ithout the loss of a single acre of
territory, and with what Frederick especially coveted, the rank of a
first-rate Power in Europe. If Prussia, which had been so long
England's ally, had gained, England had not lost. Undoubtedly Pitt's
war was popular; no less undoubtedly Bute's peace was unpopular, and
the unpopularity of the policy intensified the unpopularity of the
minister. In the eyes of the bulk of the English people Lord Bute, as
a Scotchman, was {30} a foreigner, as much a foreigner as if he hailed
from France or the Low Countries. Lord Chesterfield was finely
disdainful of the popular opposition to Bute on account of his
nationality. "If the vulgar are ever right," he said, "they are right
for the wrong reason. What they selected to attack in Lord Bute was
his being a Scotchman, which was precisely what he could not help."
But it was not Bute's nationality, so much as his flagrant partiality
to his fellow-countrymen, that made him unpopular. His affection for
his own countrymen, however admirable and even touching in itself, was
resented fiercely by the English people, who found themselves
threatened by a new invasion of the Picts and Scots. Across the Border
came a steady stream of Bute's henchmen, men with names that seemed
outlandish and even savage to the Londoner, and every Scotchman found,
or hoped to find, through the influence of Bute his way to office and
emolument. The growing hatred for Bute extended itself as rapidly as
unjustly to the nation from which Bute came.

The story of Bute's Ministry is a story of astonishing mistakes. The
Tories, who for five-and-forty years had inveighed against the
political corruption which, fostered by Walpole, seemed to have
culminated under Newcastle, now boldly went in for a system of flagrant
bribery which surpassed anything yet essayed by the most cynical of
Whig ministers. The Paymaster's Office became a regular mart where
parliamentary votes were bought and sold as unblushingly as humbler
folk bought and sold groceries across a counter. A Ministry weakened
by an unpopular peace, and only held together by such cynical
merchandise, was not likely to withstand a strong storm, and the storm
was not long in rising.

To swell the exchequer, the Ministry proposed to raise revenue by a tax
on cider and perry. It was resolved to levy an imposition of four
shillings per hogshead on the grower of the apple wine and the pear
wine. The cider counties raise