On the 6th there was a good debate[423] on Wilkes’s complaint of breach of privilege, when Sir W. Meredith and Sir George Saville defended themselves against the imputation of want of candour, in having made their motion late in a thin House; the former proving that many violent questions had been proposed seven hours later than theirs had been. He moved for the warrant on which Wilkes had been apprehended, and for the information on which it had been grounded. To avoid the demand, Sir John Philipps moved the previous question, declaring that he meant to discharge the complaint. Lord Strange was at first for having the warrant produced; but soon retracted, and said the complaint ought to be discharged, as the suit was depending at common law--an argument that had been pressed on the Ministers when Wilkes’s expulsion was agitated, and which they then had refused to admit. I have more than once, in the former part of these Memoirs, touched on the character of Lord Strange, as a man acting on notions of his own, unwedded to any faction, and above temptations of money. He had, however, been gained by Fox to the Court, in the present reign, by the offer of the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the county where his estate and interest lay. The large number of places in the disposal of that officer, could gratify his passion for sway in his own province; so true was the maxim of Sir Robert Walpole, that _every man has his price_; and so judiciously was this office held out to Lord Strange; for though he accepted the post on the views I have mentioned, he nobly refused to take the annexed salary of 1200_l._ a year. He seldom afterwards differed with the successive administrations, but rarely attended Parliament.