The suspicions of the public that war must ensue were increased on the 24th at night, all officers being suddenly ordered to their posts, and Lord Howe appointed Commander of the squadron in the Mediterranean. Yet we had not above sixteen ships manned, and the regiments were very incomplete. Happily the navy of Spain was as ill provided with men, and in no condition to profit by our defenceless position. At the same time arrived the new Ambassador from France, the Comte de Guines,--a symptom, at least, that Choiseul, to whom he was attached, was desirous we should believe that France intended peace. The negotiation, however, remained in the hands of Monsieur Francés, as more conversant with the preceding transaction. This was a very shrewd artful man, who had privately, some time before his public appearance, lived here unknown for three years, in which time he made himself master of our language and affairs. He was the confidential creature of Choiseul. Still was not Wilkes or the Middlesex election forgotten. Mr. Phipps moved in the House of Commons for leave to bring in a bill to correct informations _ex officio_. Dunning and Wedderburne supported the motion; but it was rejected by 150 to 70.[120] It was not to the honour of the popular hero (Wilkes) that he was at this time cast in a suit brought against him by a French jeweller whom he had defrauded of jewels at Paris. A season of such warmth naturally produced many personalities in Parliament. Charles Fox, the rising genius of the time, had a gross altercation with Wedderburne on an amendment proposed to Mr. Grenville’s bill for regulating elections, in which the House was forced to interpose, and obliged both to ask pardon for their intemperance. A parallel adventure happened among the Lords in a debate for continuing the prohibition of exporting corn, when the Duke of Richmond saying that their chamber was reduced to sit only for registering the dictates of the Crown, or for concurring with the decrees of the Commons, Lord Halifax rose with much heat, said it was a false accusation, and he would never hear such words. It was true that the Chancellor Hardwicke had governed that assembly with solemn decency, and, by his own authority, and that of the Pelhams, had restrained much of the liberty of debate; yet not long before, John Duke of Argyle, and others at other periods, had not suffered themselves to be manacled by such formality. It is as true, on the other hand, that the House of Lords being an assembly far less numerous than the Commons, is less turbulent and more observant of decorum. The nobility, too, are by principle more devoted to the Crown, and having less occasion to make their fortunes by eloquence and the cultivation of talents (though not less corrupt) than the Commons, acquiesce from inability to the dictates of two or three eminent lawyers, whom the Crown occasionally raises to the peerage, after preferring them to the Great Seal or to the posts of Chief Justices.