.

"G. R. It is with the greatest concern his majesty acquaints the house of commons, that from the accounts which have been laid before his majesty by the Prince of Wales, it appears that the prince has incurred a debt to a large amount, which if left to be discharged out of his annual income, would render it impossible for him to support an establishment suited to his rank and station.

"Painful as it is at all times to his majesty to propose an addition to the many expenses necessarily borne by his people, his majesty is induced, from his paternal affection to the Prince of Wales, to recur to the liberality and attachment of his faithful commons, for their assistance on an occasion so interesting to his majesty's feelings, and to the ease and honour of so distinguished a branch of his royal family.