ng towards one
side, there may be a risk of oversetting it on the other. Every project of
a material change in a government so complicated as ours is a matter full
of difficulties; in which a considerate man will not be too ready to
decide, a prudent man too ready to undertake, or an honest man too ready to
promise." Neither now nor ever had Burke any other real conception of a
polity for England than government by the territorial aristocracy in the
interests of the nation at large, and especially in the interests of
commerce, to the vital importance of which in our economy he was always
keenly and wisely alive. The policy of George III., and the support which
it found among [v.04 p.0829] men who were weary of Whig factions, disturbed
this scheme, and therefore Burke denounced both the court policy and the
court party with all his heart and all his strength.

Eloquence and good sense, however, were impotent in the face of such forces
as were at this time arrayed against a government at once strong and
liberal. The court was confident that a union between Chatham and the
Rockinghams was impossible. The union was in fact hindered by the
waywardness and the absurd pretences of Chatham, and the want of force in
Lord Rockingham. In the nation at large, the late violent ferment had been
followed by as remarkable a deadness and vapidity, and Burke himself had to
admit a year or two later that any remarkable robbery at Hounslow Heath
would make more conversation than all the disturbances of America. The duke
of Grafton went out, and Lord North became the head of a government, which
lasted twelve years (1770-1782), and brought about more than all the
disasters that Burke had foretold as the inevitable issue of the royal
policy. For the first six years of this lamentable period Burke was
actively employed in stimulating, informing and guiding the patrician
chiefs of his party. "Indeed, Burke," said the duke of Richmond, "you have
more merit than any man in keeping us together." They were well-meaning and
patriotic men, but it was not always easy to get them to prefer politics to
fox-hunting. When he reached his lodgings at night after a day in the city
or a skirmish in the House of Commons, Burke used to find a note from the
duke of Richmond or the marquess of Rockingham, praying him to draw a
protest to be entered on the Journals of the Lords, and in fact he drew all
the principal protests of his party between 1767 and 1782. The a