is claim to
direct; when the king referred a matter to the council "the opinion of
the majority must decide". The council rejected Pitt's proposal.[51]

[Sidenote: _PITT RESIGNS OFFICE._]

It must not be supposed that Pitt had information as to the relations
between France and Spain which he did not lay before his colleagues;
indeed it is fairly certain that this was not the case. They knew that a
treaty was made, and that Spain had entered into it with hostile
intentions. Pitt, with the insight of a statesman, was sure that war
with Spain was certain, and desired to strike before she was ready. His
colleagues, anxious for peace and fretting under his predominance,
allowed themselves to be blinded by their hopes. They believed that
France might yet shake off her engagement to Spain, and be willing to
make peace on terms to which Great Britain could agree; and they
determined in any case to put off a declaration of war against Spain as
long as possible. Pitt resigned the seals on the 5th. So ended the
ministry of that great man who alone, at a critical time, had justly
rated the strength and spirit of England, and had dared to rely upon
them, who had taught his fellow-countrymen how great things they might
do, had sent them forth, confident in that knowledge, to victory after
victory, and had laid broad and deep the foundations of Britain's
colonial empire.

The king's petulant wish was fulfilled, but though he and Bute approved
of the decision of the council, Bute thought that Pitt's resignation was
"not favourable in the present minute to the king's affairs". He would
have been well pleased if George could have found in Pitt a minister
subservient to his royal will; he could not endure that he should give
strength to a whig cabinet. Pitt took a line which the king disliked,
yet Bute knew that he could ill be spared so long as the war lasted, and
was annoyed that his intrigues against him had been successful at an
inopportune time. The leaders of the whig oligarchy, and specially
Newcastle, Devonshire, and Bedford, sometimes inspired by Bute, and
sometimes urging him on, had succeeded in driving Pitt out of office.
What was to be their reward? They were to fall back into disunion, and
were consequently to find themselves unable to resist the growth of the
royal power. As for Pitt himself, his resignation dissolved the
unnatural alliance between him and them. His position was tolerable only
so long as he was their mas