gratify that
passion. He had recently become King of Spain and the Indies. He saw,
with envy and apprehension, the triumphs of our navy, and the rapid
extension of our colonial Empire. He was a Bourbon, and sympathized with
the distress of the house from which he sprang. He was a Spaniard; and
no Spaniard could bear to see Gibraltar and Minorca in the possession of
a foreign power. Impelled by such feelings, Charles concluded a secret
treaty with France. By this treaty, known as the Family Compact, the two
powers bound themselves, not in express words, but by the clearest
implication, to make war on England in common. Spain postponed the
declaration of hostilities only till her fleet, laden with the treasures
of America, should have arrived.

The existence of the treaty could not be kept a secret from Pitt. He
acted as a man of his capacity and energy might be expected to act. He
at once proposed to declare war against Spain, and to intercept the
American fleet. He had determined, it is said, to attack without delay
both Havana and the Philippines.

His wise and resolute counsel was rejected. Bute was foremost in
opposing it, and was supported by almost the whole cabinet. Some of the
ministers doubted, or affected to doubt, the correctness of Pitt's
intelligence; some shrank from the responsibility of advising a course
so bold and decided as that which he proposed; some were weary of his
ascendency, and were glad to be rid of him on any pretext. One only of
his colleagues agreed with him, his brother-in-law, Earl Temple.

Pitt and Temple resigned their offices. To Pitt the young King behaved
at parting in the most gracious manner. Pitt, who, proud and fiery
everywhere else, was always meek and humble in the closet, was moved
even to tears. The King and the favorite urged him to accept some
substantial mark of royal gratitude. Would he like to be appointed
governor of Canada? A salary of five thousand pounds a year should be
annexed to the office. Residence would not be required. It was true that
the governor of Canada, as the law then stood, could not be a member of
the House of Commons. But a bill should be brought in, authorizing Pitt
to hold his government together with a seat in Parliament, and in the
preamble should be set forth his claims to the gratitude of his country.
Pitt answered, with all delicacy, that his anxieties were rather for his
wife and family than for himself, and that nothing would be so
accep