On the meeting of Parliament in November of the same year Newcastle at once moved to repeal it. It had only been, he said in his silly jargon, a 'point of political policy,' and as it had aroused agitation in the public it had better be repealed. Foote recalled this slipshod phrase in his comical portrait of the Duke. 'The honour,' says Matthew Mug, 'I this day solicit will be to me the most honourable honour that can be conferred.' Pitt supported the repeal in a speech on which his admirers would not desire to dwell. He was still in favour of the Act, but should vote for its repeal, because the people wished it, having been misled by the 'old High Church persecuting spirit' into believing that religion was concerned in the matter, which was not the fact, therefore an explanatory preamble was necessary. 'In the present case we ought to treat the people as a prudent father would treat his child; if a peevish, perverse boy should insist on something that was not quite right but of such a nature as, when granted, could not be attended with any very bad consequence, an indulgent father would comply with the humour of his child, but at the same time he would let him know that he did so merely out of complaisance, and not because he approved of what the child insisted on.'[206] Whether this would or would not be the wisest course of parental discipline it is not necessary to discuss, but it was in the spirit of the practice that prevailed in the Fox family rather than in that of the Pitts. The repeal was passed with the preamble of admonition. This reluctant, ironical support was all that Pitt gave his colleagues. It cannot indeed be doubted that throughout these three lean years of silence he was hostile to the Ministry. Promises had probably been made on his first accession to office which he thought had been ill-kept. He had been told, no doubt, that every effort would be made to make him more acceptable to the King, and he might well doubt if there had been much strenuous effort in that direction. And indeed a topic so sure to excite the royal spleen was not likely to be raised except under the pressure of absolute necessity. At any rate there had been no result. 'The Pitts and Lytteltons are grown very mutinous on the Newcastle's not choosing Pitt for his colleague,' writes Horace Walpole six weeks after the Prince's death. For Bedford was known to be doomed by Newcastle, and his Secretaryship of State would soon be vacant. There were many aspirants for the succession, but no whisper of Pitt. Cobham, who had been his main supporter, was dead;[207] no one could speak with so much authority on his behalf; and even had Cobham survived he would probably have been silent.