Thus far the Debate was serious: will it be credited that the following speech was so? Will not my narrative be sometimes thought a burlesque romance? as Don Quixote had his Sancho, and Hudibras his Ralph, may not some future commentator discover, that the Duke of Newcastle was my trembling hero, and Nugent his abandoned squire? This modest personage replied to Pitt, that he thought the Administration wise and honest; that he did not think there was a more honest set of men. Could Pitt have said more, if all had happened that he thinks will? Everything was exaggerated, yet nothing had been done wrong. That he would defend the Ministry till five in the morning. Though engaged against the greatest power in the universe, in every part of the universe, have we proved weak? That this foolish--Pitt objecting that he had not used that term, Nugent continued,--he thought he had used every epithet in the English language--well then! this weak and ignorant Administration had contrived to oppose a superiority of force, and had miscarried but in one place. That he did not wonder Pitt expected everything from _this_ Administration--but he expected more. That though the censure had been so unjust, he could not help knowing at whom it was aimed: but great history-painters are often very bad portrait-painters: he must own he knew who was meant; professed himself a friend to that great man: _vowed_ he never heard any doubt of who ought to be First Minister--but, like the dedication of the Tale of the Tub to Lord Somers, all men agreed in the Duke of Newcastle. France never made so pitiful a figure as against this Administration. Pitt’s were but assertions; _his_ assertions were as good; he would say, the Duke of Newcastle was honest and wise. The burlesque increased; Sir Thomas Robinson played a base to Nugent’s thunder; his pompous rumbling made proper harmony with the other’s vociferation. The latter had exhausted flattery on another man; Sir Thomas contrived to be as bombast in a panegyric on himself. He said, he had been banished[29] for eighteen years, without a friend to communicate with; with no opportunity of practising eloquence, with no university education--yet he must speak, as complicated in the charge on the Administration of the last twelve months. He cried out, “_Me, me adsum qui feci, in me convertite telum!_ If I am proper for anything, continued he, I am for the closet: I am proper for it from my courage, from my virtue, do not say for my understanding. I have enjoyed a happier year and half than ever I knew, for I have spoken my mind. Why should I not have dared to speak my mind in the closet, when I have dared to speak it here? Men took courage from what I said; virtue was out of my mouth. _Et dubitamus adhuc virtutem extendere factis?_ Why is forgot what we have done by sea? We have acted _fortiter in re, suaviter in modo_.”