Fox in reply defended Hume Campbell with spirit, and made ironical retorts to Pitt, some of them now obscure, none of them now pertinent to this narrative. Such speeches become trivial within forty-eight hours of their delivery. The bones of Pitt's preserved by Walpole scarcely claim any better right of survival. To tell the bare truth, what survives of these debates is incomparably tedious and confused. But it is evident that Pitt had amazed the House by disclosing a new weapon, the power of ridicule. 'His antagonists endeavoured to disarm him. But as fast as they deprive him of one weapon, he finds a better. I never suspected him of such an universal armoury; I knew he had a Gorgon's head, composed of bayonets and pistols, but little thought that he could tickle to death with a feather.' Whatever the relative arguments may have been, the legions were faithful, and voted the treaties by 318 to 126. [Sidenote: 1755.] On December 12 the general engagement on the treaties was renewed, when Barrington brought them forward in Committee, and Charles Townshend distinguished himself by a speech which, Pitt declared, displayed such abilities as had not appeared since that House was a House. He himself spoke at length, but poorly and languidly, not deigning to answer Hume Campbell, who once more appeared, with manner and matter both 'flat and mean.' Pitt said, in the few sentences into which Walpole condenses his speech, that he did not pretend to eloquence, but owed all his credit to the indulgence of the House. He looked with respect on the King's prejudices, he added with the finesse of a courtier or the irony of a foe, and with contempt on those who encouraged them. Was everything to be called invective that had not the smoothness of a court compliment? Old Horace Walpole had said that if one spoke against Hanover it might cause a rebellion. That was the chatter of a boarding-school miss. Lord Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole had withstood Hanover. 'Sir Robert thought well of me, died in peace with me. He was a truly English minister, and kept a strict hand on the Closet; when he was removed the door was flung open (to dangerous advisers?). His friends and followers had then transferred themselves to that minister, Lord Granville, who transplanted (_sic_) that English minister. Even Sir Robert's own reverend brother has gone over to the Hanoverian party!'