29th.--Lord Harley, seconded by Northey, made a Motion for declaring against subsidiary treaties in time of peace. It occasioned a warm Debate; and Prowse, escaping from his usual plausibility, said, that he could discover no symptoms of economy in the Administration, though indeed they had enforced it, for by lowering interest, and by the land-tax of three shillings, both landed and monied men were reduced to be economists. Beckford, Fazakerley, Sir Roger Newdigate, Morton, Sydenham, Cooke, Delaval, and Sir Walter Blacket, spoke for the Motion: Hampden against it, but with a sneer, said, that he approved _bribing electors_, as he saw _by other instances_ how it had contributed to quash opposition. Mitchell taxed old Horace Walpole with his unparliamentary behaviour, in speaking on one side and voting on the other. The Solicitor-General, Sir Henry Erskine, Nugent, Ellis, Tracy, and Sir William Yonge, all opposed the Motion; and lastly, Mr. Pelham, who seized the opportunity of venting the anguish he had felt the day before in the House of Lords (which from that day he never attended more), and of abusing with much bitterness and ability the Duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich. The Motion was rejected by 180 to 52. After the Debate, Mr. Pelham asked Fox, if he had gone too far in invectives. “No,” answered Fox, “as they began; though you originally gave the provocation.” “Oh! Fox,” replied he, “you did not feel for me, as I should for you in the same circumstances!” In the beginning of February, Lord Cardigan was appointed Governor of Windsor Castle, and was succeeded as Chief Justice in Eyre by the Duke of Somerset. 4th.--Died Sir John Cotton; the last Jacobite of any sensible activity. 21st.--Sir John Barnard, whose popularity had suffered by the share he had had in reducing the interest of the public debt to three per cent., made a proposal to tie down six hundred thousand pounds a year of the Sinking Fund, from the year 1758, towards discharging the whole national incumbrance. Beckford supported him; but Mr. Pelham and the Solicitor-General opposing it, his scheme was rejected without a division. We shall see him afterwards addressing himself to his lost popularity with more success, and as it often happens, on a worse foundation.