The Parliament had opened on the first of December in the last year; and, as if to notify honestly, that Germany would not be proscribed by Mr. Pitt, the King’s Speech talked openly of the defence of his Majesty’s dominions of Britain and _elsewhere_. By that little word _elsewhere_, Hanover was incorporated into the very language of Parliament. Lord Westmoreland, in the Lords, spoke with applause against re-echoing Addresses, and universal submission to a Minister. In the Commons, Mr. Fox was absent on the death of his favourite nephew, Lord Digby; and _elsewhere_ passed as if a phrase of course, like the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Yet on the 14th, when Lord Barrington, on delivering the estimate of the Army, had complaisantly reverberated the word _elsewhere_, Mr. Pitt himself said, he did not agree with his Lordship in that term; he meant the Army for our immediate selves. He had never been against continental measures when practicable; but would not now send a drop of our blood to the Elbe, to be lost in that ocean of gore. Other parts of this speech, admired almost beyond any of his orations, were so fine, and so bombast, that I must just mention a few, though I do not intend to fatigue the reader with more speeches: those I have given are sufficient to illustrate our oratory. Sir John Philipps had spoken dully, Beckford wildly, dropping this expression, “He did not know in what hands we were.” Lord George Sackville had made the apology of Lord Loudun, whose idle conduct in America was much censured; yet where Lord George wished to have him remain, lest, on a change of commanders, he himself should be named. Pitt said, “In what hands were we?--in those of a most gracious King:” on whom he made a panegyric, and of which the least part was not his Majesty’s goodness to him since he last took the Seals. How the King had listened even to him, though least in Administration--though least, he hoped to continue in it with honour: and he spoke of the great concord among the Ministers. But nothing could be well till the Army was subjected to the civil power: they were to obey, not to reason. Those sent on the late expedition had laughed at it even at table--nay, so had some of the Cabinet. He warmed himself on this topic, though he knew, he said, he ought not, as the commander was actually under trial. On Lord Loudun he kept no measures at all, but loaded him with all the asperity peculiar to his style--he had scarce any hopes now, though the people paid such an army in America: not only nothing was done--nothing was attempted. We had lost all the waters; we had not a boat on them now. Every door there was open to France. Though Lord George had excused, he could not; he would not condemn, yet he believed against Lord Loudun, who might have recovered our affairs if he had not loitered from the 9th of July to the 5th of August, inquiring whether or no the French were superior: indeed, for himself, our ill success had hurt his quiet