Note 18 — Chapter II
Reading edition
The debate was hot and personal. Lord Denbigh threw out indirect reflections on Chief Justice Wilmot, and on being stopped as disorderly, he turned upon Lord Mansfield, and went so far as to give his lordship the lie. Eventually he was obliged to ask pardon, which Lord Mansfield seems to have given with rather unbecoming alacrity.—(Duke of Bedford’s Journal, in Cav. Parl. Deb., vol. i. Appendix.) On the following day, the Duke of Grafton communicated the result of the division by letter to Lord Chatham, and earnestly entreated an interview to consider what was to be done. Lord Chatham, as before, begged “to be allowed to decline the honour of the visit, finding himself quite unable for a conversation which he should be otherwise proud and happy to embrace.”—(Chatham Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 255, 256.)—E.