Something must be done; something at least must be attempted. Walpole saw nothing for it but to endeavor to arrange a compromise. Parliament had opened on February 1st, and the day appointed for the debate on this important question of the prince's allowance was to be Tuesday, the 22d of the month. On the Monday previous, Walpole made up his mind that if the King did not offer some fair show of compromise his party would be beaten when the question came to be put to the vote. His plan of arrangement was that the King should spontaneously send to the prince an intimation that he was willing to settle a jointure at once on the princess, with the added remark that this had already been under consideration--which indeed was true--not a very common occurrence in Royal messages of that day; and that he was also prepared to settle fifty thousand a year on the prince himself forever and without condition. Walpole did not believe that the prince would accept this offer of compromise. He knew very well that Frederick, full of arrogant confidence and obstinacy, and backed up by the zeal and passion of his friends, would be certain to refuse it. But Walpole was not thinking much about the impression which the offer would make on the prince. The thought uppermost in his mind was of the impression it would make on the House of Commons. Unless some new impression could be made upon the House, the triumph of the prince was absolutely certain; and Walpole felt sure that if any step could now alter the condition of things in the House of Commons it would be the publication of the fact that the King had spontaneously held out the olive-branch; that {81} he had offered a fair compromise, and that the prince had refused it.