robability that Mr. Pitt would return to power. In an instant there was
deep silence, all shoulders rose, and all faces were lengthened. Now,
unhappily, every foreign court, in learning that he was recalled to
office, learned also that he no longer possessed the hearts of his
countrymen. Ceasing to be loved at home, he ceased to be feared abroad.
The name of Pitt had been a charmed name. Our envoys tried in vain to
conjure with the name of Chatham.

The difficulties which beset Chatham were daily increased by the
despotic manner in which he treated all around him. Lord Rockingham had,
at the time of the change of ministry, acted with great moderation, had
expressed a hope that the new government would act on the principles of
the late government, and had even interfered to prevent many of his
friends from quitting office. Thus Saunders and Keppel, two naval
commanders of great eminence, had been induced to remain at the
Admiralty, where their services were much needed. The Duke of Portland
was still Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Besborough Postmaster. But within a
quarter of a year, Lord Chatham had so deeply affronted these men that
they all retired in disgust. In truth, his tone, submissive in the
closet, was at this time insupportably tyrannical in the cabinet. His
colleagues were merely his clerks for naval, financial, and diplomatic
business. Conway, meek as he was, was on one occasion provoked into
declaring that such language as Lord Chatham's had never been heard west
of Constantinople, and was with difficulty prevented by Horace Walpole
from resigning, and rejoining the standard of Lord Rockingham.

The breach which had been made in the government by the defection of so
many of the Rockinghams, Chatham hoped to supply by the help of the
Bedfords. But with the Bedfords he could not deal as he had dealt with
other parties. It was to no purpose that he bade high for one or two
members of the faction, in the hope of detaching them from the rest.
They were to be had; but they were to be had only in the lot. There was
indeed for a moment some wavering and some disputing among them. But at
length the counsels of the shrewd and resolute Rigby prevailed. They
determined to stand firmly together, and plainly intimated to Chatham
that he must take them all, or that he should get none of them. The
event proved that they were wiser in their generation than any other
connection in the state. In a few months they were able to di