destruction of Parliamentary influence, and of sinecures for Parliamentary men; but the Ministers had aimed their blows at poor inferior officers of twenty, thirty, and forty pounds a year, which was all their dependence and support, after a life of service, for themselves and their families."[1] Outside Parliament, Walpole, who was directly affected by the reforms of the Stationery Office and of the Ushership of the Exchequer, joined his voice to that of Burke in an even fiercer diatribe;[2] and Shelburne only added to their indignation by declaring that his views on the necessity of Parliamentary reform were entirely unaltered, and that he looked forward to adding one hundred members to the County Representation: proposals which Burke and Walpole agreed in considering to be subversive and dangerous to the Constitution.[3]
Thus by the time that the Preliminary Articles of Peace were signed, it was an open question whether the field of home or of foreign politics would be most dangerous to the Prime Minister, while of the genuine support of the King there were doubts. The responsibility for the recent reforms was fixed upon him, nor did he shrink from it. They were, he himself states, "his own unassisted work."[4] The peace negotiations, it was known, had been mainly conducted by him. On him accordingly, as he probably foresaw, the storm broke, and unlike former Ministers he had not a party in the true acceptation of that word, with which to combat it. He gloried, on the contrary, in not having a party; but meanwhile he was almost in danger of not having a ministry. Keppel resigned; Richmond ceased to attend the Cabinet; Lord Carlisle gave up the office of Lord Steward; Grafton threatened to resign, considering that sufficient deference was not paid to his opinion, especially in matters of ecclesiastical and other patronage; Camden declared that the ship was sinking, and desired to quit it; Temple was discontented at not
