of relief from subscription which the Bishops had contumeliously rejected in 1772. "From what I see," Richmond wrote to Shelburne, "a general spirit is rising. I do not expect such immediate effects as some do, but I think it will be gradual, only to become more formidable if commonly well managed."[1] All over the country the enormous cost and the want of success attending the war were causing general indignation. Inquiry was naturally stimulated into the expenditure, and the question began to be asked, whether, even if the war were to be continued, the burdens of the country might not be lightened by a curtailment of pensions and of sinecure places, by a more rigid application of the supplies to the objects to which they had been appropriated, and by placing a check on the presentation of supplementary estimates for expenses in reality actually incurred, or as they were termed "extraordinaries." In the month of December 1779, a great public meeting in Yorkshire, at which every section of the Whig Party was represented, drew up a petition to Parliament on these subjects, and appointed a committee to carry on a correspondence with other counties, and to prepare a plan for a National Association. The movement did not fail to spread, and though in some cases through secret machinations and in others by open opposition the Court party attempted to resist, it rapidly became more formidable than any movement since the Revolution, through the numbers, character, and position of those who shared in it. The year did not close without the first mutterings of the coming storm being heard within the walls of Parliament. Already on the 7th of December, Richmond, supported by Shelburne, had brought forward a motion for a more economic administration of the Civil List.[2] On the 15th Shelburne himself called attention to the Army extraordinaries.[3]
"The debate yesterday in the House of Lords," writes Mr. Fitzpatrick to Lord Ossory, "was the best I ever remember to have heard. By coming late, I lost
