difficult it was to induce Grenville and Windham to enter
into any combination future years were to prove. For the present the
ministry took not merely the wisest, but the only course open to it.
Addington, after vainly endeavouring to induce Pitt to modify his terms,
laid them before a cabinet council on April 13; they were immediately
rejected, though the cabinet declared itself ready to admit to office
Pitt himself and those of his colleagues who had hitherto acted with the
Addington ministry. Pitt could hardly have expected any other reply. No
ministry could have granted such terms except on the supposition that
Pitt was indispensable, and Pitt for the present hardly claimed such a
position.[14]

But if Pitt did not consider himself indispensable, his friends did, and
both he and others came gradually to adopt their view. The rejection of
his terms left him free to adopt the line of policy that he had sketched
to Grenville in the previous December. He had not to wait long for an
opportunity, but in the opinion of Pitt's friends at least the first
provocation came from Addington. Unable to strengthen his ministry by
any accession from Pitt and his followers, he had turned to the "old
opposition," the whigs who, under the leadership of Fox, had
consistently advocated a pacific policy. These had recently supported
the ministry against the "new opposition," as the followers of Grenville
and Windham were called. But since 1797 Fox and the majority of the "old
opposition" had generally absented themselves from parliament, and
George Tierney, member for Southwark, had led what was left of their
party.[15] He now received and accepted the offer of the treasurership
of the navy, one of the most important of the offices below cabinet
rank. As a speaker Tierney was a valuable addition to the government
which was sadly deficient in debating power; he had, however, been
particularly bitter in his attacks on Pitt, with whom he had fought a
duel in 1798, and had provoked the sarcastic wit of Canning, in whose
well-known parody, "The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder"
(1798), the original illustration by Gillray depicted the friend of
humanity with the features of Tierney and laid the scene in the borough
of Southwark.

[Pageheading: _CHANGES IN ADDINGTON'S MINISTRY._]

The appointment, which Pitt himself does not appear to have resented,
was announced on June 1, and Tierney took his place on the treasury
bench on the 3r