was not likely soon again to trouble them with any hostile
intervention. Thus these two men, one stupid beyond sounding, the
other of only fair abilities, rising a little above mediocrity, had
gone into battle with some of the greatest statesmen and orators of the
age, and had come out victorious.

[Sidenote: 1743-1746--The "Broad-bottomed Ministry"]

Henry Pelham's administration was known by the slang nickname of the
"Broad-bottomed Ministry." It is known by that nickname in history
still; will doubtless always keep the title. The great overmastering
passion of the Pelhams was the desire to keep office and power in their
hands at any price. Of the two brothers Henry Pelham was by far the
abler man. His idea was to get around him all the really capable
administrators and debaters of every party, and thus make up a Ministry
which should be all-powerful, and of which all the power should be in
his hands. Like his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, he had a sort of
half good-natured cynicism which never allowed him to doubt that if the
offices were offered to the men, the men would on any conditions accept
the offices. The events that he had lately seen had not induced him in
any way to modify his opinion. He had heard Pitt thundering away
against Carteret in exactly the same strain as Pitt and Carteret used
to thunder against Walpole. He had heard Pitt denounce Carteret as "an
execrable, a sole minister, who had ruined the British nation, and
seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fiction which
made men forget their country." He had seen the policy of Walpole
quietly carried out by the very men who had bellowed against Walpole,
and had succeeded at last in driving him from office forever. He knew
that no one now among those who used to call themselves "the Patriots"
cared one straw whether Spain did or did not withdraw her claim to the
Right of Search. His idea, therefore, was to get all the capable men
of the various parties together, form them {246} into an
administration, and leave them to enjoy their dignity and their
emoluments while the King and he governed the country. It was in this
spirit and with this purpose that he set himself to form the
"Broad-bottomed Ministry." He was not, like his royal master,
tormented or even embarrassed by personal dislikes; he would take into
his Ministry any one who could be of the slightest use to him. He
would have kept Lord Carteret if Carteret had n