At this conjuncture Lord Rockingham had the wisdom to discern the value, and secure the aid, of an ally, who, to eloquence surpassing the eloquence of Pitt, and to industry which shamed the industry of Grenville, united an amplitude of comprehension to which neither Pitt nor Grenville could lay claim.  A young Irishman had, some time before, come over to push his fortune in London.  He had written much for the booksellers; but he was best known by a little treatise, in which the style and reasoning of Bolingbroke were mimicked with exquisite skill, and by a theory, of more ingenuity than soundness, touching the pleasures which we receive from the objects of taste He had also attained a high reputation as a talker, and was regarded by the men of letters who supped together at the Turk’s Head as the only match in conversation for Dr. Johnson.  He now became private secretary to Lord Rockingham, and was brought into Parliament by his patron’s influence.  These arrangements, indeed, were not made without some difficulty.  The Duke of Newcastle, who was always meddling and chattering, adjured the First Lord of the Treasury to be on his guard against this adventurer, whose real name was O’Bourke, and whom his Grace knew to be a wild Irishman, a Jacobite, a Papist, a concealed Jesuit.  Lord Rockingham treated the calumny as it deserved; and the Whig party was strengthened and adorned by the accession of Edmund Burke.

The party, indeed, stood in need of accessions; for it sustained about this time an almost irreparable loss.  The Duke of Cumberland had formed the Government, and was its main support.  His exalted rank and great name in some degree balanced the fame of Pitt.  As mediator between the Whigs and the Court, he held a place which no other person could fill.  The strength of his character supplied that which was the chief defect of the new ministry.  Conway, in particular, who, with excellent intentions and respectable talents, was the most dependent and irresolute of human beings, drew from the counsels of that masculine mind a determination not his own.  Before the meeting of Parliament the Duke suddenly died.  His death was generally regarded as the signal of great troubles, and on this account, as well as from respect for his personal qualities, was greatly lamented.  It was remarked that the mourning in London was the most general ever known, and was both deeper and longer than the Gazette had prescribed.

In the meantime, every mail from America brought alarming tidings.  The crop which Grenville had sown his successors had now to reap, The colonies were in a state bordering on rebellion.  The stamps were burned.  The revenue officers were tarred and feathered.  All traffic between the discontented provinces and the mother country was interrupted.  The Exchange of London was in dismay.  Half the firms of Bristol and Liverpool were threatened with bankruptcy.  In Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, it was said that three artisans out of every ten had been turned adrift.  Civil war seemed to be at hand; and it could not be doubted that, if once the British nation were divided against itself, France and Spain would soon take part in the quarrel.