ion to put down the American rebels
by force of arms; and his ministers submitted their judgment to his.
Some of them were probably actuated merely by selfish cupidity; but
their chief, Lord North, a man of high honour, amiable temper, winning
manners, lively wit, and excellent talents both for business and for
debate, must be acquitted of all sordid motives. He remained at a post
from which he had long wished and had repeatedly tried to escape, only
because he had not sufficient fortitude to resist the entreaties and
reproaches of the King, who silenced all arguments by passionately
asking whether any gentleman, any man of spirit, could have the heart to
desert a kind master in the hour of extremity.

The opposition consisted of two parties which had once been hostile to
each other, and which had been very slowly, and, as it soon appeared,
very imperfectly reconciled, but which at this conjuncture seemed to act
together with cordiality. The larger of these parties consisted of the
great body of the Whig aristocracy. Its head was Charles, Marquess of
Rockingham, a man of sense and virtue, and in wealth and parliamentary
interest equalled by very few of the English nobles, but afflicted with
a nervous timidity which prevented him from taking a prominent part in
debate. In the House of Commons, the adherents of Rockingham were led
by Fox, whose dissipated habits and ruined fortunes were the talk of the
whole town, but whose commanding genius, and whose sweet, generous, and
affectionate disposition, extorted the admiration and love of those who
most lamented the errors of his private life. Burke, superior to Fox in
largeness of comprehension, in extent of knowledge, and in splendour of
imagination, but less skilled in that kind of logic and in that kind of
rhetoric which convince and persuade great assemblies, was willing to be
the lieutenant of a young chief who might have been his son.

A smaller section of the opposition was composed of the old followers
of Chatham. At their head was William, Earl of Shelburne, distinguished
both as a statesman and as a lover of science and letters. With him were
leagued Lord Camden, who had formerly held the Great Seal, and whose
integrity, ability, and constitutional knowledge commanded the public
respect; Barre, an eloquent and acrimonious declaimer; and Dunning, who
had long held the first place at the English bar. It was to this party
that Pitt was naturally attracted.

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