ld admit the petitioners to be heard by themselves and
also by counsel, or, according to the habit of the House, by themselves
or counsel. Yet, short and almost formal as the debate might have
been, the opponents of the Government contrived to import into it a
number of assumptions, and an amount of passion, such as the earlier
stages of a difficult and delicate international dispute are seldom
allowed to exhibit. Even so cautious and respectable a man as Sir
{154} John Barnard, a typical English merchant of the highest class,
did not hesitate to speak of the grievances as if they were all
established and admitted, and the action of Spain as a wilful outrage
upon the trade, the honor, and the safety of Great Britain. Walpole
argued that the petitioners should be heard by themselves and not by
counsel; but the main object of his speech was to appeal to the House
"not to work upon the passions where the head is to be informed." Mr.
Robert Wilmot thereupon arose, and replied in an oration belonging to
that "spread-eagle" order which is familiar to American political
controversy. "Talk of working on the passions," this orator exclaimed;
"can any man's passions be wound up to a greater height, can any man's
indignation be more raised, than every free-born Briton's must be when
he reads a letter which I have received this morning, and which I have
now in my hand? This letter, sir, gives an account that seventy of our
brave sailors are now in chains in Spain. Our countrymen in chains,
and slaves to Spaniards! Is not this enough to fire the coldest? Is
not this enough to rouse all the vengeance of a national resentment?
Shall we sit here debating about words and forms while the sufferings
of our countrymen call out loudly for redress?"

[Sidenote: 1738--An unlucky argument]

Pulteney himself, when speaking on the general question, professed,
indeed, not to assume the charges in the petitions to be true before
they had been established, but he proceeded to deal with them on
something very like a positive assumption that they would be
established. Thereupon he struck the key-note of the whole outcry that
was to be raised against the Ministry. Could any one believe, he
indignantly asked, that the Court of Spain "would have presumed to
trifle in such a manner with any ministry but one which they thought
wanted either courage or inclination to resent such treatment?" He
accused the Ministry of "a scandalous breach of du