CHAPTER V
LORD SHELBURNE AND MR. PITT
1763
At the outset of his career, Shelburne was strongly prejudiced against Pitt. He had himself served in the abortive expeditions to the coast of France; he had seen the resources of his country wasted in glorious but useless struggles on German soil; returning home he had found Pitt not only the chief support of the war policy, but in intimate alliance with the Newcastle Whigs of whose incapacity he had formed a strong opinion; he had attached himself to Bute; his most intimate friend had vehemently assailed Pitt; everything in fact had hitherto conspired to separate their paths. But in 1763 the war was concluded, and the preservation of peace—strange though it might have sounded a few years before—seemed likely to depend on the accession to office of Pitt, ever since whose fall the country, torn by factions and the victim of short-lived administrations, had been a standing temptation to the renewal of the aggressive designs of the national enemy: so true is it at all times that a weak foreign policy is not the best but the worst security for the peace and prosperity of the country. Again, the alliance of Pitt and Newcastle was no longer as intimate as it had been. The former, courted in turn by every faction, and the idol of the nation, knew that he could if necessary dispense with the aid of the latter, and it was in any case improbable that whatever might be the rest of the arrangements which the Great Commoner might make,
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