e
itself, and of seeking political strength in popular good-will,
separated him from them in feeling and methods of action. Yet his
alliance with them was never formally broken. He entered into it
because, he said, former differences should be forgotten when the
struggle was _pro aris et focis_. He was eager for the fray. Parliament,
said he, "must, it shall, be dissolved". With him as leader and with a
united opposition, backed by a large part of the nation, victory seemed
almost certain. He reckoned without the king. An ostensible minister
might be forced to resign; but the king was a permanent official, and
George was hard to beat.

[Sidenote: _CHATHAM IN OPPOSITION._]

Parliament met on January 9, 1770. It was a critical time: at home
discontent was widespread; the American colonies were disaffected; war
with France and Spain seemed not far off. The king's speech recommended
attention to American affairs and hinted at the unfriendly attitude of
foreign courts, but took no notice of domestic discontents, and gave
prominence to an outbreak of distemper among "horned cattle". The cattle
plague was a matter of serious national concern; yet the speech was
insufficient for the occasion; it was, Junius declared, the speech of "a
ruined grazier". It showed that the ministers intended to ignore the
signs of popular indignation. Chatham moved, as an amendment to the
address, that the lords would inquire into the causes of the prevailing
discontents and specially into the matter of the Middlesex election.
"The people," he said, "demand redress, and depend upon it, my lords,
that one way or other they will have redress;" and he attributed their
discontent to the action of the commons in Wilkes's case. Camden
followed, and declared that he had beheld the arbitrary acts of the
ministry with silent indignation, that he would no longer keep silence,
and was of the same opinion as Chatham. Mansfield opposed the amendment
on the ground that it infringed upon the right of the commons to be sole
judges of elections and might lead to a quarrel between the two houses.
Chatham said that he reverenced the constitutional authority of the
commons, but they had gone beyond it, they had betrayed their
constituents and violated the constitution. He ended with a declamation
exhorting the peers to act as became descendants of the barons of Magna
Charta (how many of them could trace descent from so noble a source?)
and like "those iron barons, f