real strength; and they might have stood, had they agreed amongst themselves. The commons could not be brought to any angry votes; and the result of the enquiry into the loss of Minorca, was as favourable as they could have wished. But Mr. F——— thought it not adviseable to bear a large proportion of the odium caused by counsels, in which he had little share. Perhaps, he thought this embarrassment a situation not unfavourable to the arrangement he had always aimed at; he therefore suddenly threw up an employment, which he hoped to resume augmented with greater power.
On the removal of this principal prop, the whole structure of the ministry fell to pieces. The D. of N. the Ld. Ch. the first lord of the admiralty resigned; and the chiefs of the party by whose manoeuvres they were displaced, naturally succeeded to the management of affairs. Dec. 4. 1756. They who had resigned gave them no apparent opposition in parliament; but whether it was, that the new ministry were themselves too fresh from opposition, and some of them too full of the popular manners that introduced them to court, to be perfectly agreeable in the closet, or that they had made their bottom too narrow, after holding their employments for some months, to the great concern of the public, they in their turn were obliged to quit their posts. April 5. 1757. Thus was the helm of government a second time abandoned. The case of the King and the nation was at that juncture truly deplorable. We were without any ally who could do us the least service, engaged in a war, hitherto unsuccessful, with the most formidable power in Europe; we almost despaired of our military virtue; public spirit appeared utterly extinguished, whilst the rage of faction burned with the utmost violence; our operations were totally suspended; and having no ministry established, we had no plan to follow.
Three factions divided the ruling men of the nation, for the gross of the people seemed to have no further views than a redress of their grievances, by whatever means that could be brought about; the first of these factions was composed of those who had grown to place and power, or had formed their connections under the old ministry. They were some of the most respectable persons in the nation, and had undoubtedly the greatest parliamentary interest. They had at the same time another interest hardly less confiderable, that of the monied people; but in some points, and these material too, they were weak. They were not at all popular; a matter of great consideration in a government like ours: and they were supposed by the gross of the people not to be under the direction of great political abilities.
The second faction, though not suspected of the want of sufficient ability, was yet more unpopular than the former; they had not attempted to preserve even the appearances essential to popularity; and to them the more essential, as their parliamentary strength was, however respectable, much inferior to the first. If their influence at one court was able to balance that of the old ministry, by means of a then powerful connection, that very connection made them far worse at another court, and worse with the generality of the people, who entertained, or pretended at least to entertain, suspicions of a nature the more dangerous, as they were only drop- ped
