e faithful servants from the
knowledge of their royal master; to have represented them as obstinate,
imperious, ignorant, and even lukewarm in their loyalty; and to have
declared, that with such colleagues it would be impossible to move the
machine of government according to his majesty's inclination. These
suggestions, artfully inculcated, produced the desired effect: on the
ninth day of April, Mr. Pitt, by his majesty's command, resigned the
seals of secretary of state for the southern department. In the room of
Mr. Legge, the king was pleased to grant the office of chancellor of the
exchequer to the right honourable lord Mansfield, chief-justice of the
court of king's bench, the same personage whom we have mentioned before
under the name of Mr. Murray, solicitor-general, now promoted and
ennobled for his extraordinary merit and important services. The fate
of Mr. Pitt was extended to some of his principal friends: the board of
admiralty was changed, and some other removals were made with the same
intention.

What was intended as a disgrace to Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge turned out one
of the most shining circumstances of their characters. The whole nation
seemed to rise up, as one man, in the vindication of their fame; every
mouth was opened in their praise; and a great number of respectable
cities and corporations presented them with the freedom of their
respective societies, enclosed in gold boxes of curious workmanship, as
testimonies of their peculiar veneration. What the people highly
esteem, they in a manner idolize. Not contented with making offerings
so flattering and grateful to conscious virtue, they conceived the
most violent prejudices against those gentlemen who succeeded in the
administration; fully convinced, that the same persons who had sunk the
nation in the present distressful circumstances, who had brought on her
dishonour, and reduced her to the verge of destruction, were by no means
the fit instruments of her delivery and redemption. The whole kingdom
caught fire at the late changes; nor could the power, the cunning, and
the artifice of a faction, long support itself against the united voice
of Great Britain, which soon pierced the ears of the sovereign. It was
not possible to persuade the people that salutary measures could be
suggested or pursued, except by the few, whose zeal for the honour of
their country, and steady adherence to an upright disinterested conduct,
had secured their confidence, an