Two parties in the House supported the motions; Admiral Berkeley, Mr. Wilberforce, and others, because they agreed with Mr. Pitt in condemning the measures of the Admiralty; Mr. Fox and his friends, because they considered that an inquiry would redound most highly to the credit of Earl St. Vincent. They contended that ministers opposed it only to screen their notorious incapacity under the shelter of his great name. On the other hand, Admiral Sir Charles Pole, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Addington, Captain Markham, and others, supported Mr. Tierney, and confirmed all his statements. Nothing, it was said, could afford a stronger proof how enormous were the abuses which Earl St. Vincent had corrected, than the argument of Mr. Pitt and his friends, that men-of-war could not be built in the King's yards, although 3,200 men were employed in them; and it was known that forty-five shipwrights could build a seventy-four in a year. Four hundred of the men discharged had been receiving six shillings a day for doing nothing. Blockmakers' and coopers' work, for which 2,000_l._ had been paid, was proved upon a survey to be worth only 200_l._ As to the gun-boats alluded to, which were built by contract in the last war, they were so bad, that eighty-seven out of a hundred-and-twenty had been sold by public advertisement for almost nothing. The men-of-war launched from private yards had been the ruin of the navy. Three of them went to Portugal, and were found so defective that it was necessary to send them home, with a frigate for convoy. The arrangements for the naval defence of the country were most admirable and complete, and if there were any delay in building the twenty-three gun-vessels ordered by the Admiralty, it was because no dependence was placed upon that description of force. It would be folly to meet the enemy with the inferior weapons which necessity obliged him to employ, when we possessed a more powerful arm in our heavy men-of-war and frigates. The depth of water would allow these to act close to our very shores; and if the enemy's flotilla should venture out, Captain Markham, Sir Edward Pellew, Sir Thomas Troubridge, or any officer known in our naval records, would, with a single seventy-four, shoot through and sink a crowd of their contemptible craft. Ministers obtained a majority of 201 against 130; a most triumphant result for Earl St. Vincent, considering the character of his accuser, and the grounds upon which Mr. Fox and his friends voted for the motions.