public as by the Parliament. [642] In the Commons an address of thanks
was moved by Wharton, faintly opposed by Musgrave, adopted without a
division, and carried up by the whole House to Kensington. At the palace
the loyalty of the crowd of gentlemen showed itself in a way which
would now be thought hardly consistent with senatorial gravity. When
refreshments were handed round in the antechamber, the Speaker filled
his glass, and proposed two toasts, the health of King William, and
confusion to King Lewis; and both were drunk with loud acclamations. Yet
near observers could perceive that, though the representatives of the
nation were as a body zealous for civil liberty and for the Protestant
religion, and though they were prepared to endure every thing rather
than see their country again reduced to vassalage, they were anxious and
dispirited. All were thinking of the state of the coin; all were saying
that something must be done; and all acknowledged that they did not know
what could be done. "I am afraid," said a member who expressed what many
felt, "that the nation can bear neither the disease nor the cure." [643]

There was indeed a minority by which the difficulties and dangers of
that crisis were seen with malignant delight; and of that minority the
keenest, boldest and most factious leader was Howe, whom poverty had
made more acrimonious than ever. He moved that the House should resolve
itself into a Committee on the State of the Nation; and the Ministry,
for that word may now with propriety be used, readily consented. Indeed
the great question touching the currency could not be brought forward
more conveniently than in such a Committee. When the Speaker had left
the chair, Howe harangued against the war as vehemently as he had in
former years harangued for it. He called for peace, peace on any terms.
The nation, he said, resembled a wounded man, fighting desperately on,
with blood flowing in torrents. During a short time the spirit might
bear up the frame; but faintness must soon come on. No moral energy
could long hold out against physical exhaustion. He found very little
support. The great majority of his hearers were fully determined to put
every thing to hazard rather than submit to France. It was sneeringly
remarked that the state of his own finances had suggested to him
the image of a man bleeding to death, and that, if a cordial were
administered to him in the form of a salary, he would trouble himself
lit