Charles Townshend at the first shock was thunderstruck;[56] they had been his own words to Lord Egmont, had been faithfully treasured in Fox’s accurate memory, and were brought out with all the art and severity imaginable; but in a moment Townshend recovered himself, struck his hand on his forehead as feeling the impulse of conception, and starting up, replied with inimitable spirit and quickness, “That every one saw whither those prepared observations pointed; he took them to himself--and what had been the case? Lord Egmont had complained of the civil government of the colonies, and of the instructions to Sir Danvers Osborn, which I, I advised, and which, cried he, I am ready to fight over. I never complained of _civil_ oppression--I _am_ ready to meet Fox and his _aide-de-camp_ Lord Egmont--the oppression I mean is in the _military_. The soldiers have been promised rewards--they have been kept in garrison contrary to promise--have I made out the distinction? If I have, then I say this is an unmanly attack on a young man.” Fox’s friends called out, “Order! order!” Townshend rejoined, “Order! order! unmanly! is that disorderly? Upon my word, these are the nicest feelings in Xerxes’s troops that ever I knew.” This flash of wit put a whole majority out of countenance. A grain less of parts, or a scruple more of modesty, had silenced Townshend for ever. “Fox,” continued he, “cries, ‘What! hear Bollan on the Act of Settlement!’ he chose to enter on no other part of my argument--and then he talked of mutability--there was forage and joking for the troops!” Fox with great art observed what satisfaction it gave him to hear that there was no oppression in the civil government; and thus pinned down Charles Townshend from producing a detail of grievances that he had prepared on American affairs. The rest of the Debate was most indifferent, or could not avoid appearing so: 213 against 82 voted against hearing Bollan. The Opposition then tried by four divisions to prevent the prosecution of the Bill in the Committee; but the Ministry persisting in making no further answers, at past eleven at night Pitt and his followers walked out, and the only blank in the Bill was filled up, as Lord George Sackville proposed, with the words _fifty officers and twenty engineers_.