Notwithstanding the creation of twelve peers to swamp the Upper House, it is doubtful how the division would have gone, had not Lord Strafford, a cabinet minister, observed, in reply to the charge, that the British government was about to conclude a separate peace,--"Nothing of that nature has ever been intended; for such a peace would be so _foolish, villanous, and knavish_, that every servant of the Queen must answer for it with his head to the nation. The Allies _are acquainted with our proceedings, and satisfied with our terms_." This statement was made by a British minister, in his place in Parliament, on the 28th May, eighteen days _after_ the private letter from Mr Secretary St John to the Duke of Ormond, already quoted, mentioning the private treaty with Louis, enjoining him to keep it secret from the Allies, and communicate clandestinely with Villars. But such a declaration, coming from an accredited minister of the crown, produced a great impression, and ministers prevailed by a majority of sixty-eight to forty. In the course of the debate, Earl Poulett let fall such cutting expressions against Marlborough for having, as he alleged, led his troops to certain destruction, in order to profit by the sale of the officers' commissions,[22] that the Duke, without deigning a reply, sent him a challenge on leaving the house. The agitation, however, of the Earl, who was less cool than the iron veteran on the prospect of such a meeting, revealed what was going forward, and by an order of the Queen, the affair was terminated without bloodshed.[23] [22] "No one can doubt the Duke of Ormond's bravery; but he is not like a certain general who led troops to the slaughter, to cause a great number of officers to be knocked on the head in a battle, or against stone walls, in order to fill his pockets by the sale of their commissions."--Coxe, vi. 196. [23] _Lockhart Papers_, i. 392; Coxe, vi. 196, 199.