Spencer,
and Windham decided to go out with Pitt, so did Canning and others who
held minor offices, and Cornwallis and Castlereagh also retired. Pitt
promised his help to Addington, whose father had physicked the Pitt
family, and persuaded some of his followers to join the new ministry. As
it was to be an anti-catholic ministry, his conduct has been held to
prove that he was paving his way to a return to office, and that the
change, so far as he was concerned, was, to use Fox's expression, "a
juggle". It should be remembered that the country was engaged in a
deadly conflict, and that its safety was always Pitt's first
consideration. Emancipation was hopeless. He had felt bound in honour to
break up a strong ministry because he could not carry it, and it was his
duty to do what he could to strengthen the new ministry so long as it
did not prove incapable of guiding the country in critical times.

[Sidenote: _PITT'S IMPENDING RESIGNATION._]

In this, as in every part of these transactions, his conduct was
honourable and straightforward. He would not continue in office when
thwarted by the king on a question of great importance, nor would he
consent to disappoint hopes which he had encouraged and by which he had
benefited. That he was influenced by any other motive, such as that his
continuance in office would hinder peace, is a vain imagining. He has
been blamed by an eminent historian for not having persevered in his
attempt to overcome the king's determination, which on other occasions
had yielded to pressure.[314] On none of these occasions had George's
religious convictions been concerned. Some experience of the power
exercised by religious prejudice in strengthening the resistance which a
naturally obstinate person can make to reason, persuasion, and the force
of circumstances, leads me to believe that Pitt was right in accepting
the king's decision as final and in not engaging in a struggle which
might, especially at that time, have had disastrous consequences. Short
of such a struggle he did insist on his policy in the only way open to
him; he resigned. Where he was to blame, and he acknowledged it, was in
keeping his intentions secret from the king. Whether if he had
communicated them to the king at an early date, he would have gradually
won George over to his policy, it is impossible to say; he certainly
went the wrong way to work in disregarding the right of the crown to be
consulted on the policy which the pr