The Duke of Newcastle, apprehending that Murray might skirmish too cautiously with Pitt, and that Fox, though he might combat him, might not much defend his Grace, had selected another champion, who was equal to any Philippic, and whom he would for that purpose have made Paymaster, if Fox had not withstood it. This was Hume Campbell, who for some time had deserted Opposition, and almost Parliament, and had applied himself entirely to his profession of the Law, which he was at once formed to adorn and to suit, for he was eloquent, acute, abusive, corrupt, and insatiable. He began with professing his reverence for the Act of Settlement, as the act of King William, to whom we owed our existence as a Parliament: yet, said he, “the sense of the House should be taken in form on the legality or illegality of the measure: the charge ought to be well made out: if not illegal, _let the House punish the eternal invectives_.” Pitt called him to order, and told him, he thought he was too good a member of Parliament, to describe Debates in that manner. Old Horace Walpole answered, that Pitt ought to be the last man in the House to complain of irregularity. This occasioned much disorder. Pitt said, he had risen to put Hume Campbell in mind of words that struck directly at the liberty of Debate: that he had him in his power if he insisted on taking down the words, but would decline, till he had explained himself. Hume Campbell then continued, in a masterly speech, to censure the unlimited reflections that were daily thrown on the Ministers; adding, that when people made charges on acts of State, they ought to be obliged to make them out. He mentioned Sir William Thompson’s accusation of Lord Lechmere, and other cases, which had been voted scandalous and malicious. Hard would it be, if that House might not resent unjust accusations of our _superiors_. When they happen in crowded houses,[33] strangers take notes, and the abuse is dispersed to the most mischievous purposes. In 1745, invectives scattered there, were transplanted into the Pretender’s manifestos. He lamented their misleading his unhappy countrymen;[34] and owned that he was but too apt to be warm himself.