On the 16th, the King’s speech was read to the Commons, when Lord Caernarvon[382] and Lord Frederick Campbell moved the Address. Pitt made an obscure speech, parts of which seemed to aim at explaining his conduct in the late negotiation; but all that could be gathered from it was, that he had not excommunicated the Peace-makers, nor the Tories; that he had aimed most at Lord Mansfield, and that he took up the Whigs, but not as enemies to prerogative.[383] He could not allow, he said, the words _safe and honourable Peace_ in the Address; he did not think it was either; it was _durante bene placito_ of France and Spain: yet as the Address precluded nobody from speaking their sentiment afterwards, he should let the words pass. For himself, no minister could know less what to do with the Peace; nor did any man more bid adieu to the political world than he did. He was against reviving party-names; but if dissension arose on principles, he must again become a party-man. Grenville taking hold of Beckford’s objecting to the proclamation for settling America, made artful advantage of the opportunity to show the great pains taken by the Ministry to settle our conquests and colonies, and to regulate the finances at home. In one article they had struck off 250,000_l._ of the demands made from Germany. He then expatiated on the profusion of the war, and attacked Pitt strongly without reserve or fear. The Address was voted without a negative. The farther hearing on Wilkes was deferred on account of his wound.[384] After the debate Pitt had a meeting with the Dukes of Newcastle, Devonshire, and their friends, and insisted on their supporting Chief Justice Pratt’s opinion in behalf of privilege against Mr. Yorke, who had declared that Wilkes’s case was not within the pale of privilege. During these transactions, the King, after keeping the bishoprick of Osnabrugh open near three years, contrary to the custom, which allows but six months, bestowed it on his son, a new-born child,[385] before it was christened. The Duke of York[386] had thought it his due, and not without reason. It could not be conferred on the Prince of Wales; nor was there much equity in reserving it for a son that might be born. The interest of the family and of the Protestant cause, too, seemed to point out the Duke, as an infant liable to so many accidents might, if born, soon fail, and then the turn would revolve to the Papists; even a minor in possession was favourable too, to that party, for of the revenue, which is about 25,000_l._ a year, only 2000_l._ belong to the Bishop till he is eighteen, and the rest is divided amongst the Popish chapter. But the Queen, who began to get weight with her husband in German affairs, prevailed to reserve for, and then to grant this great provision to, a child of her own; and the Duke of York’s little reverence for his mother, and antipathy to the Favourite, excluded him from a grace for which he had so much occasion. CHAPTER XXIII.