Upon the fifteenth of December the Earl of Nottingham likewise brought in the bill to prevent occasional conformity (although under a disguised title), which met with no opposition; but was swallowed by those very lords, who always appeared with the utmost violence against the least advantage to the established Church.

But in the House of Commons there appeared a very different spirit; for when one Mr. Robert Walpole offered a clause of the same nature with that of the Earl of Nottingham, it was rejected with contempt by a very great majority.  Their address was in the most dutiful manner, approving of what Her Majesty had done towards a peace, and trusting entirely to her wisdom in the future management of it.  This address was presented to the Queen a day before that of the Lords, and received an answer distinguishedly gracious.  But the other party[61] was no ways discouraged by either answer, which they looked upon as only matter of course, and the sense of the ministry, contrary to that of the Queen.

[Footnote 61:  P. Fitzgerald says “faction.” [W.S.J.]]

The Parliament sat as long as the approaching festival would allow; and upon the twenty-second, the land-tax and occasional bills having received the royal assent, the House of Commons adjourned to the fourteenth of January following:  but the adjournment of the Lords was only to the second, the prevailing party there being in haste to pursue the consequences of the Earl of Nottingham’s clause, which they hoped would end in the ruin of the treasurer, and overthrow the ministry; and therefore took the advantage of this interval, that they might not be disturbed by the Commons.

When this address against any peace without Spain, &c. was carried in the House of Lords, it is not easy to describe the effects it had upon most men’s passions.  The partisans of the old ministry triumphed loudly, and without any reserve, as if the game were their own.  The Earl of Wharton was observed in the House to smile, and put his hands to his neck when any of the ministry was speaking, by which he would have it understood that some heads were in danger.  Parker, the chief justice, began already with great zeal and officiousness to prosecute authors and printers of weekly and other papers, writ in defence of the administration:  in short, joy and vengeance sat visible in every countenance of that party.[62]

[Footnote 62:  See “Journal to Stella,” December 13th (vol. ii., p. 299 of present edition). [W.S.J.]]

On the other side, all well-wishers to the Queen, the Church, or the peace, were equally dejected; and the treasurer stood the foremost mark both of his enemies’ fury, and the censure of his friends:  among the latter, some imputed this fatal miscarriage to his procrastinating nature; others, to his unmeasurable public thrift:  both parties agreed, that a first minister, with very moderate skill in affairs, might easily have governed the event:  and some began