The only important act of Lord Rockingham's ministry was the repeal of the Stamp Act, accompanied by a contradictory declarative clause which proclaimed the right of Parliament to bind by its decrees the colonies under any circumstances whatever. This fruitful seed of new dissensions passed unperceived in the first outburst of American joy and of the triumph of the friends of liberty in England. Mr. Pitt was already on the threshold of power. Lord Rockingham, involved with a new party, which was known under the name of the king's friends, saw his authority rendered powerless and his honest intentions feebly fulfilled. { 269} The king desired to get rid of the Whigs at any price, without being obliged to submit again to George Grenville. Pitt once more agreed to become prime minister, but to the great astonishment and universal regret of his friends he abandoned at the same time the supreme empire which he had exercised in the House of Commons and entered the House of Lords with the title of Lord Chatham.
The cabinet which the new earl had formed was composed of diverse and contradictory elements. His powerful hand alone could preserve unity. "Lord Chatham," said Burke, "has composed a ministry so odd and hybrid, he has put together a checker-board so curiously divided and combined, he has constructed so strange a mosaic of patriots and conservatives, of the king's friends and of republicans, of Whigs and Tories, of perfidious friends and avowed enemies, that, strange as the sight may be, he is not sure of where he can put down his foot, and is unable to keep it there."
Lord Chatham found this out himself. In spite of the haughtiness of his character, he felt that the wind of popularity did not bear him as in the past upon its powerful wings. He was sick, defiant, and jealous of his colleagues, and ill at ease at the bottom of his heart in the new atmosphere of the House of Lords. He had conceived large projects for the reform of the administration in India. He caused an investigation to be proposed in the House of Commons, and the proposition came from Alderman Beckford, who did not form part of the administration. Soon after he withdrew to the country. Strange rumors spread abroad as to his state of mind. Lady Chatham refused absolutely to allow any of his colleagues to have access to him. { 270} The discords within the cabinet increased, and the feebleness and the hitches of the government became more striking. Charles Townshend, a brilliant orator, witty and clever, had just died at the age of forty-three. Intrigues multiplied in the Houses and at court. The king renewed his entreaties to Lord Chatham. "I am ready," said he, "to go find you, if it is impossible for you to come to see me." Gout had again attacked the prime minister, replacing, we are assured, a more cruel malady. Lord Chatham finally consented to receive the Duke of Grafton. "I expected to find him very sick," writes the duke in his memoirs, "but his condition exceeded all that I had imagined. The sight of this great intellect, overwhelmed and weakened by suffering, would have profoundly affected me, even if I had not been for a long time sincerely attached to his person and his character." As a matter of fact and practically, the Duke of Grafton had become prime minister many months before Lord Chatham finally resolved, in October, 1768, to send in his resignation. Sir Charles Pratt, now Lord Camden, and the honor of the bench as well from the purity of his character as from his oratorical talent, still held up the tottering ministry. The importance of Lord North, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, continued to increase from day to day.