Daubeny with the
view of seducing Mr. Gresham into an act of seeming impatience, and
that these words about his opponent's failing equanimity had been
carefully prepared.
Mr. Daubeny stood for a minute silent, and then began to pour forth
that which was really his speech on the occasion. Those flaccid
half-pronounced syllables in which he had declared that he had
resigned,--had been studiously careless, purposely flaccid. It was
his duty to let the House know the fact, and he did his duty. But
now he had a word to say in which he himself could take some little
interest. Mr. Daubeny could be fiery or flaccid as it suited
himself;--and now it suited him to be fiery. He had a prophecy
to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men. Mr. Daubeny
conceived it to be his duty to inform the House, and through the
House the country, that now, at last, had the day of ruin come upon
the British Empire, because it had bowed itself to the dominion of an
unscrupulous and greedy faction. It cannot be said that the language
which he used was unmeasured, because no word that he uttered would
have warranted the Speaker in calling him to order; but, within the
very wide bounds of parliamentary etiquette, there was no limit to
the reproach and reprobation which he heaped on the House of Commons
for its late vote.
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