'But[307] he asks why I did not call out sooner. _My_ calling out was more likely to defeat than promote. When I remonstrated for more seamen, I was called an enemy to Government: now I am told that I want to strew the King's pillow with thorns: am traduced, aspersed, calumniated from morning to night. _I_ would have warned the King: did _he_? If he with his sense and spirit had represented to the King the necessity of augmentation, it would have been made--but what! if there is any man so wicked--don't let it be reported that I say there is--as to procrastinate the importing troops from Ireland, in order to make subsidiary forces necessary.[308] This whole summer I have been looking for Government. I saw none. Thank God, His Majesty was not here. The trade of France has been spared sillily, there has been dead stagnation. Orders contradicting one another were the only symptoms of spirit. When His Majesty returned, his kingdom was delivered back to him more like a wreck than as a vessel able to stem the storm. Perhaps a little sustentation of life to the country will be obtained by a wretched peace. These are my sentiments, and when a man has truth on his side, he is not to be overborne by quick interrogatories. It may be presumed, and indeed confidently hoped, that this was not Pitt's actual speech, though Walpole gives it as the very words. They are probably only heads. He continued with softening expressions to Fox. Want of virtue was the characteristic not merely of the Government but of the age. He himself was glad to show a zeal not inferior to that of ministers; let them show him how to serve the King, and then let them, if they could, tax him with strewing the royal pillow with thorns. But what were their own services? Murray indeed had boasted that 140,000 of the best troops in Europe were provided for the defence of--what? of Hanover. But what of England? What of the Colonies? Compare the countries, compare the forces destined for the defence of each! Two miserable battalions of Irish, who scarcely ever saw one another, had been sent to America as to the shambles. If his comparison of forces for Hanover and for the Empire was exaggerated, he would be glad to be told his error. Fox kept his temper, and remained on the defensive. He not unnaturally commented on the disorderliness of Pitt's speech to order. He did not 'on his honour' know what was the offer which Pitt had rejected. He himself had waited till everybody had refused, passing the summer at Holland House, as happy as any man in Parliament. He was in favour of the subsidies, and when that was known he was told 'Then support them'; and so he did. When his opinion changed he should leave office. He wished all evil might befall him if he had injured Pitt with the King, for he thought nothing so dishonourable as to accuse a man where he could not defend himself.