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The great speech of Sheridan was, however, reserved till the 8th of December, when the Army Estimates came forward. They were moved by Mr. Charles Yorke as Secretary at War. “I was much surprised,” said Mr. Yorke, “when, on another evening, I heard an Hon. gentleman (Mr. Fox) maintain that there was no reason why a larger establishment than usual in former periods of peace should be maintained in Great Britain; and that there were reasons why even a smaller force would suffice everywhere but in the West Indies.” It was no hard matter for Mr. Yorke to argue against this proposition, or to point out the dangers that impended from the Continent of Europe. He could reckon on the support of the House for the proposal which his speech contained—to provide for a regular force of nearly one hundred and thirty thousand men, counting officers, and including the regiments in India. This was an increase on the establishment voted on the first conclusion of the peace.

Then and after some other speeches Sheridan rose. He referred to Fox as to the man whom of all men upon earth he most loved and respected. But these sentiments did not withhold him from some keen animadversions, although in covert terms, upon the course which Fox had latterly been seeking to promote. He approved of the King’s Speech. He approved of the large establishments. He approved of Addington as Minister. What (he asked) had other members really to allege against that Right Hon. gentleman? Theirs was a mere capricious dislike; for no better reason than is given in an epigram of Martial, or in an English parody upon that epigram:

“I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,

The reason why I cannot tell;

But this I’m sure I know full well,

I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.”

Those who call to mind that Addington already bore the nickname of “the Doctor,” and who know the keen relish of the House of Commons for almost any jest, may easily imagine the roars of laughter with which Sheridan’s allusion was received.

Sheridan proceeded in a strain of blended wit and argument. “What,” he said, “did these gentlemen expect from the present Chancellor of the Exchequer? We treated him when in the Chair of this House with the respect he merited. … But did they expect that when he was a Minister he was to stand up and call Europe to Order? Was he to send Mr. Colman, the Serjeant-at-Arms, to the Baltic and summon the Northern Powers to the Bar of this House? Was he to see the Powers of Germany scrambling like Members over the benches, and say—Gentlemen must take their places? Was he expected to cast his eye to the Tuscan gallery, and exclaim that strangers must withdraw? Was he to stand across the Rhine, and say—The Germans to the right, and the French to the left? If he could have done these things, I for one should always vote that the Speaker of the House should be appointed the Minister of the country. But the Right Hon. gentleman has done all that a reasonable man could expect him to do.”

“Sir,”—so Sheridan continued—“I confess I wish to know what Mr. Pitt himself thinks. I should be glad to hear what his sentiments are of the call made for him; and loudly too, in another place by a vigorous statesman.[2] I well remember, Sir, and so do we all, the character Mr. Pitt gave of the present administration. Does he mean to retract that character? I cannot suppose he does. … Sir, when I see so many persons anxious about that gentleman, I am glad to hear that his health is re-established. But how, I would ask, can we with any consistency turn out the man who made the peace to bring in the man who avowed his approbation of it? … I suspect, therefore, that the political Philidor’s game has been misunderstood; that his friends have displaced a knight and a castle when they should only have taken two pawns; that they have made an attempt to checkmate the King when they had no instructions for doing it. I cannot forget the period when the august Person of the Sovereign was held up as the only man who was against extending privileges to the Catholics in Ireland; and I cannot, therefore, brook the idea of calling that Right Hon. gentleman back to power, and forcing him upon the Crown. … Mr. Pitt the only man to save the country! If a nation depends only upon one man, it cannot, and I will add, it does not deserve to be saved; it can be saved only by the Parliament and people.”

Next after Sheridan rose Canning. In his great speech that evening he displayed not only a luminous eloquence, but the rarer gift (rarer, I mean, in him) of perfect discretion. He desired to express his sentiments, not of satisfaction merely, but of thankfulness, for the part which his Hon. Friend (Mr. Sheridan) had that day done.

“It is by no means the first time,” he said, “that my Hon. Friend, throwing aside all petty distinctions of party feeling, has come forward, often under circumstances of peculiar difficulty, often discouraged, always alone, as the champion of his country’s rights and interests, and has rallied the hearts and spirits of the nation.[3] I trust we shall now hear no more of those miserable systems, the object of which is not to rouse us to ward off our ruin, but to reconcile us to submit to it. … ‘We have nothing to dread from France but a rivalry in commerce,’ says the Hon. gentleman opposite to me (Mr. Fox). Look round, Sir, on the state of the world, and can such an argument even from such a man need farther refutation?”

“And what, Sir”—so Canning went on in another passage—“what is the nature of the times in which we live? Look at France, and see what we have to cope with, and consider what has made her what she is? A man. You will tell me that she was great, and powerful, and formidable before the date of Bonaparte’s Government; that he found in her great physical and moral resources; that he had but to turn them to account. True, and he did so. Compare the situation in which he found France with that to which he has raised her. I am no panegyrist of Bonaparte; but I cannot shut my eyes to the superiority of his talents, to the amazing ascendency of his genius. Tell me not of his measures and his policy—it is his genius, his character, that keeps the world in awe. Sir, to meet, to check, to curb, to stand up against him, we want arms of the same kind. I am far from objecting to the large military establishments which are proposed to you. I vote for them with all my heart. But, for the purpose of coping with Bonaparte, one great commanding spirit is worth them all. This is my undisguised opinion. But when I state this opinion thus undisguisedly, is my Right Hon. Friend (Mr. Pitt) to be implicated in a charge of prompting what I say? …

“Sir, of all the imputations to which that Right Hon. gentleman could be subjected, I confess I did think that of intrigue and cabal the least likely to be preferred against him by any man who has witnessed his public conduct. … No, Sir. Never did young Ambition, just struggling into public notice and aiming at popular favour, labour with half so much earnestness to court reputation and to conciliate adherents, as my Right Hon. Friend has laboured since his retreat from office not to attract, but to repel; not to increase the number of his followers, but to dissolve attachment and to transfer support. And if, whatever has been his endeavour to insulate and individualize himself in political life, he has not been able to succeed wholly, even with those who would sacrifice to his wishes everything but their attachment to him—if with the public he has succeeded not at all, what is the inference? what but that, retreat and withdraw as much as he will, he must not hope to efface the memory of his past services from the gratitude of his country?—he cannot withdraw himself from the following of a nation; he must endure the attachment of a people whom he has saved.”