Abandoned by his highest and most showy friends, Fox felt the mortification of discredit both with his patron and the public, and the keenest appetite for revenge. As a politician, his credit was saved by his industry and success; and by his arts his vengeance was soon gratified on two of those that thus cast him off. But now were the seeds sown, which, though slowly, produced such bitter crops in subsequent years. Detested by the public, Fox could never recover from the stain contracted at this period:--but first we must relate his triumph, and the temporary victory he gained for the Court.
Nothing was so unpromising as the prospect of the new system at first. All the devotion of the Tories to the Court could not reconcile them to the nomination of Fox. They knew the mischief he had done them, and had not the quickness to see that a renegade is tied to make satisfaction by greater benefits. Lord Mansfield, not trusted, as he had expected to be, by Lord Bute, had blown up discontents against the peace. Lord Egremont and George Grenville had adopted those doubts; and doubts from men in high place convey extensive influence. Had the peace been instantaneously proposed to the House of Commons, there is no question but it would have been rejected; so strong a disgust was taken at the union of Bute and Fox, and so numerous were their several personal enemies. Yet in one respect Bute had chosen judiciously: Fox was not to be daunted, but set himself to work at the root. He even made applications to Newcastle; but the Duke of Cumberland[244] had inspired even Newcastle and Devonshire with resolution! This, however, was the last miscarriage of moment that Fox experienced. Leaving the grandees to their ill-humour, he directly attacked the separate members of the House of Commons; and with so little decorum on the part of either buyer or seller, that a shop was publicly opened at the Pay-office, whither the members flocked, and received the wages of their venality in bank-bills, even to so low a sum as two hundred pounds for their votes on the treaty. Twenty-five thousand pounds, as Martin,[245] Secretary of the Treasury, afterwards owned, were issued in one morning; and in a single fortnight a vast majority was purchased to approve the peace!