ons were
strong, and the tenacity of his resolution commanded submission. An
accomplished linguist, fond of business, and having some talents as a
writer, which enabled him to express his meaning with facility and
clearness, he was well qualified to avail himself of the political
accidents which contributed to revive and strengthen the royal
prerogative.

The Whigs themselves helped mainly to bring about this struggle between
the Crown and the Parliament, or rather between the Crown and the "great
families," to use Mr. Canning's phrase, who had hitherto absorbed the
power and patronage of the State. United in principle, they were divided
by personal jealousies. The long possession of office had given a sort
of impunity to their pretensions; and believing that they held a
perpetual tenure of Administration, they were weak enough, at every new
ministerial change, to contend amongst themselves for the prizes. These
internal dissensions weakened and scattered them, and prepared the way
for those experiments which were made, during the early years of George
III., to conduct the Government without their aid.

The effects were felt in an entire change of system. The accession of
George III. was followed by a _coup-d'etat_, which displaced the able
Cabinet that had been organized by the elder Pitt, to make room for the
Earl of Bute, who had the credit of being the author of the scheme, and
who was utterly incapable of carrying it out. Independently of his want
of the requisite qualifications as a statesman, there were other
objections of a private nature to Lord Bute, which rendered it
impossible that he could ostensibly continue to guide the councils of
the Ministry, however he might be permitted, or retained, to influence
them from behind the curtain. But his short essay at Government had
sufficiently disturbed the _ancien regime_, to leave in the King's hands
the power of choosing his Ministers without reference to popular clamour
or the will of Parliament. The consequence was, a rapid series of
Ministerial mutations, throughout which the contest for power was
maintained on both sides with so fierce a spirit, that during the first
ten years of the reign of George III., there were no less than seven
successive Administrations.

It was not till Lord North was called to the head of the Ministry, in
1770, that the public uneasiness was allayed, and a Cabinet of the
King's own choice was founded in security. Lord North was an