_that inestimable character of our own times._ William Pitt (1708-1778), first Earl of Chatham. The “Great Commoner’s” acceptance of a peerage in 1766 occasioned a storm of popular indignation. PAGE 27 _Admiral Keppel ... Vice Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser._ Augustus Keppel (1725-1786), second son of the second Earl of Albemarle; M.P. for Windsor; Admiral of the Blue and Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, 1778; cr. Viscount Keppel, 1782. Sir Hugh Palliser (1723-1796), first Baronet; M.P. for Scarborough and a Lord of the Admiralty; Vice-Admiral of the Blue, 1778. The allusions are to the indecisive action off Ushant between the Channel fleet under Keppel, with Palliser as third in command, and the Brest fleet under D’Orvilliers, 27 July 1778; see Introduction, p. 10. On the third day of the session an altercation broke out in the House of Commons between the two admirals, and a few days later Palliser applied to his colleagues at the Admiralty Board for a court-martial on Keppel. After a protracted trial the court declared Palliser’s charges “malicious and ill-founded.” This verdict so delighted the populace that street riots ensued in which the Admiralty was attacked and Palliser’s house in Pall-Mall was gutted. Palliser was obliged to resign all his public appointments. See Sir G. O. Trevelyan, _George the Third and Charles James Fox: The Concluding Part of the American Revolution_, New York, 1912-14, I, ch. v. _Philip Stevens, Esq._ Philip Stephens (1723-1809), M.P. for Sandwich and First Secretary to the Admiralty; cr. a baronet, 1795. PAGE 28 _Mr. George Sutton._ George Manners-Sutton (1751-1804), nephew of the famous Marquis of Granby; M.P. for Newark. _Mr. Welbore Ellis._ Welbore Ellis (1713-1802), M.P. for Weymouth and Treasurer of the Navy; cr. Baron Mendip of Mendip, 1794; see Introduction, p. 12. PAGE 29 _David Hartly, Esq._ David Hartley the younger (1732-1813), son of the philosopher; M.P. for Kingston-upon-Hull; published _Letters on the American War_, 1777-79, which critically reviewed the history of British colonial policy; friend and correspondent of Franklin (whose letters he sometimes read in the House of Commons); British plenipotentiary at Paris to negotiate peace with America, 1783. He was the Cassandra of the House and a tireless advocate of peace, but his long-windedness made him disliked. In _The Abbey of Kilkhampton_, 1780, Sir Herbert Croft’s satirical garland of epitaphs, Hartley’s epitaph reads as follows (Part II, p. 124): Here rests, If we may trust the Silence of his Grave, D.... H....y, Esq. His abilities were the Subject of Admiration, and the public Utility was the generous Object they had in view, But⸺he was _troublesome_.