When Pitt took office it was not over France, but over England that the clouds hung dense and black.  Her prospects were of the gloomiest.  “Whoever is in or whoever is out,” wrote Chesterfield, “I am sure we are undone both at home and abroad:  at home by our increasing debt and expenses; abroad by our ill-luck and incapacity.  We are no longer a nation.”  And his despondency was shared by many at the beginning of the most triumphant Administration in British history.  The shuffling weakness of his predecessors had left Pitt a heritage of tribulation.  From America came news of Loudon’s manifold failures; from Germany that of the miscarriage of the Duke of Cumberland, who, at the head of an army of Germans in British pay, had been forced to sign the convention of Kloster-Zeven, by which he promised to disband them.  To these disasters was added a third, of which the new Government alone had to bear the burden.  At the end of summer Pitt sent a great expedition to attack Rochefort; the military and naval commanders disagreed, and the consequence was failure.  There was no light except from far-off India, where Clive won the great victory of Plassey, avenged the Black Hole of Calcutta, and prepared the ruin of the French power and the undisputed ascendency of England.

If the English had small cause as yet to rejoice in their own successes, they found comfort in those of their Prussian allies.  The rout of the French at Rossbach and of the Austrians at Leuthen spread joy through their island.  More than this, they felt that they had found at last a leader after their own heart; and the consciousness regenerated them.  For the paltering imbecility of the old Ministry they had the unconquerable courage, the iron purpose, the unwavering faith, the inextinguishable hope, of the new one.  “England has long been in labor,” said Frederic of Prussia, “and at last she has brought forth a man.”  It was not only that instead of weak commanders Pitt gave her strong ones; the same men who had served her feebly under the blight of the Newcastle Administration served her manfully and well under his robust impulsion.  “Nobody ever entered his closet,” said Colonel Barre, “who did not come out of it a braver man.”  That inspiration was felt wherever the British flag waved.  Zeal awakened with the assurance that conspicuous merit was sure of its reward, and that no officer who did his duty would now be made a sacrifice, like Admiral Byng, to appease public indignation at ministerial failures.  As Nature, languishing in chill vapors and dull smothering fogs, revives at the touch of the sun, so did England spring into fresh life under the kindling influence of one great man.