Parliament met on January 9, 1770. It was a critical time: at home discontent was widespread; the American colonies were disaffected; war with France and Spain seemed not far off. The king's speech recommended attention to American affairs and hinted at the unfriendly attitude of foreign courts, but took no notice of domestic discontents, and gave prominence to an outbreak of distemper among "horned cattle". The cattle plague was a matter of serious national concern; yet the speech was insufficient for the occasion; it was, Junius declared, the speech of "a ruined grazier". It showed that the ministers intended to ignore the signs of popular indignation. Chatham moved, as an amendment to the address, that the lords would inquire into the causes of the prevailing discontents and specially into the matter of the Middlesex election. "The people," he said, "demand redress, and depend upon it, my lords, that one way or other they will have redress;" and he attributed their discontent to the action of the commons in Wilkes's case. Camden followed, and declared that he had beheld the arbitrary acts of the ministry with silent indignation, that he would no longer keep silence, and was of the same opinion as Chatham. Mansfield opposed the amendment on the ground that it infringed upon the right of the commons to be sole judges of elections and might lead to a quarrel between the two houses. Chatham said that he reverenced the constitutional authority of the commons, but they had gone beyond it, they had betrayed their constituents and violated the constitution. He ended with a declamation exhorting the peers to act as became descendants of the barons of Magna Charta (how many of them could trace descent from so noble a source?) and like "those iron barons, for so," said he, "I may call them when compared with the silken barons of modern days," to defend the rights of the people at large. His amendment was negatived. The address was carried in the lords by 203 to 36, and in the commons after a hot debate by 254 to 138.