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Rh in fact as well as in name, but already weary of the endless personal struggles in which he was engaged, knew that if ready himself to sacrifice Shelburne, Charles Townshend was equally anxious to sacrifice him. He accordingly looked round for new alliances.

Amongst those most anxious to make their way into office was the Bedford party. They were the chief advocates of a firm policy against the colonists, and hoped to storm the Treasury bench over the prostrate body of Chatham as they had done in 1763 over that of Bute. To them the continuance of Shelburne in office, especially as Colonial Minister, was intolerable. Neither was Shelburne more agreeable to the followers of Rockingham, for Burke was their prophet, and to Burke the opponents of the Declaratory Act were anathema; nor to those of Grenville, for he had been amongst the earliest opponents of the Stamp Act. The King had only admitted him to his councils out of deference to Chatham, and now willingly joined Grafton and Northington in denouncing him as a "secret enemy" and suggesting his removal. Charles Townshend openly professed to have him in "the greatest contempt," and only the fact of their sitting in different Houses made a joint continuance in office possible for a day longer. Meanwhile he was attacked on all sides: by Bedford on the form in which the Massachusetts Amnesty Act had been disallowed, by Richmond on some delays which had arisen in the settlement of Canada—delays which were owing to Northington, —by Lord Talbot for his conduct and vote on the Stamp Act and the Declaratory Resolutions, and on his whole political position by Charles Townshend in that strange mixture of wit, eloquence, and buffoonery which yet lives as the "champaign" speech.

To have resigned was his own wish, but while Chatham still held the Privy Seal and regarded him as his repre- Rh