Excerpt from William PittThe Rockingham ministr lasted only for three months. The king deteste it, it was from the first profoundly divided, and a bitter personal and political animosity had broken out between Charles Fox and Lord Shelburne, its two most conspicuous members. On 1st July 1782 Lord Rockingham died, and the question of leadership at once brokeup the part Fox insisted on the leadership of the Duke 0 Portland, a wealthy and respectable, but perfectly undistinguished nobleman, who was then Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. The king gave the post of First Lord of the Treasur to Shelburne, who had an incomparably higher po itical position, and who had been a favourite friend and colleague Of Chatham, though there were features in his character that already excited great unpopularity and distrust. Fox, with a considerable section of the Rockingham Whigs, at once resigned, and Pitt entered the Cabinet as Chancellor Of the Exchequer in the reconstructed ministry. Public' Opinion generally blamed Fox, and one of the consequences of his resignation was that the House of Commons was divided into three distinct parties. There was the arty of Fox, the party Of North, and the party Of t e government, and no one Of' them could command a clear majority. A coalition of some kind was inevitable. Shelburne leaned towards an alliance with North, but Pitt positively refused to have any connection with the statesman whom he deemed responsible for the American war. Peace was not yet attained, but the negotiations which had been pursued by the preceding ministry were steadily pushed on. Provisional articles of peace between England and the United States Weir signed in November 1782, and preliminary articles with France and Spain in the following January, while a truce was established with Holland, and the first steps were taken towards a very liberal commercial treat with the United States.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.