But of all speeches, none ever was so full of wit as Mr. Pulteney’s last.  He said, “I have heard this committee represented as a most dreadful spectre; it has been likened to all terrible things; it has been likened to the King; to the inquisition; it will be a committee of safety; it is a committee of danger; I don’t know what it is to be!  One gentleman, I think, called it a cloud! (this was the Attorney) a cloud!  I remember Hamlet takes Lord Polonius by the hand shows him a cloud, and then asks him if he does not think it is like a whale.”  Well, in short, at eleven at night we divided, and threw out this famous committee by 253 to 250, the greatest number that ever was in the house, and the greatest number that ever lost a question.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Lord Stanhope ("History of England,” i. 24) gives a long account of this debate, mainly derived from this letter.]

It was a most shocking sight to see the sick and dead brought in on both sides!  Men on crutches, and Sir William Gordon from his bed, with a blister on his head, and flannel hanging out from under his wig.  I could scarce pity him for his ingratitude.  The day before the Westminster petition, Sir Charles Wager gave his son a ship, and the next day the father came down and voted against him.  The son has since been cast away; but they concealed it from the father, that he might not absent himself.  However, as we have our good-natured men too on our side, one of his own countrymen went and told him of it in the House.  The old man, who looked like Lazarus at his resuscitation, bore it with great resolution, and said, he knew why he was told of it, but when he thought his country in danger, he would not go away.  As he is so near death, that it is indifferent to him whether he died two thousand years ago or to-morrow, it is unlucky for him not to have lived when such insensibility would have been a Roman virtue.

There are no arts, no menaces, which the Opposition do not practise.  They have threatened one gentleman to have a reversion cut off from his son, unless he will vote with them.  To Totness there came a letter to the mayor from the Prince, and signed by two of his lords, to recommend a candidate in opposition to the Solicitor-General [Strange].  The mayor sent the letter to Sir Robert.  They have turned the Scotch to the best account.  There is a young Oswald, who had engaged to Sir R. but has voted against us.  Sir R. sent a friend to reproach him; the moment the gentleman who had engaged for him came into the room, Oswald said, “You had like to have led me into a fine error! did you not tell me that Sir R. would have the majority?”

When the debate was over, Mr. Pulteney owned that he had never heard so fine a debate on our side; and said to Sir Robert, “Well, nobody can do what you can!” “Yes,” replied Sir R., “Yonge did better.”  Mr. Pulteney answered, “It was fine, but not of that weight with what you said.”  They all allow it; and now their plan is to persuade Sir Robert to retire with honour.  All that evening there was a report about the town, that he and my uncle [old Horace] were to be sent to the Tower, and people hired windows in the City to see them pass by—­but for this time I believe we shall not exhibit so historical a parade....