Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/27

] not in conferring them for real services, but for no services, or for real disservices, and another thing to give them when due. He accepted his pension as his due—a reward for the past, not a tongue-tier for the future; and he soon showed the government that he regarded his pension as given by the country, and not by the crown, which was only the medium.



Much also was made of the unpopularity which his acceptance of this reward had produced towards him. It was said that there was great indignation against him in the City, and Pitt himself was made to believe it; but the falsity of this was speedily demonstrated. The common council voted him an address of thanks for his public services, and instructed their representatives in parliament to press on government his line of politics. On the 9th of November—Lord Mayor's Day—when the royal family went in state to dine at Guildhall, the public attention was diverted from the king and the new queen to the simple chariot and pair in which Pitt and his brother-in-law, lord Temple, were following. The crowd left the royal coach to throng round the carriage of Pitt, with the most thundering acclamations, and numbers of the mob hung upon the wheels, hugged his coachman, and kissed his horses. The sight was wormwood to the court and his enemies, and he now was blamed for making this parade of himself in presence of royalty. The parade was not made by Pitt; nothing could be more simple or ostentatious than his appearance; but the parade was in his renown, which overshadowed all mere splendours of rank, and reduced them to their proper but mortifying level.

Ministers were not only compelled to witness the acknowledged glory of their rival—they were compelled to pursue the policy which he had so successfully inaugurated. With all the determination of lord Bute and his colleagues