Meanwhile the Government of England was falling to pieces. Day by day the situation became more alarming. For months after these despatches were sent, the Commons passed their time in taking testimony and listening to speeches intended to prove or disprove that the Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the army, was in the habit of selling officers’ commissions through the agency of his mistress, a certain Mrs. Clarke; and although the Duke protested his innocence, the scandal drove him from his office. The old King, blind and infirm, was quite unfit to bear the shame of his son’s disgrace; while the Prince of Wales stood no better than the Duke of York either in his father’s esteem or in public opinion. The Ministry was rent by faction; Perceval, Castlereagh, and Canning were at cross purposes, while the Whigs were so weak that they rather feared than hoped their rivals’ fall. Whatever might be the factiousness of Congress or the weakness of government at Washington, the confusion in Parliament was worse, and threatened worse dangers. “All power and influence of Perceval in the House is quite gone by,” wrote a Whig member, February 16.[51] “He speaks without authority and without attention paid to him; and Canning has made two or three such rash declarations that he is little attended to. You may judge the situation of the House, when I tell you we were last night nearly three quarters of an hour debating about the evidence of a drunken footman by Perceval suggesting modes of ascertaining how to convict him of his drunkenness,--Charles Long [one of the Administration], near whom I was sitting telling me at the time what a lamentable proof it was of the want of some man of sense and judgment to lead the House. There is no government in the House of Commons,--you may be assured the thing does not exist; and whether they can ever recover their tone of power remains to be proved. At present Mr. Croker, Mr. D. Brown, and Mr. Beresford are the leaders.... The Cintra Convention, or the general campaign, or the American question, are minor considerations, and indeed do not enter into the consideration of any one.” The House of Lords maintained more appearance of dignity; and there, February 17, four-and-twenty hours after Colonel Fremantle wrote this letter, Lord Grenville began a debate on American affairs. As a test of Tory sincerity in view of what Erskine was soon to do at Washington, the debate--as well as all else that was said of American affairs during the session--deserved more than ordinary notice, if only in justice to the British ministry, whose language was to receive a commentary they did not expect.[52]