nd
responsible counsellors to whom he had delivered the seals of office,
but in secret advisers who stole up the back stairs into his closet. In
Parliament his ministers, while defending themselves against the attacks
of the opposition in front, were perpetually, at his instigation,
assailed on the flank or in the rear by a vile band of mercenaries who
called themselves his friends. These men constantly, while in possession
of lucrative places in his service, spoke and voted against bills which
he had authorised the First Lord of the Treasury or the Secretary of
State to bring in. But from the day on which Pitt was placed at the
head of affairs there was an end of secret influence. His haughty and
aspiring spirit was not to be satisfied with the mere show of power.
Any attempt to undermine him at Court, any mutinous movement among his
followers in the House of Commons, was certain to be at once put down.
He had only to tender his resignation; and he could dictate his own
terms. For he, and he alone, stood between the King and the Coalition.
He was therefore little less than Mayor of the Palace. The nation loudly
applauded the King for having the wisdom to repose entire confidence
in so excellent a minister. His Majesty's private virtues now began to
produce their full effect. He was generally regarded as the model of a
respectable country gentleman, honest, good-natured, sober, religious.
He rose early: he dined temperately: he was strictly faithful to his
wife: he never missed church; and at church he never missed a response.
His people heartily prayed that he might long reign over them; and they
prayed the more heartily because his virtues were set off to the best
advantage by the vices and follies of the Prince of Wales, who lived in
close intimacy with the chiefs of the opposition.

How strong this feeling was in the public mind appeared signally on
one great occasion. In the autumn of 1788 the King became insane.
The opposition, eager for office, committed the great indiscretion
of asserting that the heir apparent had, by the fundamental laws of
England, a right to be Regent with the full powers of royalty. Pitt, on
the other hand, maintained it to be the constitutional doctrine
that, when a Sovereign is, by reason of infancy, disease, or absence,
incapable of exercising the regal functions, it belongs to the Estates
of the realm to determine who shall be the vicegerent and with what
portion of the executive author