inquisition, this council of ten, was to sit and examine whatever
persons and papers they should please, and to meet when and where they
pleased. He protested much on its not being intended against _any
person_, but merely to give the King advice, and on this foot they
fought it till ten at night, when Lord Perceval blundered out what they
had been cloaking with so much art, and declared that he should vote for
it as a committee of accusation. Sir Robert immediately rose, and
protested that he should not have spoken, but for what he had heard
last; but that now, he must take it to himself. He pourtrayed the malice
of the Opposition, who, for twenty years, had not been able to touch
him, and were now reduced to this infamous shift. He defied them to
accuse him, and only desired that if they should, it might be in an open
and fair manner; desired no favour, but to be acquainted with his
accusation. He spoke of Mr. Dodington, who had called his administration
infamous, as of a person of great self-mortification, who, for sixteen
years, had condescended to bear part of the odium. For Mr. Pulteney, who
had just spoken a second time, Sir R. said, he had begun the debate with
great calmness, but give him his due, he had made amends for it in the
end. In short, never was innocence so triumphant!

There were several glorious speeches on both sides; Mr. Pulteney's two,
W. Pitt's [Chatham's] and George Grenville's, Sir Robert's, Sir W.
Yonge's, Harry Fox's [Lord Holland's], Mr. Chute's, and the
Attorney-General's [Sir Dudley Ryder]. My friend Coke [Lovel], for the
first time, spoke vastly well, and mentioned how great Sir Robert's
character is abroad. Sir Francis Dashwood replied that he had found
quite the reverse from Mr. Coke, and that foreigners always spoke with
contempt of the Chevalier de Walpole. This was going too far, and he was
called to order, but got off well enough, by saying, that he knew it was
contrary to rule to name any member, but that he only mentioned it as