The war now engrossed every feeling of the nation; and England showed her national spirit in her gallant defiance of the threat of invasion. The whole kingdom was ready to rise in arms on the firing of the first beacon;--men of the highest rank headed their tenantry; men even of those grave and important avocations and offices, which might seem to imply a complete exemption from arms, put themselves at the head of corps in every part of the empire; and England showed her prime minister as Colonel Pitt of the Walmer volunteers, and the speaker of her House of Commons, as Captain Addington of the Woodley cavalry. But a brilliant change was at hand. In September, Addington received the following note from Pitt, enclosing the bulletin of the battle of the Nile:-- "I have just time to send you the enclosed Bulletin (_vive la Marine Anglaise_,) and to tell you, that we mean, (out of precaution) the meeting of Parliament for the 6th of November. "Sir, ever yours, W. P." The bulletin which gave value to this note, belongs to history, and gives to history one of the noblest events of our naval annals. It exhibits a singular contrast to the present rapidity of communication, that even the "rumour" of Nelson's immortal victory did not reach until fifty-seven days after the event. The Gazette could not be published until the 2d of October. But the star of Pitt, which had hitherto shone with increasing brightness from year to year, and which had passed through all the clouds of time uneclipsed, was now to wane. The Irish attempt to establish a separate Regency, the Irish Rebellion, and the growing influence of the Popish party, combined with Liberalism in the Irish legislature, had determined Pitt to unite the parliaments of the two kingdoms. For this purpose, he made overtures to the Popish party, whose influence he most dreaded in the Irish House; and, in a species of "understanding" rather than a distinct compact, he proposed to the Popish body the measure which has been subsequently called "Emancipation," with some general intimation of pensioning their priesthood.