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Fox people.’ Where, he asked, was he to look for the complaints of the people? he refused to recognise the people apart from the majority of the house, their legal representatives (Speeches, i. 5). He took the same line on 25 March 1771, when urging the committal of Alderman Oliver for discharging the printers apprehended by the officers of the house. His action in this affair rendered him exceedingly unpopular, and on the 27th he and his brother were attacked by a mob as they drove down to the house, and he was rolled in the mud. Zealous for privilege of every kind, he gave much satisfaction to his party ‘by the great talents he exerted’ in opposing the Nullum Tempos Bill. Junius had hitherto virtually left him alone, but his opposition to the popular cause of the Duke of Portland called forth a sharp rebuke in the ‘Public Advertiser’ of 4 March, signed ‘Ulysses.’ Fox wished to challenge the writer, but was unable to identify him (Life of Sir P. Francis, i. 255). A letter of Junius in October provoked an answer signed ‘An Old Correspondent,’ which was attributed to Fox. A reply appeared signed ‘Anti-Fox,’ in which the writer warns ‘my pretty black boy’ that if provoked Junius might cease to spare Lord Holland and his family (Letters of Junius, ii. 384). His contempt for the wishes of the people provoked a caricature entitled ‘The Death of the Foxes’ in the ‘Oxford Magazine’ of February 1770. In this he appears with his father and brother, and his corpulence is ridiculed. Another caricature in the same magazine in December 1773 represents him as picking his father's pocket, in reference to his gambling debts.

On 6 Feb. 1772 Fox spoke against the clerical petition for relief from subscription to the articles, though he condemned the custom of requiring subscription from lads at the universities. He prepared himself for his defence of the church ‘by passing twenty-two hours in the pious exercise of hazard,’ losing during that time 11,000l. (, Miscellaneous Works, ii. 74). A twelvemonth later he supported a motion for a committee on the subject of subscription, and further showed that, in spite of his zeal for privilege, he was not to be reckoned among those who were content to forward the king's wishes on all points, for he acted as teller for a bill for the relief of protestant dissenters; the king declared that ‘his conduct could not be attributed to conscience, but to his aversion to all restraints’ (Speeches, i. 17; George III, Letters to Lord North, i. 89: this letter, dated 1772, seems to belong to 1773; comp. Parl. Hist. xvii. 758). On 20 Feb. 1772 he resigned office. Although he had some private grounds of dissatisfaction with North (Memorials, i. 73; Last Journals, i. 23), the chief cause of his resignation was that he intended to oppose the Royal Marriage Bill. The circumstances of his parents' marriage rendered him jealous of all needless restrictions on marriage; he had already obtained leave to bring in a bill to amend the marriage act, and he chose to sacrifice office rather than assent to the restrictions that the king was bent on placing on the marriages of his house. North was terrified by the report of his intended resignation, and withdrew one of the most objectionable clauses of the bill. Fox joined Conway and Burke in opposing the bill, and was ‘universally allowed to have seized the just point of argument throughout with amazing rapidity and clearness’ (ib. p. 59). At least as early as 1766 he had become acquainted with Burke, and had learnt to respect his opinion (Memorials, i. 26), and this temporary co-operation with him can scarcely have been without some effect on his later career. Fox introduced his own marriage bill on 7 April, having that morning, after a night spent in drinking, returned from Newmarket, where he had lost heavily; he spoke with effect, but took no more trouble about the bill, which was thrown out at a later stage. In December he re-entered the administration as a junior lord of the treasury. Although Olive had been absolved by parliament, Fox took the opportunity of a debate on the affairs of India in June 1773 to attack him with unsparing vehemence. He recommenced his assaults on the press. In a debate he had raised on this subject on 16 Feb. 1774 he rebuked T. Townshend for coupling the name of Johnson with that of Shebbeare (Speeches, i. 25). Johnson never forgot his warm defence (, Life, iv. 315). Fox had lately been elected a member of the club; he was generally silent when Johnson was present (ib. 179). He was naturally shy, but when in the society of those with whom he felt at ease would ‘talk on for ever with all the openness and simplicity of a child’ (, Table-talk, p. 75); his conversation was always easy and full of anecdote. Office exercised no restraint upon him. He forced North against his will to persist in a proposal that the printer Woodfall should be committed to the Gatehouse for printing a letter containing charges against the speaker. The minister was defeated, and the king, who already disliked Fox for the part he had taken against the Royal Marriage Bill, and in support of the relief bill of the year before, was furious at his presumption. ‘That young man,’ he wrote, ‘has so thoroughly cast off every principle of common honour and honesty that he must soon become as  Rh