Holland's], Mr. Chute's, and the
Attorney-General's [Sir Dudley Ryder]. My friend Coke [Lovel], for the
first time, spoke vastly well, and mentioned how great Sir Robert's
character is abroad. Sir Francis Dashwood replied that he had found
quite the reverse from Mr. Coke, and that foreigners always spoke with
contempt of the Chevalier de Walpole. This was going too far, and he was
called to order, but got off well enough, by saying, that he knew it was
contrary to rule to name any member, but that he only mentioned it as
spoken by an impertinent Frenchman.

But of all speeches, none ever was so full of wit as Mr. Pulteney's
last. He said, "I have heard this committee represented as a most
dreadful spectre; it has been likened to all terrible things; it has
been likened to the King; to the inquisition; it will be a committee of
safety; it is a committee of danger; I don't know what it is to be! One
gentleman, I think, called it _a cloud_! (this was the Attorney) _a
cloud_! I remember Hamlet takes Lord Polonius by the hand shows him _a
cloud_, and then asks him if he does not think it is like a whale."
Well, in short, at eleven at night we divided, and threw out this famous
committee by 253 to 250, the greatest number that ever was in the house,
and the greatest number that ever _lost_ a question.[1]

[Footnote 1: Lord Stanhope ("History of England," i. 24) gives a long
account of this debate, mainly derived from this letter.]

It was a most shocking sight to see the sick and dead brought in on both
sides! Men on crutches, and Sir William Gordon from his bed, with a
blister on his head, and flannel hanging out from under his wig. I could
scarce pity him for his ingratitude. The day before the Westminster
petition, Sir Charles Wager gave his son a ship, and the next day the
father came down and voted against him. The son has since been cast
away; but they concealed it from the father, that he might not absent
himself. However, as we have our good-natured men too on our side, one
of his own countrymen went and told him of it in the House. The old man,
who looked like Lazarus at his resuscitation, bore it with great
resolution, and said, he knew _why_ he was told of it, but when he
thought his country in danger, he would not go away. As he is so near
death, that it is indifferent to him whether he died two thousand years
ago or to-morrow, it is unlucky for him not to have lived when such
insensibility would have been a Ro