was moved that leave should be given to bring in a bill according
to the prayer of the petition; the motion was carried by a
hundred and seventy-five votes to a hundred and forty-eight; and
the whole question of the trade with the Eastern seas was
reopened. The bill was brought in, but was, with great difficulty
and by a very small majority, thrown out on the second reading.17
On other financial questions Montague, so lately the oracle of
the Committee of Supply, was now heard with malevolent distrust.
If his enemies were unable to detect any flaw in his reasonings
and calculations, they could at least whisper that Mr. Montague
was very cunning, that it was not easy to track him, but that it
might be taken for granted that for whatever he did he had some
sinister motive, and that the safest course was to negative
whatever he proposed. Though that House of Commons was economical
even to a vice, the majority preferred paying high interest to
paying low interest, solely because the plan for raising money at
low interest had been framed by him. In a despatch from the Dutch
embassy the States General were informed that many of the votes
of that session which had caused astonishment out of doors were
to be ascribed to nothing but to the bitter envy which the
ability and fame of Montague had excited. It was not without a
hard struggle and a sharp pang that the first Englishman who has
held that high position which has now been long called the
Leadership of the House of Commons submitted to be deposed. But
he was set upon with cowardly malignity by whole rows of small
men none of whom singly would have dared to look him in the face.
A contemporary pamphleteer compared him to an owl in the sunshine
pursued and pecked to death by flights of tiny birds. On one
occasion he was irritated into uttering an oath. Then there was
a cry of Order; and he was threatened with the Serjeant and the