But all availed nothing. The vote of censure was passed, and Shelburne's ministry tendered their resignation. The king hesitated. He was unwilling to bring the Coalition into power, because he had an insurmountable repugnance to Fox. He sent for Pitt, and urged him in the most pressing terms to accept the position of Prime-Minister. But Pitt, with

that steadfast judgment which never deserted him, firmly rejected the flattering offer. The most he would consent to do was to remain in the office he then held till the succession could be fixed upon. The king was almost in despair; and thought seriously of retiring to Hanover. It was Thurlow that dissuaded him from taking so dangerous a step. "Nothing is easier than for your Majesty to go to his Electoral dominions;" said the old Chancellor, "but you may not find it so easy to return when you grow tired of staying there. James II. did the same; your Majesty must not follow his example." He then assured the king that the Coalition was an unnatural one, and could not

long remain in power without committing some fatal blunder. After six weeks the king reluctantly submitted, and appointed the Duke of Portland as the Prime-Minister, and North and Fox as the Chief Secretaries of State.

The end came sooner than Thurlow had dared to anticipate. The Coalition ministry was formed on the second day of April, 1783. During the first week of the following session Fox brought forward his East India bill, which had for its object the entire remodelling of the government of the English domains in the East. The measure was in direct defiance of the wishes of the king. In view of the circumstances of Fox's coalition with the Tories, it is not singular that many thought the scheme a desperate measure to intrench the Coalition so firmly in power that the king could not remove them. Pitt opposed the measure with great energy, and with so much skill that it soon became evident that he spoke the sentiments of the thinking men of the nation. The debate on the question lasted twelve days, and was

closed by a masterly review of the question by Fox. The Coalition was so strong in the lower House that the final vote was 217 to 103 in favor of the measure.

But in the House of Lords its fortune was different. At an interview with Lord Temple, a kinsman of Pitt's, the king commissioned him to say to the members of the House "that whoever voted for the India bill were not only not his friends, but that he should consider them his enemies." This message was widely but secretly circulated among the Lords. Thurlow denounced the bill in unqualified terms. Though the ministry fought for the measure as best they could, when the question came to a final issue, it was rejected by a vote of ninety-five to seventy-six. At twelve o'clock on the following night a messenger conveyed the orders of the king to the chief ministers to deliver up the seals of their offices, and to send them by the under secretaries, " as a personal interview on the occasion would be disagreeable to him." The following day the other

ministers were dismissed with like evidences of disfavor.

Pitt now, on the 22d of December, 1783, became Prime-Minister at the age of twenty-four. The situation was one that put all his powers to the severest test. In the last decisive vote in the House of Commons the majority against him had been more than two to one. Fox was inflamed with all the indignation of which his good-nature was capable. He declared on the floor of the House that "to talk of the permanency of such an administration would be only laughing at and insulting them"; and he alluded to "the youth of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the weakness incident to his early period of life as the only possible excuse for his temerity." And yet with such consummate tact did Pitt ward off the blows, and with such skill and power did he in turn advance to the assault, that the majority against him at once began to show signs of weakening. Fox threatened to cut off the supplies; whereupon Pitt met him with an unwavering defi

ance. Rapidly the majority went down till, on a test vote on the 8th of March, the opposition had only one majority. Pitt immediately decided to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the people. The result more than justified his determination. The question everywhere was "Fox or Pitt?" The cry "for Pitt and the King" carried the day by an overwhelming majority, and a complete revolution in the House of Commons was the result. More than a hundred and sixty of "Fox's martyrs" lost their seats. The triumph was the most complete that any English minister ever obtained. It not only placed Pitt in power, but it gave him a predominance in authority that was only once interrupted in the course of more than twenty years.

Within the next few years several subjects of national importance were brought forward by the ministry. But these are usually forgotten or regarded as insignificant when compared with the absorbing questions connected with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic