So far as the House of Commons was concerned, this ended the hostilities against the Hanoverian troops, though the House of Lords continued the controversy with a debate in which Chesterfield, who outdid Pitt in violence, delivered a speech which was greatly admired. But a subsidy of 200,000_l._ had to be voted to the King of Sardinia under the treaty of Worms. This treaty, negotiated by the King and Carteret in Germany independently of the Home Government, was little relished by that Government, and offered a tempting target to the warriors of the Opposition. On a first motion for papers, Pitt was again prominent, though little of his speech survives. Alluding, however, to a secret convention attached to the treaty, which Carteret had signed but which Ministers had refused to ratify, he declared, 'I only wanted the sight of a convention, tacked to the treaty which that audacious hand had signed, to furnish matter for immediate impeachment.' On the actual vote the Government had only a majority of 62. Subsequent unreported debates furnished Pitt with opportunities of denouncing the Pelham brethren as subservient tools of Carteret. But the Government waxed stronger in proportion to the heat of opposition. On a vote of censure they had a majority of 114. Through these discussions Pitt passes like a phantom, foremost by all consent in debate, but without leaving any footprint of speech behind. From these broils Parliament was now distracted by startling intelligence. By message to the House on February 15 (1744) the King apprised his faithful lieges that a French fleet was prowling in the Channel, and that the young Stuart Prince, Charles Edward, had arrived in France to join it. One of our vessels had met this squadron of seventeen men-of-war and four frigates so long ago as January 27, 'half seas over' between Brest and the Land's End, prowling apparently northwards. There was something of a panic: men remembered how the Dutch in 1667 had sailed up the Thames, and apprehended a repetition of that disgrace. The Jacobites began to raise their head, but stocks did not fall. The King's message announced that the 'eldest son of the Pretender to his Crown is arrived in France; and that preparations are making there to invade this kingdom in concert with disaffected persons here.' A loyal address was at once prepared, to which the Opposition moved an addition, promising an inquiry into the state of the Navy. The amendment was, of course, supported by Pitt, and, of course, defeated. But Pitt, as stout an anti-Jacobite as his grandfather, promised his adhesion to the address whether the amendment voted or not; and a few days later, on the presentation of papers, he supported the Government so warmly as to receive the public thanks of Pelham. But for once the interest was not in the Commons but the Lords. Newcastle had laid the papers before the House, and with his usual blundering ineptitude had allowed the House to pass to private business.