Winding up this estate,
Warren avenged the cause of plundered provinces; and the House
of Commons itself, with Burke and Francis at its head, could
scarcely have mulcted the late governor more severely.
A Mr Warren, of whom no one had ever heard except that he was
a nabob, had recently returned from India and purchased a
large estate in the north of England, was returned to
Parliament one of the representatives of a close borough which
he had purchased: a quiet, gentlemanlike, middle-aged man,
with no decided political opinions; and, as parties were then
getting very equal, of course very much courted. The throes
of Lord North's administration were commencing. The minister
asked the new member to dine with him, and found the new
member singularly free from all party prejudices. Mr Warren
was one of those members who announced their determination to
listen to the debates and to be governed by the arguments.
All complimented him, all spoke to him. Mr Fox declared that
he was a most superior man; Mr Burke said that these were the
men who could alone save the country. Mrs Crewe asked him to
supper; he was caressed by the most brilliant of duchesses.
At length there arrived one of those fierce trials of
strength, which precede the fall of a minister, but which
sometimes from peculiar circumstances, as in the instances of
Walpole and Lord North, are not immediate in their results.
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