On the 19th the Parliament met, and the King acquainted both Houses with the new war he had undertaken; a ceremonial decorated by the Favourite himself, who, as if he had wrenched the thunderbolt out of Mr. Pitt’s hands only to wield it himself with mightier vigour, now harangued the Parliament for the first time. Every preparative of pomp, attitude, and lofty language were called in to make him worthy of himself. His admirers were in ecstacies; the few that dared to sneer at his theatric fustian, did not find it quite so ridiculous as they wished. It was enough for the former that their god was not dumb, and there was no danger that he would familiarize himself too often with the multitude. He affected to adopt parliamentary measures, and to wish that all the negotiations with Spain might be laid before them; graciously promising to beseech the King that not only papers might be produced, but that the Cabinet-councillors themselves might be permitted to divulge the opinions they had given. This was a puny piece of chicane, the Ministers endeavouring to prove that the hostilities of Spain were subsequent in date to the period in which Mr. Pitt found it advisable from their conduct to attack the Spaniards. He had early detected their league with France, and was not of a humour to weigh dates against facts, or memorials against combinations. Nor Hardwicke’s forms nor Mansfield’s subtleties could persuade the seeing part of mankind that a war at our doors ought to be treated with the same literal circumspection as an action of trespass or battery at common law.