When Pitt entered the House of Commons, Walpole was at the height of his power. Pitt’s first speech was on the occasion of the marriage of the Prince of Wales in 1736; and, although it consisted mainly of a series of high-sounding compliments, it attracted immediate and universal attention on account of its fine command of language and its general elegance of manner. United with these characteristics was also a vein of irony that made it “gall and wormwood” to the King and to Walpole. The Prince of Wales, as so often has happened in English history, was at the head of the opposition to the government. This opposition had been so strenuous as to provoke the energetic displeasure of the King and of the First Minister. King George’s animosity had gone so far as to forbid the moving of the congratulatory address by the Minister of the Crown. This fact gave to Pitt an opportunity which he turned to immediate account. Though there was not a syllable in the speech that could be regarded as disrespectful or improper, the orator so managed the subject as to give to his compliments all the effect of the keenest irony. His glowing utterances on the “filial virtues” of the son, and the “tender paternal delight” of the father, showed to his astonished auditors that he was concealing under the cover of faultless phrases an able and a dangerous opposition. Walpole was filled with anxiety and alarm. He is said to have remarked: “We must at all events muzzle that terrible cornet of horse.” It is probable that the arts of bribery were attempted in order to win over the young officer; but it is certain that, if the effort was made, it met with failure, for Pitt remained inflexibly attached to the Prince and the opposition. Walpole could at least throw him into disgrace. Within two weeks after his speech, Pitt was deprived of his commission. The effect was what an acute politician should have foreseen. It made the Court more odious; it created a general sympathy for the young orator; it put him at the head of the new party known as the Patriots. Walpole, from this moment, was obliged to assume the defensive, and his power steadily declined till his fall in 1741. It was in a succession of assaults upon Walpole that the great abilities of Pitt forced themselves into universal recognition.