The Prince's friends felt that this could not go on longer. It was resolved to appeal to Parliament for aid, and Mr. Nathaniel Newnham, a merchant, Alderman, and an M.P. for the City of London, was chosen to open the matter, which he did on April 20, 1787, by asking Mr. Pitt whether it was his intention to bring forward any proposition to rescue the Prince of Wales from his embarrassed and distressed situation. Being answered by the Minister that he had no commands to that purpose from the King, the Alderman gave notice that, on Friday, May 4, he would bring forward a motion upon that subject for the consideration of the House. [Illustration: LOVE'S LAST SHIFT.] As a matter of fact, the motion was brought before the House on April 27, and again on April 30, when Fox supported the Prince, and in the course of his speech, referring to the rumour of the Prince being married to Mrs. Fitzherbert (a Roman Catholic), said: 'With respect to the allusion to something full of "danger to the Church and State," made by the hon. gentleman, one of the members of the County of Devon, till that gentleman thought proper to explain himself, it was impossible to say with any certainty to what that allusion referred; but he supposed it must be meant in reference to that miserable calumny, that low, malicious falsehood, which had been propagated without doors, and made the wanton sport of the vulgar. In that House, where it was known how frequent and common the falsehoods of the times were, he hoped a tale, only fit to impose on the lowest order of persons in the streets, would not have gained the smallest portion of credit; but, when it appeared that an invention so monstrous, a report of a fact which had not the smallest degree of foundation, a report of a fact actually impossible to have happened, had been circulated with so much industry, as to have made an impression on the minds of the members of that House, it proved, at once, the uncommon pains taken by the enemies of his Royal Highness to propagate the grossest and most malignant falsehoods, with a view to depreciate his character, and injure him in the opinion of his country.... The whole of the debt the Prince was ready to submit to the investigation of the House; and he was equally ready to submit the other circumstance to which he had alluded, to their consideration, provided that the consideration of a House of Parliament could, consistently with propriety and decency, be applied to such a subject. Nay, his Royal Highness had authorised him to declare that, as a Peer of Parliament, he was ready in the other House to submit to any of the most pointed questions which could be put to him respecting it, or to afford his Majesty, or his Majesty's ministers, the fullest assurances of the utter falsehood of the fact in question, which never had, and which common sense must see, never could have happened.'