The House of Commons promptly passed a series of resolutions declaring "John Aislabie, Esquire, a Member of this House, then Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of the Commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury," guilty of "most notorious, dangerous, and infamous corruption," and ordering his expulsion from the House and his committal as a prisoner to the Tower. This resolution was carried without a dissentient word. The House of Commons went on next to consider that part of the report which applied to Lord Sunderland, and a motion was made declaring that "after the proposals of the South Sea Company were accepted by this House, and a bill ordered to be brought in thereupon, and before such bill passed, 50,000 pounds of the capital stock of the South Sea Company was taken in by Robert Knight, late cashier of the said Company, for the use and upon the account of diaries, Earl of Sunderland, a Lord of Parliament and First Commissioner of the Treasury, without any valuable consideration paid, or sufficient security given, for payment for or acceptance of the same." Sunderland had too many friends, however, and too much influence to be dealt with as if he were Aislabie. A fierce debate sprang up. The evidence against him was not by any means so clear as in the case of Aislabie. There was room for a doubt as to Sunderland's personal knowledge of all that had been done in his name. His influence and power secured him the full benefit of the doubt. The motion implicating him was rejected by a majority of 233 votes against 172, "which, however," {200} says a contemporary account, "occasioned various reasonings and reflections." Charles Stanhope, too, was lucky enough to get off, on a division, by a very narrow majority. [Sidenote: 1721--An interview with James Stuart] A letter from an English traveller at Rome to his father, bearing date May 6, 1721, and privately printed this year (1884) for the first time, under the auspices of the Clarendon Society of Edinburgh, gives an interesting account of the reception of the writer, an English Protestant, by James Stuart and his wife. That part of the letter which is of present interest to us tells of the remarks made by James on the subject of the South Sea catastrophe. James spoke of the investigations of the secret committee, from which he had no great hopes; for, he said, the authors of the calamity "would find means to be above the common course of justice." "Some may imagine," continued he, "that these calamities are not displeasing to me, because they may in some measure turn to my advantage. I renounce all such unworthy thoughts. The love of my country is the first principle of my worldly wishes, and my heart bleeds to see so brave and honest a people distressed and misled by a few wicked men, and plunged into miseries almost irretrievable." "Thereupon," says the writer of the letter, "he rose briskly from his chair, and expressed his concern with fire in his eyes."