in the face a person he had long respected and regarded, and whose aid
was then particularly wanting: I mean Lord Chatham. He did this when he
passed the Declaratory Act.

It is now given out, for the usual purposes, by the usual emissaries,
that Lord Rockingham did not consent to the repeal of this act until he
was bullied into it by Lord Chatham; and the reporters have gone so far
as publicly to assert, in an hundred companies, that the honorable
gentleman under the gallery,[8] who proposed the repeal in the American
committee, had another set of resolutions in his pocket, directly the
reverse of those he moved. These artifices of a desperate cause are at
this time spread abroad, with incredible care, in every part of the
town, from the highest to the lowest companies; as if the industry of
the circulation were to make amends for the absurdity of the report.

Sir, whether the noble lord is of a complexion to be bullied by Lord
Chatham, or by any man, I must submit to those who know him. I confess,
when I look back to that time, I consider him as placed in one of the
most trying situations in which, perhaps, any man ever stood. In the
House of Peers there were very few of the ministry, out of the noble
lord's own particular connection, (except Lord Egmont, who acted, as
far as I could discern, an honorable and manly part,) that did not look
to some other future arrangement, which warped his politics. There were
in both Houses new and menacing appearances, that might very naturally
drive any other than a most resolute minister from his measure or from
his station. The household troops openly revolted. The allies of
ministry (those, I mean, who supported some of their measures, but
refused responsibility for any) endeavored to undermine their credit,
and to take ground that must be fatal to the success of the very cause
which they would be thought to countenance. The question of the repeal