ut being called away from my library to
the office. My acceptance of a place provoked some of the leaders of
opposition, with whom I had lived in habits of intimacy; and I was most
unjustly accused of deserting a party, in which I had never enlisted.

The aspect of the next session of parliament was stormy and perilous;
county meetings, petitions, and committees of correspondence, announced
the public discontent; and instead of voting with a triumphant majority,
the friends of government were often exposed to a struggle, and
sometimes to a defeat. The House of Commons adopted Mr. Dunning's
motion, "That the influence of the Crown had increased, was increasing,
and ought to be diminished:" and Mr. Burke's bill of reform was framed
with skill, introduced with eloquence, and supported by numbers. Our
late president, the American Secretary of State, very narrowly escaped
the sentence of proscription; but the unfortunate Board of Trade was
abolished in the committee by a small majority (207 to 199) of eight
votes. The storm, however, blew over for a time; a large defection of
country gentlemen eluded the sanguine hopes of the patriots: the Lords
of Trade were revived; administration recovered their strength and
spirit; and the flames of London, which were kindled by a mischievous
madman, admonished all thinking men of the danger of an appeal to the
people. In the premature dissolution which followed this session of
parliament I lost my seat. Mr. Elliot was now deeply engaged in the
measures of opposition, and the electors of Leskeard are commonly of the
same opinion as Mr. Elliot.

In this interval of my senatorial life, I published the second and
third volumes of the Decline and Fall. My ecclesiastical history
still breathed the same spirit of freedom; but protestant zeal is more
indifferent to the characters and controversies of the fourth and fifth
centuries. My obstinate silence had damped the ardour of the polemics.
Dr. Watson, the most candid of my adversaries, assured me that he had no
thoughts of renewing the attack, and my impartial balance of the virtues
and vices of Julian was generally praised. This truce was interrupted
only by some animadversions of the Catholics of Italy, and by some
angry letters from Mr. Travis, who made me personally responsible
for condemning, with the best critics, the spurious text of the three
heavenly witnesses.

The piety or prudence of my Italian translator has provided an antidote