EUROPE AFTER THE PEACE OF TILSIT, 1807 158

[Illustration: THE COLONIES OF NORTH AMERICA at the Declaration of
Independence]

CHAPTER II

THE INDEPENDENCE OF AMERICA

1767-1782

[Sidenote: Growing influence of public opinion.]

The Chatham ministry marked a new phase in the relation of public
opinion to the government of the State. In 1766 as in 1756 Pitt had been
called into office by "the voice of the people" at large. But in his
former ministry the influence he drew from popularity could only make
itself effective through an alliance with the influence which was drawn
from political connexion; and when the two elements of the
administration became opposed the support of the nation gave Pitt little
strength of resistance against the Whigs. Nor had the young king had
much better fortune as yet in his efforts to break their rule. He had
severed them indeed from Pitt; and he had dexterously broken up the
great party into jealous factions. But broken as it was, even its
factions remained too strong for the king. His one effort at
independence under Bute hardly lasted a year, and he was as helpless in
the hands of Grenville as in the hands of Rockingham. His bribery, his
patronage, his Parliamentary "friends," his perfidy and his lies, had
done much to render good government impossible and to steep public life
in deeper corruption, but they had done little to further the triumph of
the Crown over the great houses. Of the one power indeed which could
break the Whig rule, the power of public opinion, George was more
bitterly jealous than even of the Whigs themselves. But in spite of his
jealousy the tide of opinion steadily rose. In wise and in unwise ways
the country at large showed its new interest in national policy, its new
resolve to have a share in the direction of it. It showed no love for
the king or the king's schemes. But it retained all its old disgust for
the Whigs and for the Parliament. It clung to Pitt closer than ever, and
in spite of his isolation from all party support raised him daily into a
mightier power. It was the sense that a new England was thus growing up
about him, that a new basis was forming itself for political action,
which at last roused the Great Commoner to the bold enterprise of
breaking through the bonds of "connexion" altogether. For the first time
since the Revolution a minister told the peers in their own house that
he defied their combinations.

[Sidenote: