as widely condemned. When parliament met on November
25, Bute's coach was attacked and he was in some danger. In the lords
the address approving the preliminaries was passed without a division.
In the commons the debate had begun when Pitt entered the house. He was
suffering from gout, and was carried by his servants within the bar.
Dressed in black velvet, and leaning on a crutch, he advanced slowly to
his seat, his limbs swathed in wrappings, and his face pale with
suffering. Yet he spoke for three hours and forty minutes. After
declaring that he was unconnected with any party, he criticised the
various articles of the treaty, pointing out that they surrendered
maritime and commercial advantages which would have been doubly valuable
because our gain would have been the loss of France. The treatment of
Frederick he denounced as base and treacherous. The address was carried
by 319 to 65. The definitive treaty was signed at Paris on February 10,
1763, and on the 15th Prussia and Austria made peace at Hubertsburg. The
majority was largely obtained by corruption. Many members, however, no
doubt welcomed the peace, even though they were not fully satisfied with
its terms. The rout of the whigs was completed by their disunion; some
who would have voted against the address were discouraged by Pitt's
attitude of solitary independence.[61] The king had succeeded in
breaking up the whig party, and there was no organised opposition. The
court was triumphant. On hearing the result of the division, the
princess-dowager is said to have exclaimed, "Now my son is King of
England!" The victory was followed up by a general proscription of the
whigs; Newcastle, Grafton, and Rockingham were dismissed from their
lord-lieutenancies. Nor was vengeance confined to the great. All whigs
who held places were deprived of them, and even poor clerks and
excisemen lost the employments bestowed on them by whig ministers. Fox
urged on the execution of this shameful business. Every effort was made
to obtain congratulatory addresses on the peace from municipal bodies,
and money was offered for them. London and several other places refused
to be won over by any means.

[Sidenote: _THE CIDER TAX._]

The unpopularity of the administration was heightened by its finance.
Dashwood's scheme for the supplies included a loan of L3,000,000, which
was negotiated on such extravagant terms that the scrip soon rose to a
premium of 11 per cent. The loan was not open