into the whole management of public
affairs. But it was generally apprehended that such a Committee would
become a second and more powerful Privy Council, independent of the
Crown, and unknown to the Constitution. The motion was therefore
rejected by forty-eight votes to thirty-six. On this occasion the
ministers, with scarcely an exception, voted in the majority. A protest
was signed by eighteen of the minority, among whom were the bitterest
Whigs and the bitterest Tories in the whole peerage. [347]

The Houses inquired, each for itself, into the causes of the public
calamities. The Commons resolved themselves into a Grand Committee
to consider of the advice to be given to the King. From the concise
abstracts and fragments which have come down to us it seems that, in
this Committee, which continued to sit many days, the debates wandered
over a vast space. One member spoke of the prevalence of highway
robbery; another deplored the quarrel between the Queen and the
Princess, and proposed that two or three gentlemen should be deputed to
wait on Her Majesty and try to make matters up. A third described the
machinations of the Jacobites in the preceding spring. It was notorious,
he said, that preparations had been made for a rising, and that arms and
horses had been collected; yet not a single traitor had been brought to
justice. [348]

The events of the war by land and sea furnished matter for several
earnest debates. Many members complained of the preference given to
aliens over Englishmen. The whole battle of Steinkirk was fought over
again; and severe reflections were thrown on Solmes. "Let English
soldiers be commanded by none but English generals," was the almost
universal cry. Seymour, who had once been distinguished by his hatred of
the foreigners, but who, since he had been at the Board of Treasury,
had reconsidered his opinions, asked where English generals were to
be found. "I have no love for foreigners as foreigners; but we have no
choice. Men are not born generals; nay, a man may be a very valuable
captain or major, and not be equal to the conduct of an army. Nothing
but experience will form great commanders. Very few of our countrymen
have that experience; and therefore we must for the present employ
strangers." Lowther followed on the same side. "We have had a long
peace; and the consequence is that we have not a sufficient supply of
officers fit for high commands. The parks and the camp at Hounslow were
v