r my own poor share, I could not have dared as I have done, except in
these times. Other Ministers have hoped as well, but have not been so
circumstanced to dare so much.... I think the stone almost rolled to the
top of the hill; but let us have a care; it may rebound, and hideously
drag us down with it again." [Ib. iii. 225; Thackeray, i. 446.]

The essential truth, moreover, is, Pitt has become King of England;
so lucky has poor England, in its hour of crisis, again been. And
the difference between an England guided by some kind of Friedrich
(temporary Friedrich, absolute, though of insecure tenure), and by a
Newcastle and the Clack of Tongues, is very great! But for Pitt,
there had been no Wolfe, no Amherst; Duke Ferdinand had been the Royal
Highness of Cumberland,--and all things going round him in St. Vitus, at
their old rate. This man is a King, for the time being,--King really of
the Friedrich type;--and rules, Friedrich himself not more despotically,
where need is. Pitt's War-Offices, Admiralties, were not of themselves
quick-going entities; but Pitt made them go. Slow-paced Lords in Office
have remonstrated, on more than one occasion: "Impossible, Sir; these
things cannot be got ready at the time you order!" "My Lord, they
indispensably must," Pitt would answer (a man always reverent of coming
facts, knowing how inexorable they are); and if the Negative continued
obstinate in argument, he has been known to add: "My Lord, to the King's
service, it is a fixed necessity of time. Unless the time is kept, I
will impeach your Lordship!" Your Lordship's head will come to lie at
your Lordship's feet! Figure a poor Duke of Newcastle, listening to such
a thing;--and knowing that Pitt will do it; and that he can, such is his
favor with universal England;--and trembling and obeying. War-requisites
for land and for sea are got ready with a Prussian punctuality,--at what
multiple of the Prussian expense, is a smaller question for Pitt.

It is about eighteen months ago that Pownal, Governor of New England,
a kind of half-military person, not without sound sense, though sadly
intricate of utterance,--of whom Pitt, just entering on Office, has, I
suppose, asked an opinion on America, as men do of Learned Counsel on
an impending Lawsuit of magnitude,--had answered, in his long-winded,
intertwisted, nearly inextricable way, to the effect, "Sir, I incline to
fear, on the whole, that the Action will NOT lie,--that, on the
whole, th