A few hours after the examination of Bates, Wharton reported to the Commons what had passed in the Exchequer Chamber.  The indignation was general and vehement.  “You now understand,” said Wharton, “why obstructions have been thrown in our way at every step, why we have had to wring out truth drop by drop, why His Majesty’s name has been artfully used to prevent us from going into an inquiry which has brought nothing to light but what is to His Majesty’s honour.  Can we think it strange that our difficulties should have been great, when we consider the power, the dexterity, the experience of him who was secretly thwarting us?  It is time for us to prove signally to the world that it is impossible for any criminal to double so cunningly that we cannot track him, or to climb so high that we cannot reach him.  Never was there a more flagitious instance of corruption.  Never was there an offender who had less claim to indulgence.  The obligations which the Duke of Leeds has to his country are of no common kind.  One great debt we generously cancelled; but the manner in which our generosity has been requited forces us to remember that he was long ago impeached for receiving money from France.  How can we be safe while a man proved to be venal has access to the royal ear?  Our best laid enterprises have been defeated.  Our inmost counsels have been betrayed.  And what wonder is it?  Can we doubt that, together with this home trade in charters, a profitable foreign trade in secrets is carried on?  Can we doubt that he who sells us to one another will, for a good price, sell us all to the common enemy?” Wharton concluded by moving that Leeds should be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours.582

Leeds had many friends and dependents in the House of Commons; but they could say little.  Wharton’s motion was carried without a division; and he was ordered to go to the bar of the Lords, and there, in the name of the Commons of England, to impeach the Duke.  But, before this order could be obeyed, it was announced that His Grace was at the door and requested an audience.

While Wharton had been making his report to the Commons, Leeds had been haranguing the Lords.  He denied with the most solemn asseverations that he had taken any money for himself.  But he acknowledged, and indeed almost boasted, that he had abetted Bates in getting money from the Company, and seemed to think that this was a service which any man in power might be reasonably expected to render to a friend.  Too many persons, indeed, in that age made a most absurd and pernicious distinction between a minister who used his influence to obtain presents for himself and a minister who used his influence to obtain presents for his dependents.  The former was corrupt; the latter was merely goodnatured.  Leeds proceeded to tell with great complacency a story about himself, which would, in our days, drive a public man, not only out of office, but out of the society of gentlemen.