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conciliate and unite all parties, which was the BOOK ground on which Mr. Pitt's former glorious administration had been erected; but if Mr. Pitt 1766. insisted upon a superior dictation, he desired the conference might be broken off, for that he would not submit to the proposed condition." Mr. Pitt, firm to his purpose, and dreading with reason, notwithstanding his personal regard for lord Temple, the predominance of the Grenville interest in the new cabinet, refused to recede in any point from the arrangement he had formed, and lord Temple finally withdrew, full of resent

ment.

The causes of this misunderstanding were very warmly discussed in various able political publications of the time, but which have long since passed into oblivion. In one of them, believed to have been written in the height of the contention under the immediate inspection of Mr. Pitt, the character of lord Temple is thus contemptuously delineated: "Lord Temple, though he has possessed some very considerable offices in the government, has never been remarkable for any astonishing share of abilities, and till his resignation with Mr. Pitt, on the accession of his present majesty, he was looked upon merely as a good-natured inoffensive nobleman, who had a very fine seat, and was always ready to indulge any body with a walk in his garden, or a look

BOOK at his furniture. How he has suddenly comXIV. menced such a statesman as to be put in compe1766. tition with Mr. Pitt, is not easy to determine ; but so far is clear, that had he not fastened himself into Mr. Pitt's train, and acquired by his affinity such an interest in the history of that great man, he might have crept out of life with as little notice as he crept in, and gone off with no other degree of credit than that of adding a single unit to the bills of mortality."

In fact, though Mr. Pitt wished for the support of lord Temple, he was resolved not to sacrifice, or even to hazard, for the sake of that support, the great and fundamental principles of his policy. He viewed with inexpressible regret lord Temple's attachment to the American system of his brother George Grenville; and so long since as the month of January in the present year, he declared in express terms to the duke of Grafton, "that the differences in politics between lord Temple and himself, had never till now made it impossible for them to act upon one plan. But that he would answer that a difference upon this American measure, viz. the relinquishment or enforcement of the project of taxation, would in its consequences be felt for half a century at least; that if he was called upon to form a proper system, it must be with the two present secretaries, and the first lord of

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the treasury; they co-operating willingly and BOOK confidentially." At the same time he, with his usual and characteristic decision, protested, "that 1766. he never would sit with lord George Sackville at the board of council, his restoration to which he regarded as an insult to the memory of the late king."

At the latter end of July 1766, the duke of Duke of Grafton was appointed to the high office of first first minislord commissioner of the treasury; the right honorable Charles Townshend, a man of rising parliamentary reputation and brilliant talents, but capricious, insincere, intriguing, and wholly destitute of discretion or solidity, being made chancellor of the exchequer. The earl of Shelburne, in the room of the duke of Richmond, was nominated secretary of state for the southern department, general Conway being continued in possession of the northern. Sir Charles Saunders was placed at the head of the admiralty, in the room of lord Egmont; lord chief justice Pratt, who had been recently created lord Camden, was declared chancellor of Great Britain; the earl of Northington succeeded the earl of Winchilsea as president of the council ; and Mr. Pitt, being advanced to the peerage by Mr. Pitt the title of the earl of Chatham, chose for him-earl of Chatham, self the office of lord privy seal, vacated by theand lord duke of Newcastle. The earl of Bristol was no-privy seal.

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1766.

BOOK minated to the government of Ireland, of which he never took possession; the administration of affairs in that kingdom remaining with the lords justices, till, at a subsequent period, it was consigned to lord Townshend. Lord Rockingham retired from office with a character for pure and disinterested patriotism, and without securing place, pension, or reversion, to himself, or any of his adherents. The numerous addresses of approbation presented to this nobleman from the different cities and towns throughout the kingdom, on his unmerited dismission, sufficiently proved the high and just sense entertained of his eminent services. The merchants of London trading to the West Indies and North America, expressed their sentiments in a manner peculiarly respectful and flattering: "We beg leave," say they, "when, your lordship being no longer in a public station, we are exempt from even the suspicion of flattery, to express our sense of the essential benefits received during your lordship's administration; a period short indeed, but truly memorable for the noblest exertions of a patriot ministry in favor of the civil and commercial interests of these kingdoms, happily dispelling the threatening clouds which hung over us, and opening a system of commerce liberal and useful beyond all former example."

On lord Rockingham's retiring to his mansion in the north, he was met near the city of BOOK York by a cavalcade of 200 gentlemen. Addresses, during this residence there, were presented to him by the towns of Leeds, Halifax, Hull, Wakefield, and York, expressive of the highest respect, gratitude, and esteem. Such was at this period the happy ascendancy of whig principles in the nation, and such the contrariety between the court and country systems of politics. It is surely superfluous to say, that the new ministerial arrangement very ill accorded with the idea of that firm, efficient, and extended administration, which was calculated to restore the empire, weakened and distracted by the late political contentions and animosities, to its former enviable state of fame and felicity. Mr. Pitt, by imperiously insisting on the sole nomination of the cabinet ministers, appeared ambitious to secure to himself a monopoly of power; vainly and unreasonably presuming, that those who owed to his recommendation their advancement, would in all things submit themselves to his guidance and direction. The principal source of the popular discontent*, however, arose from the unexpected