the people, the zeal early begun and steadily
continued to the royal family, all these together," says Burke justly,
"formed a body of power in the nation." But George the Third saw that
the Whigs were divided among themselves by the factious spirit which
springs from a long hold of office, and that they were weakened by the
rising contempt with which the country at large regarded the selfishness
and corruption of its representatives.

[Sidenote: Pitt and the Whigs.]

More than thirty years before, the statesmen of the day had figured on
the stage as highwaymen and pickpockets. And now that statesmen were
represented by hoary jobbers such as Newcastle, the public contempt was
fiercer than ever, and men turned sickened from the intrigues and
corruption of party to a young sovereign who aired himself in a
character which Bolingbroke had invented, as a Patriot King. Had Pitt
and Newcastle held together indeed, supported as the one was by the
commercial classes, the other by the Whig families and the whole
machinery of Parliamentary management, George must have struggled in
vain. But the ministry was already disunited. The bulk of the party drew
day by day further from Pitt. Attached as they were to peace by the
traditions of Walpole, dismayed at the enormous expenditure, and haughty
with the pride of a ruling oligarchy, the Whigs were in silent revolt
against the war and the supremacy of the Great Commoner. It was against
their will that he rejected proposals of peace from France which would
have secured to England all her conquests on the terms of a desertion of
Prussia, and that his steady support enabled Frederick still to hold out
against the terrible exhaustion of an unequal struggle. The campaign of
1760 indeed was one of the grandest efforts of Frederick's genius.
Foiled in an attempt on Dresden, he again saved Silesia by a victory at
Liegnitz and hurled back an advance of Daun by a victory at Torgau:
while Ferdinand of Brunswick held his ground as of old along the Weser.
But even victories drained Frederick's strength. Men and money alike
failed him. It was impossible for him to strike another great blow, and
the ring of enemies again closed slowly round him. His one remaining
hope lay in the support of Pitt, and triumphant as his policy had been,
Pitt was tottering to his fall.

[Sidenote: Pitt resigns.]

The envy and resentment of the minister's colleagues at his undisguised
supremacy gave the young king an e