Wyndham he well knew to be but the mouth-piece of Bolingbroke, and it was at Bolingbroke that he struck. "I hope I may be allowed," he said, "to draw a picture in my turn; and I may likewise say that I do not mean to give a description of any particular person now in being. Indeed," Walpole added, ingenuously, "the House being cleared, I am sure no person that hears me can come within the description of the person I am to suppose." This was a clever touch, and gave a new barb to the dart which Walpole was about to fling. The House was cleared; none but members were present; the description applied to none within hearing. Bolingbroke, of course, was not a member; he could not hear what Walpole was saying. Then Walpole went on to paint his picture. He supposed, "in this or in some other unfortunate country, an anti-minister . . . in a country where he really ought not to be, and where he could not have been but by an effect of too much goodness and mercy, yet endeavoring with all his might and with all his art to destroy the fountain from whence that mercy flowed." Walpole depicted this anti-minister as one "who thinks himself a person of so great and extensive parts, and of so many eminent qualifications, that he looks upon himself as the only person in the kingdom capable of conducting the public affairs of the nation." {16} Walpole supposed "this fine gentleman lucky enough to have gained over to his party some persons of really great parts, of ancient families, and of large fortunes, and others of desperate views, arising from disappointed and malicious hearts." Walpole grouped with fine freehand-drawing the band of conspirators thus formed under the leadership of this anti-minister. All the band were moved in their political behavior by him, and by him solely. All they said, either in private or public, was "only a repetition of the words he had put into their mouths, and a spitting forth of the venom which he had infused into them." Walpole asked the House to suppose, nevertheless, that this anti-minister was not really liked by any even of those who blindly followed him, and was hated by the rest of mankind. He showed him contracting friendships and alliances with all foreign ministers who were hostile to his own country, and endeavoring to get at the political secrets of English administrations in order that he might betray them to foreign and hostile States. Further, he asked the House to suppose this man travelling from foreign court to court, making it his trade to betray the secrets of each court where he had most lately been, void of all faith and honor, delighting to be treacherous and traitorous to every master whom he had served and who had shown favor to him. "Sir, I could carry my suppositions a great deal further; but if we can suppose such a one as I have pictured, can there be imagined a greater disgrace to human nature than a wretch like this?" [Sidenote: 1734--An unstable alliance]