not be altered in fineness, weight or denomination.  The third, against which not a single opponent of the government dared to raise his voice, pledged the House to make good all the deficiencies of all parliamentary fund’s established since the King’s accession.  The task of framing an answer to the royal speech was entrusted to a Committee exclusively composed of Whigs.  Montague was chairman; and the eloquent and animated address which he drew up may still be read in the journals with interest and pride.742

Within a fortnight two millions and a half were granted for the military expenditure of the approaching year, and nearly as much for the maritime expenditure.  Provision was made without any dispute for forty thousand seamen.  About the amount of the land force there was a division.  The King asked for eighty-seven thousand soldiers; and the Tories thought that number too large.  The vote was carried by two hundred and twenty-three to sixty-seven.

The malecontents flattered themselves, during a short time, that the vigorous resolutions of the Commons would be nothing more than resolutions, that it would be found impossible to restore public credit, to obtain advances from capitalists, or to wring taxes out of the distressed population, and that therefore the forty thousand seamen and the eighty-seven thousand soldiers would exist only on paper.  Howe, who had been more cowed than was usual with him on the first day of the session, attempted, a week later, to make a stand against the Ministry.  “The King,” he said, “must have been misinformed; or His Majesty never would have felicitated Parliament on the tranquil state of the country.  I come from Gloucestershire.  I know that part of the kingdom well.  The people are all living on alms, or ruined by paying alms.  The soldier helps himself, sword in hand, to what he wants.  There have been serious riots already; and still more serious riots are to be apprehended.”  The disapprobation of the House was strongly expressed.  Several members declared that in their counties every thing was quiet.  If Gloucestershire were in a more disturbed state than the rest of England, might not the cause be that Gloucestershire was cursed with a more malignant and unprincipled agitator than all the rest of England could show?  Some Gloucestershire gentlemen took issue with Howe on the facts.  There was no such distress, they said, no such discontent, no such rioting as he had described.  In that county, as in every other county, the great body of the population was fully determined to support the King in waging a vigorous war till he could make an honourable peace.743