Since the illness of the king, and the treachery he had meditated, Lord Thurlow had remained secretly hostile to Pitt. On the 15th of May, 1792, he vehemently and unexpectedly attacked the financial bill, declaring that it was absurd to pretend to dictate to future parliaments and to proscribe to future ministers a line of action.
"None," said his lordship, "but a novice, a sycophant, a mere reptile of a minister, would allow this act to prevent him doing what, in his own judgment, circumstances might require at the time; and a change in the situation of the country might render that which is proper at one time, inapplicable at another: in short, the scheme is nugatory and impracticable; the inaptness of the project is only equalled by the vanity of the attempt." Pitt finally lost all patience: he declared to the king that it was impossible for him to continue to sit in the same cabinet with Lord Thurlow. George III. did not hesitate; the chancellor was ordered to deliver up the great seal to his majesty. Some months later Lord Loughborough, who had become ardently favorable to the minister, since the fall of Thurlow, was made chancellor (January, 1793).
Mr. Pitt was appointed Warden of the Cinque Ports, a rich sinecure long held by Lord North, and now, upon the death of that nobleman, conferred upon the minister by the king. "I will not receive any recommendations for this office," wrote the king, "having resolved to confer it only upon Mr. Pitt;" and when he sent his letter to Mr. Dundas, charged to forward it to Pitt, then absent, George III. added: "Mr. Dundas is to forward my letter to the West, and to accompany it with a few lines, expressing that I will not admit of this favor being denied. I desire Lord Chatham may also write, and that Mr. Dundas will take the first opportunity of acquainting Lord Grenville of the step I have taken." The office was worth £3,000 per year. For the first time Pitt consented to accept the favor which was thus imposed upon him by his sovereign.
Pitt was now seriously occupied with the state of Europe. The King of Sweden, Gustavus III., had been assassinated at a masked ball; the Emperor Leopold was dead; his son, the Emperor Francis, in concert with the King of Prussia, declared war against France. The position of Louis XVI. became each day more precarious. { 363} Tossed about without hope, at one time contemplating impossible resistance, at another, useless concessions, he had, on the 20th of June, 1792, endured the insults and outrages of the Parisian populace. The allied troops, under the Duke of Brunswick, had already entered French territory. The princes of the House of Bourbon, at the head of the emigré's, prepared themselves to sustain the operations of the foreigners; an ill-timed manifesto excited still further the passions of the French. On the 10th of August, 1792, the palace of the Tuilleries was attacked, and the Swiss guards massacred. The king, suspended from his royal functions, was confined in the Temple, with his family; the convention was convoked, and the prisoners in the dungeons of Paris were murdered.