George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[25] ‘nor indeed throughout the Kingdom.’¹ The lion

Chap. XXVI.} 1766. July.

had left the forest, where he roamed as the undisputed monarch, and of himself had walked into a cage. His popularity vanished, and with it the terror of his name. He was but an English Earl and the shadow of a Prime Minister; he no longer repreented the enthusiastic nationality of the British people. He had, moreover, offended the head of every faction, whose assistance he yet required; Camden, his Chancellor, had not the qualities of a great statesman, and wanted fidelity; Grafton, on whom he leaned, was indolent and easily misled; Conway, one of his Secretaries of State, always vacillated; Shelburne, his firm, able, and sincere friend, was, from the first, regarded at court with dislike; and the King himself agreed with him in nothing but the wish to humble the aristocracy.

At the time of Chatham's taking office, Choiseul,

Aug.

the greatest minister of France since Richelieu,² having assigned the care of the navy to his brother, had resumed that of Foreign Affairs. He knew the gigantic schemes of colonial conquests which Pitt had formerly harbored; and weighed the probabilities³ of an attempt to realize them by a new war against France and Spain. The agent whom he had sent in 1764 on a tour of observation through the British colonies, was just returned, and reported⁴ how they abounded in corn, cattle, flax, and iron; in trees fit for masts; in pine timber, lighter than oak, easily wrought, not liable to split, and incorruptible; how