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156 Administration placed upon a broad bottom, but of a decidedly liberal complexion. Of the eleven Ministers who formed the Cabinet, seven were Chathamite Whigs; two had been followers of Rockingham; Lord Grantham had hitherto connected himself with no political party; the Chancellor represented the King.

The first attack which the new Ministry had to meet was on the 9th of July, when Mr. Coke called attention to a pension of £3200 to Colonel Barré, which he understood was then passing the offices. This pension was loudly attacked as scandalous and profligate, more especially because coming from ministers pledged to economy. The pension, as was shown during the debate, had received the consent of Rockingham, if indeed the suggestion did not actually originate with him; for Barré himself would have preferred some provision in the line of his profession. The real question however was whether the pension was deserved or not, for the argument that a Ministry pledged to economy is debarred from granting rewards to the persons who deserve them, carries with it its own refutation. The main facts of Barré's case were these. The value of the posts from which he had been dismissed in 1763 were £1500 net money. It was true, as he acknowledged, that he had no right to look upon either the post of Adjutant-General or the governorship of Stirling Castle as tenable for lite; but they were military places, and he had a right to imagine that he would only have been dismissed from them for a