To me the answer reads as establishing the extraordinary influence which Bute had attained, and that being regarded as representing the king's opinions, he was unopposed by those he called his colleagues.

partial judgment." The true question is not the advantages derived from this peace, but what the conditions ought to have been, and what they would have been, with a different first minister and a different negotiator to lord Bute and the duke of Bedford.

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CHAPTER XI.

The resignation of Pitt placed the actual power in Bute's hands, although owing to the presence of the Duke of Newcastle in the Ministry, he was not its ostensible head. Newcastle read the progress of events so oppositely to their true significance, that in the first instance he viewed. Pitt's retirement with satisfaction. The loss to the nation, in the crisis of its history, did not cross his mind. There had always remained a jealousy of Pitt's power, and he believed that his removal opened the way for the ancient ascendency, which he had himself formerly possessed. He was soon undeceived he was early made to feel that his presence in the government was of no account. Questions of the highest importance were determined without his knowledge. On all sides he experienced slight. Bute behaved to him with insolence, and the king treated him with such a want of consideration, that Newcastle felt it to be designed. In May, 1762, he abandoned his position. On no occasion did Newcastle shew greater dignity of character; he refused the pension offered to him, although his fortune had been greatly impaired by his political career. Bute now became the first minister, and George Grenville was named secretary of state in his place. Thus, within eighteen months of the king's accession Bute attained the highest dignity in political life, displacing a minister whose name remains a household word. At the death of George II. Bute was unknown in politics. He was a commonplace personage, his reputation having never risen higher than that of a tolerable amateur actor. He was totally unaccustomed to public business, without parliamentary training, and although stopping short at no corruption, and at no wrong or injustice towards those who stood in his way, he was incapable of managing men. Many politicians owe

their success to their skill in reading character, and knowing how to apply the prizes at their disposal. Without true ability and originality of mind, and guiltless of all patriotism, there are men able to marshal in order those persons, whose services and praises they know how to acquire, and thus retain influence and power. Bute entirely failed during his brief career in impressing what is called in modern times a "following." He must be regarded as a political Phaeton entrusted for the hour with the chariot of state, who in the fable, unable to control his steeds nearly set fire to the earth. The myth tells us that Helios was persuaded by the Oceanid Clymene to entrust his chariot to his son to drive across the heavens. Like his prototype, Bute owed to female influence the prominence he briefly enjoyed,* to be struck down by the lightning of his own unpopularity, and by the formidable responsibilities and the immense embarrassments in which, on every side, he had become entangled.

It was not possible to displace Pitt from the office which he had held with so much dignity and power without giving rise to strong discontent, and creating an excitement in public feeling, difficult to control. Although the council had followed Bute in rejecting Pitt's policy, and the facts under which his resignation took place could not be disclosed, it was well known that it had been caused by Bute's opposition. Everything was done to conciliate Pitt: he was offered the governorship of Canada, with a salary of £5,000 a year as a sinecure, for in those days residence was not exacted. He was promised the position, with the understanding that a bill should be brought into the house of commons authorizing the retention of his seat in parliament while holding office. Pitt's answer was that he required nothing for himself. He was devoted to his wife, and it was intimated that an honour paid to her would be acceptable to himself. The result was that she was created a baroness, with a pension of £3,000, for three lives, and it must be admitted that his eminent services justified this mark of royal favour. The grant of the barony and of the pension * Bute resigned 8th of April, 1763.

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were published in the gazette which announced his resignation, evidently with the design of destroying the prestige attached to his name. The proceeding was not wholly without success. The knowledge that Pitt accepted the favour of the court was not welcomed by his admirers. The feeling we now entertain, after an interval of a century and a quarter, may be compared to the sentiment which was then experienced. In the first instance few of us read the narrative with satisfaction; but it is not possible to put out of view that Pitt was poor, that he had performed important services with great disinterestedness, and that he was entitled to recognition by the country. As his unpopularity rapidly passed away with his contemporaries, so the modern reader must accept the uncontrollable force of the circumstances under which he acted.*

There was one source of strength which Bute sought and which he highly valued, the aid of the political writer. He became the patron of all who would minister to his purpose,

*The story of Pitt bursting into tears when attending a levee on the king saying a few kind words to him is well known. "I confess, sir, he said, I had too much reason to expect your Majesty's displeasure. I did not come prepared for this exceeding goodness. Pardon me, sir, it overpowers, it oppresses me." His emotion is perhaps not difficult of explanation. Pitt was present with the strong feeling that his reward for the great services he had performed had been arrogance and insult. He came prepared to receive slight and neglect, the unexpected civility of the king, possibly unlooked for, overmastered him. A man of great sensibility and of quick impulse, he was unable to control emotion, which he well understood was not in character with the scene, or his own dignity. Carried away by a revulsion of feeling which he could not master, he strove to justify it as he was best able. His letter to Bute of the 7th of October, 1761, is more difficult of explanation. [Chatham Correspondence, II., p. 149.] There can be no doubt of its genuineness for it has been published from a draft in Pitt's own handwriting. It suggests that an office besides that of the government of Canada was offered to him. He says, "I trust that it will be judged obedience, not presumption, if I express the doubt I have as to the propriety of my going into either of the offices mentioned, or indeed considering that which I have resigned, going again into any whatever."

The letter, from its fulsome humility, is positively painful to read. It is unworthy of the most commonplace politician. In my poor judgment, Pitt, in his desire to put to paper a finished rhetorical composition, lost sight of those higher principles by which, in so many difficult circumstances of his career, he had been guided. Even in this point of view it is a mean production.

and he found out the channels by which he could enlist the most wretched scribbler of scandal. He early endeavoured to bring together a class of supporters gathered from among needy, struggling authors, whose poverty led them to bespatter with praise, or befoul with abuse as their patron instructed them. At the same time he selected men of high rank in letters, to whom he shewed attention. It was he who gave the pension to Johnson; but Shebbeare, whose insolent attacks on the house of Hanover had placed him in the pillory, also experienced the royal bounty. Both Smollett and Arthur Murphy received favours from him. George III. must have been ignorant of Shebbeare's offensive attacks against the house of Hanover for he had described the "white horse," the badge of the elector of Hanover, as "an ignominious mark of slavery." Hogarth, on the accession of George III., had been appointed "sergeant painter to all his majesty's works." In September, 1762, he issued the caricature of "the Times," No. 1, as if it was to be one of a series. It was an attack upon Pitt; Europe is shewn in flames, Bute is endeavouring to extinguish the fire, but is prevented by Newcastle bringing a barrowful of North Britons, and other papers. Churchill and Wilkes did not patiently submit, they retorted savagely upon Hogarth. The quarrel, which may be described as celebrated, now followed. Hogarth died on the 26th of October, 1764; many trace his death to the pain he suffered from the remorseless mode in which he was assailed; but it must be remembered that in the first instance he had wantonly commenced the attack. "The Times," plate II., now included in his works, in which Wilkes is shewn in the pillory, was found among his papers, but it was not published till some years after his death, when all feeling in the quarrel had passed away. The probability is that it was held back from motives of prudence.

The attacks upon Pitt increased in virulence after his retirement. A defect in his character was his striving for effect, and after his resignation he advertised his carriage horses for sale. He was caricatuted as the "distressed statesman"; he was represented as one suffering from a dis