be official fortunes. After a year of honorable if somewhat
colorless existence, the Rockingham Administration came to an end.
There was no particular reason why it should come to an end, but the
King was weary of it. If it had not gravely dissatisfied him, it had
afforded him no grave satisfaction. An Administration always seemed to
George the Third like a candle which he could illuminate or extinguish
at his {108} pleasure. So he blew out the Rockingham Administration
and turned to Pitt for a new one. In point of fact, an Administration
without Pitt was an impossibility. The Duke of Grafton had resigned
his place in the Rockingham Ministry because he believed it hopeless to
go on without the adhesion of Pitt, and Pitt would not adhere to the
Rockingham Ministry. Now, with a free hand, he set to work to form one
of the most amazing Administrations that an age which knew many strange
Administrations can boast of.

The malady which had for so long martyrized the great statesman had
afflicted him heavily of late. His eccentricities had increased to
such a degree that they could hardly be called merely eccentricities.
But though he suffered in mind and in body he was ready and even eager
to return to power, so long as that power was absolute. By this time
he had quarrelled with Temple, who had so often hindered him from
resuming office, and who was now as hostile to him as his brother,
George Grenville, had ever been. Temple, in consequence, found no
place in the new Administration. The Administration was especially
designed to please the King. A party had grown up in the State which
was known by the title of the King's friends. The King's friends had
no political creed, no political convictions, no desire, no ambition,
and no purpose save to please the King. What the King wanted said they
would say; what the King wanted done they would do; their votes were
unquestionably and unhesitatingly at the King's command. They did not,
indeed, act from an invincible loyalty to the royal person. It was the
royal purse that ruled them. The King was the fountain of patronage;
wealth and honors flowed from him; and the wealth and the honors welded
the King's friends together into a harmonious and formidable whole.
The King's friends found themselves well represented in a Ministry that
was otherwise as much a thing of shreds and patches as a harlequin's
coat. Pitt had tried to make a chemical combination, but he only