The weakest point of the speech was in the passage in which, by almost deifying King George――especially for his alleged divine quality of mercy――Mr. Lechmere seemed to make of the sovereign a conspirator against himself. The monarch, he said, was of such a tender nature that he could not find it in his heart to be severe against his enemies. ‘On the contrary, those who have shown the greatest aversion to his government, have received the kindest invitations and enjoyed the highest indulgences from him.’ Equally at fault was the Impeacher when he avowed that impeachment of the seven lords was a safer process than leaving their case to be treated in the ordinary course of law and justice. More vindictiveness was exhibited by Mr. Lechmere when he expressed his gladness at the thought that, if the lords were convicted, no plea of pardon under the Great Seal could stay the execution of a sentence which was the result of an impeachment by the Commons. Not, of course, that the Commons would be influenced by vindictive considerations! It was certainly not to keep them calm and clear and justly minded that he ended by shaking the Pretender’s declaration in their faces. That act seemed to arouse the majority of the House to fury, as a red rag might excite the fierceness of a sufficiently angry bull. The terms in which it was written, and the epithets applied to those terms by Mr. Lechmere, stirred the Whig members as the alarm stirs the war-horse to dash forward whithersoever his rider would force him. In a burst of frenzy, the House voted, on the motion of Mr. Lechmere, the impeachment of James, Earl of Derwentwater and his six confederates, the Lords Kenmure, Nithsdale, Carnwath, Widdrington, Nairn, and Wintoun, for high treason. [Sidenote: _FROM THE TOWER TO WESTMINSTER._] Shortly after, of all the London sights, the most interesting was the passing to and fro of those captured Jacobite Lords, between the Tower and Westminster, where they underwent preparatory examining by the privy council. When they went by water, the public knew little of the matter. It was otherwise when they were taken to Westminster in one huge lumbering coach; especially as on their way back they stopped to dine at the famous tavern, the _Fountain_, in the Strand. The House had long been patronised by the Tories, so that the Jacobite lords were ‘at home;’――and Jacobite mobs cheered them as they entered and when they departed. The repast, however, could not have been a joyous one――seven lords eating roast beef and drinking port, with the something more than chance of soon dying on the scaffold! They dined, closely guarded by twelve Warders. Before they left, they who would, might have their snuff-boxes filled at Lillie’s, next door, and for one of the street Jacobites to get a pinch from this supply, made him happy for a week. [Sidenote: _THE DRUM ECCLESIASTIC._]