reform, and were alarmed by a recent
declaration of Shelburne that the suffrage must be extended so as to
admit a hundred new county members. Thus while the two leaders were
urged to coalescence by one motive, their followers were largely swayed
by another, and this added much to the mystery and general
unintelligibleness of the movement. In taking this step Fox made the
mistake which was characteristic of the Old Whig party. He gave too
little heed to the great public outside the walls of the House of
Commons. The coalition, once made, was very strong in Parliament, but it
mystified and scandalized the people, and this popular disapproval by
and by made it easy for the king to overthrow it.

[Sidenote: Fall of Shelburne's ministry.]

It was agreed to choose the treaty as the occasion for the combined
attack upon the Shelburne ministry. North, as the minister who had
conducted the unsuccessful war, was bound to oppose the treaty, in any
case. It would not do for him to admit that better terms could not have
been made. The treaty was also very unpopular with Fox's party, and with
the nation at large. It was thought that too much territory had been
conceded to the Americans, and fault was found with the article on the
fisheries. But the point which excited most indignation was the virtual
abandonment of the loyalists, for here the honour of England was felt to
be at stake. On this ground the treaty was emphatically condemned by
Burke, Sheridan, and Wilberforce, no less than by North. It was ably
defended in the Commons by Pitt, and in the Lords by Shelburne himself,
who argued that he had but the alternative of accepting the terms as
they stood, or continuing the war; and since it had come to this, he
said, without spilling a drop of blood, or incurring one fifth of the
expense of a year's campaign, the comfort and happiness of the American
loyalists could be easily secured. By this he meant that, should America
fail to make good their losses, it was far better for England to
indemnify them herself than to prolong indefinitely a bloody and ruinous
struggle. As we shall hereafter see, this liberal and enlightened policy
was the one which England really pursued, so far as practicable, and her
honour was completely saved. That Shelburne and Pitt were quite right
there can now be little doubt. But argument was of no avail against the
resistless power of the coalition. On the 17th of February Lord John
Cavendish moved an ame