t
either of predilection or of aversion. They were the King's friends. It
is to be observed that this friendship implied no personal intimacy.
These people had never lived with their master, as Dodington at one time
lived with his father, or as Sheridan afterwards lived with his son.
They never hunted with him in the morning, or played cards with him in
the evening, never shared his mutton or walked with him among his
turnips. Only one or two of them ever saw his face except on public
days. The whole band, however, always had early and accurate information
as to his personal inclinations. These people were never high in the
administration. They were generally to be found in places of much
emolument, little labor, and no responsibility; and these places they
continued to occupy securely while the cabinet was six or seven times
reconstructed. Their peculiar business was not to support the ministry
against the opposition, but to support the King against the ministry.
Whenever his Majesty was induced to give a reluctant assent to the
introduction of some bill which his constitutional advisers regarded as
necessary, his friends in the House of Commons were sure to speak
against it, to vote against it, to throw in its way every obstruction
compatible with the forms of Parliament. If his Majesty found it
necessary to admit into his closet a Secretary of State or a First Lord
of the Treasury whom he disliked, his friends were sure to miss no
opportunity of thwarting and humbling the obnoxious minister. In return
for these services, the King covered them with his protection. It was to
no purpose that his responsible servants complained to him that they
were daily betrayed and impeded by men who were eating the bread of the
government. He sometimes justified the offenders, sometimes excused
them, sometimes owned that they were to blame, but said that he must
take time to consider whether he could part with them. He never would
turn them out; and, while everything else in the state was constantly
changing, these sycophants seemed to have a life estate in their
offices.

It was well known to the King's friends that, though his Majesty had
consented to the repeal of the Stamp Act, he had consented with a very
bad grace, and that, though he had eagerly welcomed the Whigs, when, in
his extreme need and at his earnest entreaty, they had undertaken to
free him from an insupportable yoke, he had by no means got over his
early prejudices