that Lord North's fall was at hand and a new scramble for places was about to take place."[1] What schemes of reconciliation Shelburne would possibly at this moment entertain it is difficult to determine, for he had quite recently received a convincing proof of the royal displeasure.
In some military promotions Barré, who in 1766 had been restored to his rank, was passed over in so marked a manner that his resignation became no matter of choice.[2] The indignity thus offered him was, in the opinion of Shelburne, the result of the personal interposition of the King.[3] The Prime Minister indeed disapproved of the conduct of his royal master, but his own position was not at that moment sufficiently secure to make his opinion of much weight. George III. was said to be looking for a new minister as pliable, but even more reactionary. The object of his choice would in any case not have been the statesman who opposed the Declaratory Act, and supported the claims of the Nonconformists to toleration.[4] The Ministry as a whole was secure. "There is no proposal," said Burke, "how destructive soever to the liberties of the kingdom which the Ministry can make, but what the people would readily comply with."[5] Burke, however, did not sufficiently realize that it was in no small degree owing to the quarrels of the Opposition that this was the case, and that of these quarrels he was the principal cause. Chatham, it is true, by his retirement from political life, varied only by sudden appearances of which he sometimes did not even give his intimate friends notice, not unnaturally excited general apprehension as to what course he was at any moment likely to pursue; but Burke, on the other hand, was always present, and never weary of sowing suspicion, while expecting the unquestioning adherence of all the members of the Opposition to his proposals. He perpetually harps in his letters at this time on "the treachery of our allies in opposition,"[6] expresses indignation at the
