there was no Minister to carry it through. These difficulties were increased by a rage for stock-jobbing that had seized all ranks of men. It was more shameful, that above sixty members who were to sit in judgment on the Company, were known to be engaged in that dirty practice. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself was vehemently suspected of having caught the contagion.[332] The day of expectation arrived at last, March the 6th--but ended in smoke. As Lord Chatham’s plan was to be content with nothing the Company could offer, that he might at last get the whole into his hands, or reduce them by force to cede a much larger portion of their revenues than he could expect they would offer till driven to that necessity, he had eagerly rejected the plan presented by them to the Treasury; and Beckford now, to obtain from the House disapprobation of those offers, moved to have all papers, that had passed between the Government and the Company for the last six months, laid before the House. This motion, which had the sanction of the Ministry, for it was seconded by Colonel Fitzroy, was not only disapproved of by the Opposition, (who treated it as a measure of delay in Beckford, during the ill-humour of his friend Lord Chatham, and as a matter nugatory, since the paper being only an offer from the Treasurer of the Company to the Treasury, it was not an act of the General Court, and could consequently be disavowed by the proprietors,) but was objected to by Charles Townshend too, as the measure was incomplete; questions, he said, being asked on the proposals, and answers still more obscure returned. And to show his dissatisfaction, he desired the House to consider him as a private Member of Parliament. Conway, with more decency, let it be perceived that he was not much better content; however, to disculpate his friend the Duke of Grafton, he said, the Duke had warned the directors that the paper would come before Parliament, nor would accept it till they allowed of that condition. His own opinion, he said, he would not declare. He understood the proposal as yet was neither rejected nor accepted. He wished not to see the paper in the House, till either rejected or accepted; lamented the step taken, but could not obstruct it. Charles Yorke vindicated the Company. Grenville, Burke, and Wedderburne treated Chatham and Beckford with scorn, and laboured to raise a spirit against the idea of force to be put on the Company, and to baffle any benefit being received by the Government. In the midst of the debate, the military and naval chiefs, by their posts members of the Cabinet, but with all their merits very incompetent judges of state affairs, and still worse qualified to engage in the subtleties of a Parliamentary discussion,--both, I say, Lord Granby and Sir Edward Hawke blabbed out the secret which the Ministers were veiling, and which even the treachery and loquacity of Townshend had not dared openly to disclose. Lord Granby told the House