a convention.

[Sidenote: 1739--The Prince's first vote]

The debate in the House of Lords was carried on by the Opposition with
great spirit and brilliancy. Lord Hervey defended the policy of the
Government with dexterity. Possibly he made as much of the case as
could be made of it. The motion for the address was carried {169} by
seventy-one votes against fifty-eight--a marked increase of strength on
the part of the Opposition. It is to be recorded that the Prince of
Wales gave his first vote in Parliament to support the Opposition. The
name of "His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales" is the first in the
division list of the peers who voted against the address and in favor
of the policy of war. There was nothing very mutinous in Frederick's
action so far as the King was concerned. Very likely Frederick would
have given the same vote, no matter what the King's views on the
subject. But every one knew that George was eager for war, that he was
fully convinced of his capacity to win laurels on the battle-field, and
that he was longing to wear them. A Bonaparte prince of our own day
was described by a French literary man as an unemployed Caesar. King
George believed himself an unemployed Caesar, and was clamorous for
early employment.

{170}

CHAPTER XXXII.

WALPOLE YIELDS TO WAR.

[Sidenote: 1739--Horatio Walpole's prediction]

The nation was plunging, not drifting, into war. Walpole himself,
while still striving hard to put off any decisive step, and even yet
perhaps hoping against hope that the people would return to their
senses and leave the Patriots to themselves, did not venture any longer
to meet the demands of the Opposition by bold argument founded on the
principles of justice and wisdom. He had sometimes to talk the same
"tall talk" as that in which the Patriots delighted, and to rave a
little about the great deeds that would have to be done if Spain did
not listen to reason very soon. But he still pleaded that Spain would
listen to reason soon, very soon, and that if war must come sooner or
later he preferred to take it later. That, it need hardly be said, was
not Walpole's expression--it belongs to a later day--but it represents
his mode of argument.

On March 6th the House of Commons met for the purpose of taking the
foredoomed convention into consideration. So intense was the interest
taken in the subject, so highly strung was political feeling, that more
than four hundred mem