en.

The king's determination to break down the system which had so long
secured the whig power was set forth and commended in a remarkable
pamphlet written by Douglas, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and
probably inspired by his patron, Lord Bath.[21] It urged the king to be
on his guard against "the pretensions of a confederacy of ministers,"
and to exercise the full extent of power allowed him by the
constitution. He must not let his patronage go by the advice of
ministers. Let him rely on his people; let him be master. Proscription,
the writer says, is ended, and he expresses his belief that if the king
will pursue the line marked out in his pamphlet, corruption also will
disappear; for so long as a minister disposes of places, he has the
means of corrupting parliament, whereas if the crown dispenses its own
patronage it will gain strength, and the independence of parliament will
be restored. For Newcastle, the veteran dispenser of the royal
patronage, such a system meant political extinction. Its meaning was
already brought home to him by an intimation that he was not to have
"the choice of parliament," the management of the coming general
election in boroughs under government influence, nor to purchase seats
with the treasury money. Anson was reproved by Bute for having,
according to custom, provided members for the admiralty boroughs.
Newcastle believed, with good reason, that Pitt and Bute were agreed on
this matter. He was deeply distressed, and told his friend Hardwicke
that he thought he must resign office.[22] That, however, was the last
thing he was likely to do.

[Sidenote: _OPPOSING VIEWS WITH RESPECT TO THE WAR._]

While Pitt may have welcomed the co-operation of his new ally from a
belief that they had a common policy as regards government by connexion,
and as a means of checking the opposition with which his plans were
often received by Newcastle and his friends, it is certain from later
events that the king and Bute were not sincere in their dealings with
him. They designed to raise dissension between him and his
fellow-ministers, and so prepare a way for Bute's assumption of office
and for the termination of the war. As early as January 18, 1761, when
Newcastle was sufficiently frightened and humbled, the Sardinian
minister, Count de Viri, one of Bute's tools, had a secret interview
with him, and proposed that the earl should be made a secretary of
state. Newcastle, who was mortally afraid of Pitt