ith the direction of the war in America, had held
language not easily to be reconciled with declarations made by the First
Lord of the Treasury. Pitt noticed the discrepancy with much force and
keenness. Lord George and Lord North began to whisper together; and
Welbore Ellis, an ancient placeman who had been drawing salary almost
every quarter since the days of Henry Pelham, bent down between them to
put in a word. Such interruptions sometimes discompose veteran speakers.
Pitt stopped, and, looking at the group, said, with admirable readiness,
"I shall wait till Nestor has composed the dispute between Agamemnon and
Achilles."

After several defeats, or victories hardly to be distinguished from
defeats, the ministry resigned. The King, reluctantly and ungraciously,
consented to accept Rockingham as first minister. Fox and Shelburne
became Secretaries of State. Lord John Cavendish, one of the most
upright and honourable of men, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Thurlow, whose abilities and force of character had made him the
dictator of the House of Lords, continued to hold the great seal.

To Pitt was offered, through Shelburne, the Vice-Treasurership of
Ireland, one of the easiest and most highly paid places in the gift of
the crown; but the offer was, without hesitation, declined. The young
statesman had resolved to accept no post which did not entitle him to
a seat in the cabinet: and, in a few days later, he announced that
resolution in the House of Commons. It must be remembered that the
cabinet was then a much smaller and more select body than at present. We
have seen cabinets of sixteen. In the time of our grandfathers a cabinet
of ten or eleven was thought inconveniently large. Seven was an usual
number. Even Burke, who had taken the lucrative office of paymaster, was
not in the cabinet. Many therefore thought Pitt's declaration indecent.
He himself was sorry that he had made it. The words, he said in private,
had escaped him in the heat of speaking; and he had no sooner uttered
them than he would have given the world to recall them. They, however,
did him no harm with the public. The second William Pitt, it was said,
had shown that he had inherited the spirit, as well as the genius, of
the first. In the son, as in the father, there might perhaps be too much
pride; but there was nothing low or sordid. It might be called arrogance
in a young barrister, living in chambers on three hundred a year, to
refuse a s