11th.--The staff was opposed by Lord Egmont, Dr. Lee, Nugent, Potter, and Bathurst; defended by Mr. Fox, Mr. Pelham, Sir William Yonge, Lord George Sackville, Lord Barrington, and General Mordaunt, and carried by 205 to 88. In the night, new Queries[40] abusing the House of Commons for their proceedings on the Westminster affair were dispersed at several doors, but no notice was taken of them. The Commons were not eager to have more prisoners to nurse!
12th.--Sir George Vandeput’s and the Westminster petitions were withdrawn. Some of the independents had tried to prevent it; and, at a meeting on the 9th, thirty-seven divided for going on with them against thirty-one: but Sir George declaring he would withdraw his, and he, Lord Carpenter, and Sir Thomas Clarges leaving the meeting, it was agreed to drop both petitions.
13th.--Sir William Yonge acquainted the House, that the committee of which he was chairman was ready with their report on Mr. Murray’s case; but as the prisoner was ill, they desired to postpone it to the following Monday. Mr. Cooke presented a petition from Gibson the upholsterer, who had not caught the infection of heroism from his fellow captive, but begged for enlargement, which was granted, and he was ordered to attend on the morrow, when he was reprimanded on his knees, and discharged.
The same day Mr. Pelham opened the Ways and Means, in which he generally shined, and did not disgrace his master, Sir Robert Walpole, though the latter had gathered his chief laurels from his knowledge and perspicuity in that service. Sir John Cotton piddled with a little opposition to the land-tax of three shillings, but it was carried by 106 to 43, and on the report by 229 to 28. They could not conjure up a spirited division now on the most popular points: if they were not new, they would scarce furnish a debate.
Sir John Cotton had wit, and the faithful attendant on wit, ill-nature, and was the greatest master of the arts of the House, where he seldom made but short speeches, having a stammering in his elocution, which, however, he knew how to manage with humour.[41] In the end of Queen Anne’s reign he was in place;[42] during Sir Robert Walpole’s administration constantly and warmly in opposition, and was so determined a Jacobite, that though on the late coalition he accepted a place in the Household, and held it two years, he never gave a vote with the Court, which argued nice distinction, not only in taking the oaths to the King (for that all the Jacobites in Parliament do), but in taking his pay, and yet obstructing his service: and as nice in the King’s Ministers, who could discover the use of making a man accept a salary without changing his party. When the Duke of Bedford, with all my Lord Russel’s integrity of Whiggism, was involved in a Jacobite opposition, he had been so suspicious, as to mistrust Sir John’s principles, till my Lord Gower quieted his uneasiness by assuring him, “Cotton is no more a Jacobite than I am.”