Pitt, 'in one of his finest florid declamations,' seconded the motion for an army of 34,263 men, which was an augmentation of 15,000 men. He would have moved for a larger number, had not Barrington promised to move for more men when he brought in a Bill for the better recruiting of the army, a pledge which seemed to meet the general anxiety of the House. Rigby, who gives us this information, says that Pitt's speech was most violent and abusive, but admits that it was a very fine piece of declamation.[311] Both Walpole and Rigby, it will be observed, use this vigorous substantive to characterise the speech. Pitt again used the language of tenderness and devotion to the King, deplored to see him in his old age, and his kingdom exposed to attack; and even his amiable posterity, _born among us_, sacrificed by unskilful Ministers. The innuendo at the King's foreign birth betrays the sarcasm underlying Pitt's effusive loyalty. One cannot also but suspect that his constant allusions to the venerable age of George II. were not intended to be wholly agreeable to a King who piqued himself on being gay and libertine. 'He then drew a striking and masterly picture of a French invasion reaching London, and of the horror ensuing while there was a formidable enemy within the capital itself, as full of weakness as full of multitude; a flagitious rabble, ready for every nefarious action; of the consternation in the City, where the noble, artificial, yet vulnerable fabric of public credit should crumble in their hands. How would Ministers be able to meet the aspect of so many citizens dismayed? How could men so guilty meet their countrymen?' The King's Speech of last year, he continued, had been calculated to lull the country into repose. Had His Majesty's Ministers not sufficient understanding, or foresight, or virtue, he repeated the words that they might not again be misquoted, to lay before him the real danger? Elsewhere, where the King himself had the slightest suspicion even of a fancied danger, we knew what vast preparations had been made. Did the subjects of his kingdom lack that prudent foresight which his subjects of the electorate possessed in so eminent a degree? Alas! that he should live to see a British Parliament so unequal to its duties. There were but ten thousand men left in England. Not half that number would be available to defend the royal family and the metropolis. 'Half security is full danger.'