Whether it was my good or ill fortune to make my first effort in the midst of the men whose names have immortalized their day, I shall not venture to decide. But my resolve had been firmly taken--not to remain in Parliament unless I discovered in myself faculties fit for its service. I was determined not to play the mute if I had the means of uttering a voice. But now the whole force of administration was demanded; and I made up my mind to ascertain by trial, what no man can be sure of without that trial, whether I possessed any capacity for public life.
The subject on which I first spoke was an address to the throne, in answer to the King's message on the war. On this night Pitt, but lately recovered from a fit of his hereditary gout, spoke briefly, and with evident feebleness of frame. Fox, whose energy seemed always to depend on his rival's power, and whose eloquence always rose or fell with the vigour or languor of the minister--Fox, never so great as when Pitt put forth all his strength, on this night idled away his hour, through the mere want of an antagonist; but Sheridan made ample compensation for his leader. The House had fallen into lassitude, and the benches were already thin when he arose. I had heard him as the humorist on some trivial occasions of debate. I had enjoyed the social pleasantry which placed him at the head of the wits; but I was still but imperfectly acquainted with the strong sarcasm, the deep disdain, and the grave sophistry, which this extraordinary man could exhibit with such redundant ease, and wield with such vigorous dexterity. I must give but an outline:--
"You have made war," said he, "and you have made the arms of your country contemptible by failures, which you rendered inevitable by your rashness. You, sir," and he fixed his flashing eye on the premier, "have commenced that war by a series of declarations, which made our diplomacy as contemptible as our campaigns. The national sword had been wrested from our hands. But you were not content with that humiliation, and you added to it the disgrace of the national understanding. You laid down a succession of principles, and then trampled them in the dust on the first opportunity. You encumbered yourself for action with pledges which you could never have intended to sustain, or which in the first collision your pusillanimity threw away. Yet I deprecate your perfidy even more than I despise your weakness. I can comprehend the effrontery of a fair aggression; but I scorn the meanness of intrigue. I may face the man-at-arms, but I shudder at the assassin. I may determine to hunt down and destroy the lion, but I disdain the trap and the pitfall. And what has been the pretext of his majesty's ministers? Moderation. In this spirit of moderation they invaded France; in this spirit of moderation they captured her fortresses, and then handed them over to the Emperor; in this spirit of moderation they denounced the men who had given France a constitution; and in this spirit of moderation you now prepare to rebuild her Bastile, to restore her scaffolds, to reforge her chains, and summon all the kings of Europe, instead of taking a salutary lesson from the tomb of the monarchy, to see its skeleton exhumed, and placed, robed and crowned, upon the throne, with the nation forced to offer homage, at once in mockery and terror, to the grinning emblem; in which, with all your philtres, you can never put life again."