the public burdens were augmented. Nay, he seemed to glory in the magnitude of those sacrifices which the people, fascinated by his eloquence and success, had too readily made, and would long and bitterly regret. There was no check on waste or embezzlement. Our commissaries returned from the camp of Prince Ferdinand to buy boroughs, to rear palaces, to rival the magnificence of the old aristocracy of the realm. Already had we borrowed, in four years of war, more than the most skilful and economical government would pay in forty years of peace. But the prospect of peace was as remote as ever. It could not be doubted that France, smarting and prostrate, would consent to fair terms of accommodation; but this was not what Pitt wanted. War had made him powerful and popular; with war, all that was brightest in his life was associated: for war his talents were peculiarly fitted. He had at length begun to love war for its own sake, and was more disposed to quarrel with neutrals than to make peace with

enemies.

Such were the views of the Duke of Bedford and of the Earl of Hardwicke; but no member of the government held these opinions so strongly as George Grenville, the treasurer of the navy. George Grenville was brother-in-law of Pitt, and had always been reckoned one of Pitt's personal and political friends. But it is difficult to conceive two men of talents and integrity more utterly unlike each other. Pitt, as his sister often said, knew nothing accurately except Spenser's Fairy Queen. He had never applied himself steadily to any branch of knowledge. He was a wretched financier. He never became familiar even with the rules of that House of which he was the brightest ornament. He had never studied public law

Grenville's character was stern, melancholy, and pe tinacious. Nothing was more remarkable in him th his inclination always to look on the dark side of thing He was the raven of the House of Commons, alwa croaking defeat in the midst of triumphs, and ban ruptcy with an overflowing exchequer. Burke, wi general applause, compared him, in a time of quiet a plenty, to the evil spirit whom Ovid described looki down on the stately temples and wealthy haven Athens, and scarce able to refrain from weeping cause she could find nothing at which to weep. Su a man was not likely to be popular. But to unpopul ity Grenville opposed a dogged determination, whi sometimes forced even those who hated him to resp him.

It was natural that Pitt and Grenville, being su as they were, should take very different views of situation of affairs. Pitt could see nothing but trophies; Grenville could see nothing but the b Pitt boasted that England was victorious at once America, in India, and in Germany, the umpire of Continent, the mistress of the sea. Grenville cast the subsidies, sighed over the army extraordinaries, a groaned in spirit to think that the nation had borrow eight millions in one year.

He l

With a ministry thus divided it was not difficult Bute to deal. Legge was the first who fell. given offence to the young King in the late reign, refusing to support a creature of Bute at a Hampsh election. He was now not only turned out, but in closet, when he delivered up his seal of office, treated with gross incivility.

Pitt, who did not love Legge, saw this event w indifference. But the danger was now fast approa

the American fleet. He had determined, it is said, to attack without delay both Havanna and the Philippines.

His wise and resolute counsel was rejected. Bute was foremost in opposing it, and was supported by almost the whole cabinet. Some of the ministers doubted, or affected to doubt, the correctness of Pitt's intelligence; some shrank from the responsibility of advising a course so bold and decided as that which he proposed; some were weary of his ascendency, and were glad to be rid of him on any pretext. One only of his colleagues agreed with him, his brother-in-law, Earl Temple.

Pitt and Temple resigned their offices. To Pitt the young King behaved at parting in the most gracious manner. Pitt, who, proud and fiery every where else, was always meek and humble in the closet, was moved even to tears. The King and the favourite urged him to accept some substantial mark of royal gratitude. Would he like to be appointed governor of Canada ? A salary of five thousand pounds a year should be annexed to the office. Residence would not be required. It was true that the governor of Canada, as the law then stood, could not be a member of the House of Commons. But a bill should be brought in, authorising Pitt to hold his government together with a seat in Parliament, and in the preamble should be set forth his claims to the gratitude of his country. Pitt answered, with all delicacy, that his anxieties were rather for his wife and family than for himself, and that nothing would be so acceptable to him as a mark of royal goodness which might be beneficial to those who were dearest to him. The hint was taken. The same Gazette which announced the ret.rement of the Secretary of