24.  After it had been generally supposed that all public business was over for the session, and that Mr. Fox had exhausted all the modes of pressing this French scheme, he thought proper to take a step beyond every expectation, and which demonstrated his wonderful eagerness and perseverance in his cause, as well as the nature and true character of the cause itself.  This step was taken by Mr. Fox immediately after his giving his assent to the grant of supply voted to him by Mr. Serjeant Adair and a committee of gentlemen who assumed to themselves to act in the name of the public.  In the instrument of his acceptance of this grant, Mr. Fox took occasion to assure them that he would always persevere in the same conduct which had procured to him so honorable a mark of the public approbation.  He was as good as his word.

25.  It was not long before an opportunity was found, or made, for proving the sincerity of his professions, and demonstrating his gratitude to those who had given public and unequivocal marks of their approbation of his late conduct.  One of the most virulent of the Jacobin faction, Mr. Gurney, a banker at Norwich, had all along distinguished himself by his French politics.  By the means of this gentleman, and of his associates of the same description, one of the most insidious and dangerous handbills that ever was seen had been circulated at Norwich against the war, drawn up in an hypocritical tone of compassion for the poor.  This address to the populace of Norwich was to play in concert with an address to Mr. Fox; it was signed by Mr. Gurney and the higher part of the French fraternity in that town.  In this paper Mr. Fox is applauded for his conduct throughout the session, and requested, before the prorogation, to make a motion for an immediate peace with France.

26.  Mr. Fox did not revoke to this suit:  he readily and thankfully undertook the task assigned to him.  Not content, however, with merely falling in with their wishes, he proposed a task on his part to the gentlemen of Norwich, which was, that they should move the people without doors to petition against the war.  He said, that, without such assistance, little good could be expected from anything he might attempt within the walls of the House of Commons.  In the mean time, to animate his Norwich friends in their endeavors to besiege Parliament, he snatched the first opportunity to give notice of a motion which he very soon after made, namely, to address the crown to make peace with France.  The address was so worded as to cooeperate with the handbill in bringing forward matter calculated to inflame the manufacturers throughout the kingdom.