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 the debate on the address in November 1778 he criticised the naval arrangements, and advocated the withdrawal of troops from America and the prosecution of the war against France. ‘America,’ he said, ‘must be conquered in France; France can never be conquered in America,’ and he declared that the war of the Americans was a ‘war of passion,’ the war of France a ‘war of interest’ (Speeches, i. 131–8). After Christmas he attacked the admiralty, which was wretchedly mismanaged by Lord Sandwich, and on 3 March moved a vote of censure on the ground that when Keppel had been sent to prevent a junction of two French squadrons the previous June he had only twenty ships, though there were twenty-seven ships of the line in the Brest waters, and five more nearly ready for sea. The motion was lost by 204 to 170, an unusually large minority (ib. pp. 140–60). He warmly espoused the cause of Keppel against Palliser and Sandwich with reference to the engagement off Ushant. When the news of Keppel's acquittal reached London at 3 A.M. on 11 Feb., he and some of his friends were drinking at Almack's; they sallied out into the streets, and one of the party is said to have incited the mob to break Lord G. Germaine's windows (Last Journals, ii. 343).

By this time it had become abundantly evident that the king's determination to carry on the war was at the bottom of the resistance offered by North and the majority of the commons to the policy of the opposition. Accordingly, on 25 Nov., at the opening of the session, Fox referred to the unconstitutional character of the doctrine that the king might be his own minister, spoke of the punishments that befell Charles I and James II, and compared the king and his reign to Henry VI and the period of his losses in France. He also made a violent attack on Adam. This led to a duel on the 29th, in which Fox was slightly wounded [see under ]. He was now the ‘idol of the people.’ On 2 Feb. 1780 he took the chair at a great meeting in Westminster Hall, where a petition was adopted praying the commons to reform abuses in the public expenditure. At this meeting he was received as candidate for the city of Westminster at the approaching election. At another meeting of the same sort on 5 April he declared for yearly parliaments and an additional hundred knights of the shire, and when a motion was brought forward on 8 May for triennial parliaments upheld it on the ground that it would lessen the influence of the crown, to which he traced all the misfortunes of the country (Speeches, i. 276). He took a prominent part in the debates on economical reform [see under ]; on 8 March combated Rigby's theory that the house was not competent to disturb the existing arrangement with the crown, declaring that if this was so there ‘was an end of the constitution,’ and he would never enter the house again, and insisting that the only way to narrow influence was by the reduction of the civil list (ib. p. 224). During the Gordon riots in the first week of June Fox joined a party of young men who kept guard over the Marquis of Rockingham's house in Grosvenor Square, and on the 20th made a fine speech of three hours in favour of relief of the Roman catholics, declaring himself a ‘friend to universal toleration.’ In July fresh negotiations were set on foot between North and the leaders of the opposition. Rockingham proposed that Fox should be ‘considered.’ The king objected to Fox on the ground that he advocated shortening the duration of parliaments, but added, ‘As to Mr. Fox, if any lucrative, not ministerial, office can be pointed out for him, provided he will support the ministry, I shall have no objection. He never had any principle, and can therefore act as his interest may guide him’ (Memorials, i. 252). The negotiations failed. While the king's opinion of Fox was harsh, some of the circumstances of his early career, his insubordination in office, and his rapid change from toryism to ‘virulent and unqualified opposition to his former chief,’ even though he had never defended the quarrel with the American colonies, and though American questions had not become urgent until the time of his secession, certainly gave his enemies some excuse for speaking ill of him, while his dissipated life deprived him of the weight that attaches to character (, History, iii. 528). This was the period of his greatest pecuniary embarrassments. In January 1779 he is said to have jestingly asked for a place on the council for India as a means of gaining a livelihood (Life of Sir P. Francis, ii. 172). Two years later he won 70,000l., at least so it is said, in partnership with others at hazard, lost it all at Newmarket, and was 30,000l. ‘worse than nothing’ (Auckland Correspondence, i. 320). Although he was then lodging in St. James's Street, near the gambling club, where he spent nearly all his spare time, he was often in need of the smallest sums, and on 20 June 1781 his books were sold under a writ of execution (Memorials, i. 265). He bore his losses with great equanimity. Immediately after a run of ill-luck that left him penniless he was found quietly reading Herodotus; at other times he would at once fall sound asleep. By 1781 his dissipation is said to have brought