The House of Commons, in which Mr. Walpole first sat, was the one that overturned his father’s Administration. In the very first week of the session, the Minister was left in a minority. He still, however, kept his place, and so nearly were parties balanced, that for two months he maintained, with alternate victories and reverses, a contest with his adversaries. At length, secretly betrayed by some of his colleagues, who had entered into private engagements with his enemies, and defeated in an election question, which had been made a trial of strength between Ministry and Opposition, he retired from office, and became Earl of Orford. His son Horace, though exempt from ambition, was roused by his father’s danger, and, while the struggle lasted, took a lively interest in all that passed. In his letters, he gives an entertaining and not uncandid account of the Debates that took place, and communicates freely to his Correspondent the hopes and fears, the good and bad success of his party; his anticipations of their strength in the different questions as they arose, are followed by his explanations of their failures, as far as he could account for them at the time; the desertion and falling off of their friends are stigmatized as they occurred, with the severity such conduct deserved; and when Sir Robert was compelled to resign, his son records with satisfaction the successful efforts used to secure him from the vengeance of his enemies, by disuniting the parties coalesced against him, and rendering them odious to the public, and hostile to one another. But, though assiduous in his attendance on Parliament during this period, and sincerely anxious for his father, Mr. Walpole, who had no turn for public speaking, once and once only addressed the House. It was on a motion of Lord Limerick, seconded by Sir John St. Aubin, to appoint a Committee of Inquiry into the conduct of Robert, Earl of Orford, during the last ten years of his Administration.[5] A similar motion to inquire generally into the conduct of affairs at home and abroad for the last twenty, had been made and rejected a fortnight before.[6] The selection of this occasion for his maiden speech, did credit to the judgment and feelings of Mr. Walpole; and, though there is little force in his arguments against the motion, there is modesty, right feeling, and some happiness, both of thought and expression, in what he said. The speech, as he delivered it, is preserved in his Correspondence; and as it has no sort of resemblance to the speech published in his name by the London Magazine, and since reprinted in the Parliamentary History, we subjoin it for the satisfaction of our readers. The report of it, given by Mr. Walpole himself the day after it was made, is as follows:-- “Mr. Speaker,