Pitt acted a brave and honest part on this occasion.  He ventured to put both his power and his popularity to hazard, and spoke manfully for Byng, both in Parliament and in the royal presence.  But the King was inexorable.  “The House of Commons, Sir,” said Pitt, “seems inclined to mercy.”  “Sir,” answered the King, “you have taught me to look for the sense of my people in other places than the House of Commons.”  The saying has more point than most of those which are recorded of George the Second, and, though sarcastically meant, contains a high and just compliment to Pitt.

The King disliked Pitt, but absolutely hated Temple.  The new Secretary of State, his Majesty said, had never read Vattel, and was tedious and pompous, but respectful.  The first Lord of the Admiralty was grossly impertinent.  Walpole tells one story, which, we fear, is much too good to be true, He assures us that Temple entertained his royal master with an elaborate parallel between Byng’s behaviour at Minorca, and his Majesty’s behaviour at Oudenarde, in which the advantage was all on the side of the Admiral.

This state of things could not last.  Early in April, Pitt and all his friends were turned out, and Newcastle was summoned to St. James’s.  But the public discontent was not extinguished.  It had subsided when Pitt was called to power.  But it still glowed under the embers; and it now burst at once into a flame.  The stocks fell.  The Common Council met.  The freedom of the city was voted to Pitt.  All the greatest corporate towns followed the example.  “For some weeks,” says Walpole, “it rained gold boxes.”

This was the turning point of Pitt’s life.  It might have been expected that a man of so haughty and vehement a nature, treated so ungraciously by the Court, and supported so enthusiastically by the people, would have eagerly taken the first opportunity of showing his power and gratifying his resentment; and an opportunity was not wanting.  The members for many counties and large towns had been instructed to vote for an inquiry into the circumstances which had produced the miscarriage of the preceding year.  A motion for inquiry had been carried in the House of Commons, without opposition; and, a few days after Pitt’s dismissal, the investigation commenced.  Newcastle and his colleagues obtained a vote of acquittal; but the minority were so strong that they could not venture to ask for a vote of approbation, as they had at first intended; and it was thought by some shrewd observers that, if, Pitt had exerted himself to the utmost of his power, the inquiry might have ended in a censure, if not in an impeachment.