On the 5th of December, Lord Chatham moved a resolution, (which was rejected by 52 to 20,) the purport of which was, that the capacity of being chosen a member of Parliament was ascertained by law, and could not be set aside by any separate branch of the legislature. Lord Camden supported the motion, but declaring he stood unconnected with, and unattached to, any man.[122] Lord Mansfield, to soften his dreaded adversary, Lord Chatham, paid many compliments to him on his support of pressing; but, on his having urged the necessity of dissolving the Parliament, represented to him the impropriety of such a tempestuous measure at the beginning of a war; yet no war was begun, and, from the long suspense, men began to conclude that no war would be declared. The Spanish Ambassador was assiduous at Court, was affectedly caressed there, and made no preparations for departing. But, though Lord Mansfield thus deprecated the wrath of Lord Chatham, the indignation of the friends of freedom was not so appeased. Serjeant Glynn moved for an examination into the conduct of the King’s Bench, and Alderman Oliver named Lord Mansfield as the author of the grievances from that Court. The House sat till near one in the morning, but the question was lost by 75 against 180.[123] The next day, Colonel Onslow complained to the House, and read, from a magazine called the London Museum, a copy of a letter sent by the Society of the Bill of Rights to the Colonies, (signed by Serjeant Glynn amongst others,) which almost invited them to rebel, and was a strong libel on the Parliament.[124] The King, in his speech, had specified parts of the colony of Massachusett’s Bay as guilty of very illegal practices and violences, _though he had confessed[125] that, in most of the other Colonies, the people had begun to depart from their combinations against the mother country. New York, in particular, had refused to concur in them._ The next day, an augmentation of twelve thousand men to the army was voted, a wise measure, as preparation for war is the best preventive. Yet had we reason to depend on the pacific disposition of the French Prime Minister. In a great council held at Versailles, the Abbé du Terray, Comptroller-General, a personal enemy of Choiseul, proposed to join with Spain in the war, (either to sound Choiseul’s intentions, or thinking him not inclined to war,) and engaged to find the necessary funds. He was supported by his instigator, the Chancellor Maupeou; but the Duc de Choiseul, (either suspecting a trap, or to pay court to his master, who was most averse to the war,) with great ability, knowledge, and eloquence, proved so irrefragably the impossibility of finding money sufficient, that the Comptroller-General confessed himself convinced by the Duke’s arguments.