ead, at Bath, and from whom he hopes two
thousand a year, has sent for him. He has refused to go--lest his
_steadiness_ should be questioned. At a quarter after four we divided.
_Our_ cry was so loud, that both we and the ministers thought we had
carried it. It is not to be painted, the dismay of the latter--in good
truth not without reason, for _we_ were 197, they but 207. Your
experience can tell you, that a majority of _but_ ten is a defeat.
Amidst a great defection from them, was even a white staff, Lord Charles
Spencer--now you know still more of what I told you was preparing for
them!

Crest-fallen, the ministers then proposed simply to discharge the
complaint; but the plumes which they had dropped, Pitt soon placed in
his own beaver. He broke out on liberty, and, indeed, on whatever he
pleased, uninterrupted. Rigby sat feeling the vice-treasureship slipping
from under him. Nugent was not less pensive--Lord Strange, though not
interested, did not like it. Everybody was too much taken up with his
own concerns, or too much daunted, to give the least disturbance to the
Pindaric. Grenville, however, dropped a few words, which did but
heighten the flame. Pitt, with less modesty than ever he showed,
pronounced a panegyric on his own administration, and from thence broke
out on the _dismission of officers_. This increased the roar from us.
Grenville replied, and very finely, very pathetically, very animated. He
painted Wilkes and faction, and, with very little truth, denied the
charge of menaces to officers. At that moment, General A'Court walked up
the House--think what an impression such an incident must make, when
passions, hopes, and fears, were all afloat--think, too, how your
brother and I, had we been ungenerous, could have added to these
sensations! There was a man not so delicate. Colonel Barre rose--and
this attended with a striking circumstance; Sir Edward Deering, one of
_our_ noisy fools, called out, "_Mr._ Barre."[1] The latter seized the
thought with admirable quickness, and said to the Speaker, who, in
pointing to him, had called him _Colonel_, "I beg your pardon, Sir, you
have pointed to me by a title I have no right to," and then made a very
artful and pathetic speech on his own services and dismission; with
nothing bad but an awkward attempt towards an excuse to Mr. Pitt for his
former behaviour. Lord North, who will not lose his _bellow_, though he
may lose his place, endeavoured to roar up the courag