This answer being reported to the Council, who had obtained the King’s permission to make the overture, gave great offence, particularly to Newcastle, who found himself proscribed; and to Rockingham, who cared not whether he were proscribed or not, if he was to be divested of the Treasury. It was warmly decided that it would wound the King’s honour to send any more messages to a man who had thus often rejected his Majesty’s condescension. But though this message had been suffered, it had by no means had the King’s approbation, who now no longer wished that Mr. Pitt should unite with the present Ministers; and it was as little his intention to bind himself by the rules they prescribed to his honour. He did not despair of gaining Mr. Pitt alone and unconnected, who, the King and the Favourite flattered themselves, would be more complaisant than either of the factions. If indulged in his foreign plans, he was less likely than any man to interfere in the scheme of domestic power. Anything was to be sacrificed to accommodate the Favourite, to save his creatures, and to preserve his influence. Could that be maintained, the Crown would be rewarded with new extension of the prerogative. This reciprocal view was the key to all the secrets of the closet, was the source of all the indignities past, of the disgraceful fluctuation that ensued, and of all the humiliations that fell on the King himself, who unfortunately had been taught to prefer a forced authority to that which flows, and was so disposed to flow, from the love of his subjects. On the 14th of January the Houses met. Lord Villiers[219] and Mr. Thomas Townshend moved the Addresses. Seymour and Bamber Gascoyne, Nugent and Stanley, attacked the Ministers for their want of spirit against the Americans, and for suffering the authority of Parliament to be called in question by the rebellious Colonies. “The tax,” said Stanley, “was not a twentieth part of what they could afford to pay; but that was not the point: he had rather have a peppercorn to acknowledge our sovereignty, than millions paid into the Treasury without it.” As he was speaking, Mr. Pitt appeared in the House, and took the first opportunity of opening his mind, not only on the Stamp Act, but on the general situation of affairs. Though he had on other occasions, perhaps, exerted more powers of eloquence (though he was much admired now even in that light), yet the novelty and boldness of his doctrines, the offence he gave by them at home, and the delirium which they excited in America, made his speech rank in celebrity with his most famous orations. For these reasons, and as the repeal of the Stamp Act was the last great question on which he figured in the House of Commons, I shall be more particular in the detail of it, having received authentic notes from one that was present at the delivery, and therefore more to be depended on than the printed copy.[220]