But Pitt could execute only one
half of what he had projected. He succeeded in obtaining the consent of
the Parliaments of both kingdoms to the Union; but that reconciliation
of races and sects, without which the Union could exist only in name,
was not accomplished. He was well aware that he was likely to find
difficulties in the closet. But he flattered himself, that by cautious
and dexterous management, those difficulties might be overcome.
Unhappily, there were traitors and sycophants in high place who did
not suffer him to take his own time, and his own way, but prematurely
disclosed his scheme to the King, and disclosed it in the manner most
likely to irritate and alarm a weak and diseased mind. His Majesty
absurdly imagined that his Coronation oath bound him to refuse
his assent to any bill for relieving Roman Catholics from civil
disabilities. To argue with him was impossible. Dundas tried to explain
the matter, but was told to keep his Scotch metaphysics to himself.
Pitt, and Pitt's ablest colleagues, resigned their offices. It was
necessary that the King should make a new arrangement. But by this time
his anger and distress had brought back the malady which had, many
years before, incapacitated him for the discharge of his functions. He
actually assembled his family, read the Coronation oath to them, and
told them that, if he broke it, the Crown would immediately pass to the
House of Savoy. It was not until after an interregnum of several
weeks that he regained the full use of his small faculties, and that a
ministry after his own heart was at length formed.

The materials out of which he had to construct a government were neither
solid nor splendid. To that party, weak in numbers, but strong in every
kind of talent, which was hostile to the domestic and foreign policy of
his late advisers, he could not have recourse. For that party, while it
differed from his late advisers on every point on which they had been
honoured with his approbation, cordially agreed with them as to the
single matter which had brought on them his displeasure. All that was
left to him was to call up the rear ranks of the old ministry to form
the front rank of a new ministry. In an age pre-eminently fruitful of
parliamentary talents, a cabinet was formed containing hardly a single
man who, in parliamentary talents, could be considered as even of the
second rate. The most important offices in the state were bestowed on
decorous and labori