"It cost him, North, many bitter pangs, not to preserve his virtue, but his vicious connexions," wrote Walpole. "He goggled his eyes, and groped in his pocket money, more than half consented; nay, so much more, that when he got home, he wrote an excuse to Lord Rockingham, which made it plain he thought he had accepted." Nor was Charles Townshend in any doubt as to North's abilities. "See that great heavy, booby-looking seeming changeling," said Townshend when Chancellor of the Exchequer; "you may believe me when I assure you as a fact, that if anything should happen to me, he will succeed to my place, and very shortly after come to be First Commissioner of the Treasury."[95] The prediction was fulfilled, for when Townshend died, Lord North became Chancellor of the Exchequer under Chatham, and was retained in that position by Grafton.
North had, indeed, most of the qualifications that make a good leader of the House of Commons. He was witty, good-humoured, undisturbed by personal attacks, and undeniably honest. "He was a man of admirable parts, of general knowledge, of a versatile understanding, fitted for every sort of business, of infinite wit and pleasantry, of a delightful temper, and with a mind most perfectly disinterested," wrote Burke; "but it would be only to degrade myself by a weak adulation, and not to honour the memory of a great man, to deny that he wanted something of the vigilance and spirit of command that the time required."[96] He was an excellent debater, and managed to retain his hold on the House even when the Opposition was led, first by Burke and then by Chatham.
It had been Chatham's hope that, when the Duke of Grafton resigned, the King would be compelled to dissolve Parliament; but the King, on his side, was determined not to make an appeal to the country, which he was well aware would return an adverse majority and so compel him to receive the Whig families back into power. "I will have recourse to this," he said, laying his hand on his sword, "sooner than yield to a dissolution." In his hour of difficulty George turned to North, who came to his assistance, and formed a ministry, for which service the King was grateful, until many years later North coalesced with Fox. He bestowed upon him the posts of Ranger of Bushey Park, and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, with a most acceptable stipend, and promised to bestow the Order of the Garter upon him, "which I shall do with the greater pleasure as I never have had any intimation from you that it is an honour you are in the least ambitious of."[97] He also expressed a desire in September, 1777, to discharge out of his Privy Purse his Prime Minister's debts. "Having paid the last arrears on the Civil List, I must now do the same for you," he wrote. "I have understood, from your hints, that you have been in debt ever since you settled in life. I must therefore insist that you allow me to assist you with £10,000, or £15,000, or £20,000, if that will be sufficient. It will be easy for you to make an arrangement, or at proper times to take up that sum. You know me very ill if you think not that, of all the letters I ever wrote you, this one gives me the greatest pleasure; and I want no other return but your being convinced that I love you as well as a man of worth, as I esteem you as a minister. Your conduct at a critical moment I can never forget."[98]