P. S. The new baronies are contradicted, but may recover truth at the end of the session.(516)

(473) the important debate on the question of General Warrants, which is the subject of the following able and interesting letter, has never been reported.  There are, indeed, in the parliamentary history, a letter from Sir George Yonge, and two statements by Sir William Meredith and Charles Townshend, on the subject, but they relate chiefly to their own motives and reasonings, and give neither the names nor the arguments of the debater,-, and fall very short indeed of the vigour and vivacity of Mr. Walpole’s animated sketch.-C.

(474) On the 22d December, 1741.  This was one of the debates that terminated Sir Robert Walpole’s administration:  the numbers on the division were 220 against 216.-C.

(475) The proceedings of the 6th of February, 1751, against the Honourable A. Murray, for impeding the Westminster election; but Walpole, in his Memoires, states that the House adjourned at two in the morning.-C.

(476) The disputes between Louis xv. and his parliaments, which prepared the revolution, were at this period assuming a serious appearance.-C.

(477) The King.

(478) The Princess Dowager.

(479) Lord Bute.  Luton was his seat in Bedfordshire.

(480) Mr. Walpole was too sanguine:  Sir Fletcher had not even lost his boldness; for in the further progress of the adjourned debate, we shall find that he told the House that he would regard their resolution of no more value (in point of law, must be understood) than the vociferations of so many drunken porters.-C.

(481) Lord Sandwich was an agreeable companion and an able minister; but One whose moral character did not point him out as exactly the fittest patron for a volume of sermons; and he was at this moment so unpopular, that Mr. Walpole affects to think he may have been intimidated to fly.-C.

(482) Robert Wood, Esq. under-secretary of state; against whom, for his official share in the affair of the general warrants, Mr. Wilkes’s complaint was made.-C.

(483) Philip Carteret Webb, Esq. solicitor to the treasury, complained on the same ground.  Mr. Walpole probably applies these injurious terms to Mr. Webb, on account of a supposed error in his evidence on the trial in the Common Pleas, for which he was afterwards indicted for perjury, but he was fully acquitted.  The point was of little importance —­whether he had or had not a key in his hand.-C.

(484) Lord Temple was, as every one knows, a very keen politician, and took in all this matter a most prominent part; indeed, he was the prime mover of the whole affair, and bore the expense of all Wilkes’s law proceedings out of his own pocket.-C.

(485) William Chetwynd, brother of Lord Chetwynd:  at this time master of the mint.  He was in early life a friend of Lord Bolingbroke, and called, from the darkness of his complexion, Oroonoko Chetwynd:  he sat out these debates with impunity, for he survived to succeed his brother as Lord Chetwynd, in 1767, and did not die for some years after.-C.