But, in the third place, the terms upon which the coalition was made,
form a most important article of consideration in estimating its merits.
They are generally understood to have been these two; that the
Rockingham connexion should at all times have a majority in the cabinet;
and that lord North should be removed to that "hospital of incurables,"
as lord Chesterfield has stiled it, the house of lords. Surely these
articles are the happiest that could have been conceived for preserving
the power of administration, as much as may be, with the friends of the
people. Places, merely of emolument and magnificence, must be bestowed
somewhere. Where then can they be more properly lodged, than in the
hands of those who are best able to support a liberal and virtuous
administration?
I beg leave to add once more, in the fourth place, that, whatever the
demerits of lord North as a minister may be supposed to have been, he is
perhaps, in a thousand other respects, the fittest man in the world to
occupy the second place in a junction of this sort. The union of the
Rockingham connexion with the earl of Shelburne last year, was, I will
admit, less calculated to excite popular astonishment, and popular
disapprobation, than the present. In the eye of cool reason and sober
foresight, I am apt to believe, it was much less wise and commendable.
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