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396 Colonial Secretary; Lord Fitzwilliam became President ot the Council, Lord Camden retiring; and Lord Spencer became Privy Seal in the place of Lord Gower. Later in the year Lord Spencer exchanged his office with Lord Chatham, who was then First Lord of the Admiralty, and Lord Fitzwilliam went to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, and was succeeded in the Presidency of the Council by Lord Mansfield. These changes were made with the full approval of the Whig party in both Houses. The alternative in their opinion was a party formed by Lord Lansdowne, Fox, and Grey, under the auspices of Chauvelin, and to this party they refused to belong. "I will not serve under Captain Sheridan, or Colonel Price, nor yet Generalissimo Lansdowne," said Sir Gilbert Elliot, "nor could I be reconciled to any corps emanating from them, even by seeing Fox at the head of it."

The same circumstances which led to a final estrangement between Lord Lansdowne and Pitt not unnaturally led to a reconciliation with Fox, who had now finally emancipated himself from the intellectual thraldom in which Burke had so long held him.

In 1792 at the opening of the autumn session, Lord Wycombe, who had entered public life with injunctions from his father "to take a manly part in politics, be it Aristocrat or Democrat, or else a respectable quiet part," opened the opposition in Parliament, deprecating the alarm expressed at speculative opinions, and censuring the injustice of the violent policy advocated by Burke. Although his speech was generally considered to have been very able, "Mr. Pitt," says Lord Holland, "treated him with much insolence and scorn; and that circumstance, and the approach of war, confirmed Lord Lansdowne in opposition. I cannot decide," he continues, "whether Mr. Fox's warm approbation of Lord Wycombe's sensible speech, and his defence of him when attacked by Mr. Pitt with a fury little creditable to his head or his heart, had the effect of inclining Lord Lansdowne to a union with