That succour Fox was not unwilling to afford.  Though by no means of an envious temper, he had undoubtedly contemplated the success and popularity of Pitt with bitter mortification.  He thought himself Pitt’s match as a debater, and Pitt’s superior as a man of business.  They had long been regarded as well-paired rivals.  They had started fair in the career of ambition.  They had long run side by side.  At length Fox had taken the lead, and Pitt had fallen behind.  Then had come a sudden turn of fortune, like that in Virgil’s foot-race.  Fox had stumbled in the mire, and had not only been defeated, but befouled.  Pit had reached the goal, and received the prize.  The emoluments of the Pay Office might induce the defeated statesman to submit in silence to the ascendency of his competitor, but could not satisfy a mind conscious of great powers, and sore from great vexations.  As soon, therefore, as a party arose adverse to the war and to the supremacy of the great war minister, the hopes of Fox began to revive.  His feuds with the Princess Mother, with the Scots, with the Tories, he was ready to forget, if, by the help of his old enemies, he could now regain the importance which he had lost, and confront Pitt on equal terms.

The alliance was, therefore, soon concluded.  Fox was assured that, if he would pilot the Government out of its embarrassing situation, he should be rewarded with a peerage, of which he had long been desirous.  He undertook on his side to obtain, by fair or foul means, a vote in favour of the peace.  In consequence of this arrangement he became leader of the House of Commons; and Grenville, stifling his vexation as well as he could, sullenly acquiesced in the change.

Fox had expected that his influence would secure to the Court the cordial support of some eminent Whigs who were his personal friends, particularly of the Duke of Cumberland and of the Duke of Devonshire.  He was disappointed, and soon found that, in addition to all his other difficulties, he must reckon on the opposition of the ablest prince of the blood, and of the great house of Cavendish.

But he had pledged himself to win the battle:  and he was not a man to go back.  It was no time for squeamishness.  Bute was made to comprehend that the ministry could be saved only by practising the tactics of Walpole to an extent at which Walpole himself would have stared.  The Pay Office was turned into a mart for votes.  Hundreds of members were closeted there with Fox, and, as there is too much reason to believe, departed carrying with them the wages of infamy.  It was affirmed by persons who had the best opportunities of obtaining information, that twenty-five thousand pounds were thus paid away in a single morning.  The lowest bribe given, it was said, was a bank-note for two hundred pounds.