George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[273] his confession that the government of Great Britain

chap. XII.} 1757.

could no longer be administered by a party, which had for its principle to fight up alike against the king and against the people. The inebriate Granville, the President of the Council, would have infused his jovial intrepidity into the junto of Fox; but Fox himself was desponding.¹ Bedford had his scheme, which he employed Rigby to establish; and when it proved impracticable, indulged himself in reproaches, and the display of² anger, and withdrew to Woburn Abbey. In the midst of war, the country was left to anarchy. ‘We are undone,’ said Chesterfield; ‘at home, by our increasing expenses; abroad, by ill-luck and incapacity;’ the Elector of Hesse, the Grand Duke of Brunswick, destitute of the common honesty of hirelings, were in the market to be bid for by the enemies of their lavish employer; the King of Prussia, Britain's only ally, seemed overwhelmed, Hanover reduced, and the French were masters in America. So dark an hour, so gloomy a prospect, England had not known during the century.

But the mind of Pitt always inclined to hope. ‘I am sure,’ said he to the Duke of Devonshire, ‘I can save this country, and nobody else can.’ For eleven weeks England was without a ministry; so long was the agony; so desperate the resistance; so reluctant the surrender. At last the king and the aristocracy were alike compelled to recognise the ascendency and yield to the guidance of the man whom the nation trusted and loved. Made wise by experience, and relying on his own vigor of will for a