Lord Strange followed and brought up Pitt. He defended the peace, which indeed was not difficult, in a speech eminently discreet, ministerial, and conciliatory. No one could discover in it any germ of the policy he was destined afterwards to pursue with such triumphant success. But he cast an interesting light on the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 'If there be any secret in the late affairs of Europe,' he said, 'it is in the question how it was possible for our ministers to obtain so good a peace as they did. For I must confess that when the French laid siege to Maestricht in the beginning of 1748, I had such a gloomy prospect of affairs that I thought it next to impossible to preserve our friends the Dutch from the imminent ruin they were then threatened with, or to maintain the present Emperor upon the imperial throne.'[189] Though he had thus already spoken, he wound up the debate for the Ministry, and did so with equal discretion. [Sidenote: Aug. 3-14, 1750.] This was in February 1750. He seems to have spoken no more that session, but in August Pelham wrote to his brother: 'I think him the most able and useful man we have among us, truly honourable and strictly honest. He is as firm a friend to us as we can wish for, and a more useful one does not exist.'[190] Such an eulogy, offered in confidence by a Prime Minister, a reticent, unemotional man, seems to us a great mark and epoch in Pitt's career. Not 'the most brilliant,' not 'the most eloquent,' not 'the most intrepid,' as we should have expected, but 'the most useful, able, and strictly honest.' Pitt had earned this praise by exertions which were not visible to the outer world. It often happens that there is a member of Government whose merits do not appeal to the public, who is no orator, who passes no measures, whose conversation does not attract, and whose position in an administration is a puzzle to the outer world. And yet perhaps his colleagues regard him as invaluable. He is probably the peacemaker, the man who walks about dropping oil into the machinery, and preventing injurious friction. This had recently been Pitt's position. He had been diligently and unobtrusively trying to keep the Government together. This was not so easy as it would seem; for though the brothers Pelham had arranged it to their will when they ejected Carteret, the morbid and intolerable jealousies of Newcastle prevented any ease. Did other subjects of intrigue and irritation fail he would quarrel with his brother, for when all else was serene it would secretly chafe him that his junior should be in the first place and he only in the second. Henry himself, it may be noted, seems to have been both blameless and placable on these occasions, but naturally bored. The elder brother would begin whimpering and whining to Hardwicke, his prop and confidant. Hardwicke would soothe him as a sick baby is soothed, eventually his tears would be dried, and he would begin burrowing and intriguing in some other direction.