"Let us first," he said, "kick the bill out of the House; and then let us kick the foreigners out of the kingdom." On a division the motion for committing the bill was carried by a hundred and sixty-three votes to a hundred and twenty-eight.

[504] But the minority was zealous and pertinacious; and the majority speedily began to waver.

Knight's speech, retouched and made more offensive, soon appeared in print without a license.

Tens of thousands of copies were circulated by the post, or dropped in the streets; and such was the strength of national prejudice that too many persons read this ribaldry with assent and admiration.

But, when a copy was produced in the House, there was such an outbreak of indignation and disgust, as cowed even the impudent and savage nature of the orator.