Fox with great spirit took up the defence of Hume Campbell, who willingly abandoned it to him. “The honourable gentleman,” said he, “has nothing to answer to two such speeches but to say that he is astonished. What! nothing to so long a series of treaties as had been quoted! was it no argument that those treaties had been so debated, and had been signed by men of the greatest and most unblemished characters? Mr. Pitt’s, indeed, had been guarded, but they had been most personal invectives. Yet he would not, said he, have uttered them, unless personally called on--how was he personally called on? _Eternal invectives_ were the words--he is a great master of invective, but is he the sole person who wages it? Hume Campbell had spoken of his _superiors_ as an individual. Who has no _superiors_? Though _distinctions_ were now so condemned, he could remember endeavours to create _distinctions_ between Hanoverians and Englishmen, on our taking those troops into our pay: they were accursed distinctions; and the weakest conceivable, if attempted by persons who wished well to the present establishment. However we were improved, we did not improve in invectives. He hoped Ministers would never say they should be punished: let the gentlemen amuse themselves with them! they had lost their force; the people know to what they tend, by discoveries made and repeated within these fifteen years: they had been tried ineffectually on this occasion. In 1726, if Hanover was not comprehended in the word _States_, it was not included at all: the _distinction_ was Pitt’s. Germans and Russians must by _States_ understand Hanover. Would not Murray have been to blame, if he had not spoken with precision on treaties? Lord Ducie retained 200 men in arms during the late Rebellion; did he levy war? He hoped the Ministers would be disculpated from the accusation of levying war on Prussia, by hindering him from levying war! How were the Bavarian and Saxon treaties applauded, though concluded during the recess and without consent of Parliament, and the money advanced! He would do nothing to prevent invectives being used; and he hoped the King’s Ministers had _virtue and understanding_ enough not to mind them!”