huff to vindicate himself and criticize ministers and commanders before Parliament. On the whole, the commission did little more than aggravate the ill-feeling on both sides. On the 7th of April, after a long absence, Lord Chatham, wrapped in flannels and supported by his sons, took his seat in the House of Lords. Rising for the second time in the debate to speak on the American war, he was struck down by an apoplexy from which he never recovered. His death, on the 11th of May, was believed and said by many to be a portent of doom to the Empire. Meanwhile the specter of a French invasion caused the King late in March to communicate to Parliament his intention of ordering the militia “to be drawn out and embodied, and to march as occasion shall require.” Five encampments were established; peers and M.P.’s, Whig and Tory alike, hastened to raise regiments; and by June Gibbon could tell Holroyd that “The chief conversation at Almack’s is about tents, drill-Serjeants, subdivisions, firings, &c.”[21] All summer and autumn the country was full of marching and countermarching for the edification of anxious royalty. In the newspapers appeared advertisements for “martial balsam,” recommended for those afflicted by toothache from exposure to damp canvas and mattresses. Even theater business was depressed by the rage for visiting the encampments. Sheridan, ever resourceful, dashed off as a counter-attraction his entertainment of _The Camp_, with a musical arrangement by Thomas Linley, a prologue by Tickell, and (according to the newspaper notices) “a perspective Representation of the GRAND CAMP at COXHEATH, from a view taken by Mr. de Loutherbourg and erected under his direction.” All this was diverting, but in midsummer occurred an incident that betrayed to the nation the smoldering antagonism between ministers and commanders. In the previous March Admiral Keppel, a staunch Whig who had refused to serve against America, had been promoted commander of the Channel fleet. He found, contrary to the Admiralty’s repeated assurances in Parliament, that ships and equipment were woefully inadequate for his crucial task of defending the coasts. At length reinforced, Keppel on the 27th of July engaged the Brest fleet off Ushant. In command of the British rearward squadron was Sir Hugh Palliser, a Tory M.P. and a Lord of the Admiralty. Following a short and indecisive action, Keppel gave orders for a new line of battle, but Palliser did not obey until after dark. By morning the French had escaped. Keppel did not report Palliser’s insubordination, but accounts of the action appeared in the papers, and before the opening of Parliament the incident had become a heated party issue, with Keppel exalted as a popular hero and Palliser condemned as the agent of a negligent and scheming ministry. _4_