's two sons became the bitterest opponents of the minister. They
were both men of considerable talents; extremely similar in their
characters and dispositions, and so much so in their outward appearance,
that it was very difficult to know them apart.]

On Wednesday Sir Robert Godschall, the Lord Mayor, presented the
Merchant's petition, signed by three hundred of them, and drawn up by
_Leonidas_ Glover.[1] This is to be heard next Wednesday. This
gold-chain came into parliament, cried up for his parts, but proves so
dull, one would think he chewed opium. Earle says, "I have heard an
oyster speak as well twenty times."...

[Footnote 1: Mr. Glover, a London merchant, was the author of a poem
entitled "Leonidas"; of a tragedy, "Boadicea"; and of the ode on
"Admiral Hosier's Ghost," which is mentioned in the letter to Conway at
p. 23.]

On this Thursday, of which I was telling you, at three o'clock, Mr.
Pulteney rose up, and moved for a secret committee of twenty-one. This
inquisition, this council of ten, was to sit and examine whatever
persons and papers they should please, and to meet when and where they
pleased. He protested much on its not being intended against _any
person_, but merely to give the King advice, and on this foot they
fought it till ten at night, when Lord Perceval blundered out what they
had been cloaking with so much art, and declared that he should vote for
it as a committee of accusation. Sir Robert immediately rose, and
protested that he should not have spoken, but for what he had heard
last; but that now, he must take it to himself. He pourtrayed the malice
of the Opposition, who, for twenty years, had not been able to touch
him, and were now reduced to this infamous shift. He defied them to
accuse him, and only desired that if they should, it might be in an open
and fair manner; desired no favour, but to be acquainted with his
accusation. He spoke of Mr. Dodington, who had called his administration
infamous, as of a person of great self-mortification, who, for sixteen
years, had condescended to bear part of the odium. For Mr. Pulteney, who
had just spoken a second time, Sir R. said, he had begun the debate with
great calmness, but give him his due, he had made amends for it in the
end. In short, never was innocence so triumphant!

There were several glorious speeches on both sides; Mr. Pulteney's two,
W. Pitt's [Chatham's] and George Grenville's, Sir Robert's, Sir W.
Yonge's, Harry Fox's [Lord