George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

‘ [397] Temple and me,’ said the Commoner, ‘have never till

chap. XXI.} 1766. Jan.

now, made it impossible for us to act on one plan. The difference upon this American measure will, in its consequences, be felt for fifty years at least.’ He proposed to form a proper system, with the two present Secretaries and first Lord of the Treasury, the younger and better part of the ministry; if they would willingly co-operate with him. Honors might be offered the Duke of Newcastle, but not a place in the Cabinet. ‘I see with pleasure,’ said he, ‘the present administration take the places of the last. I came up upon the American affair, a point on which I feared they might be borne down.’

Of this conversation the Duke of Grafton made so good a use, that, by the king's direction, he and Rockingham waited on Pitt, on Saturday the eighteenth, when Pitt once more expressed his readiness to act with those now in the ministry, yet with some ‘transposition of places.’ At the same time he dwelt on the disgrace brought on the nation, by the recall of Lord George Sackville to the council, declaring over and over that his lordship and he could not sit at the council board together.

But no sooner had Pitt consented to renounce his connection with Temple, and unite with the ministry, than Rockingham interposed objections, alike of a personal nature, and of principle. The speechless prime minister, having tasted the dignity of chief, did not wish to be transposed; and the principle of ‘giving up all right of taxation over the colonies,’ on which the union was to have rested, had implacable opponents in the family of Hardwicke, and in the person of his own private secretary. ‘If ever one man lived more zealous than another for the supremacy of parliament, ’