The remaining years of his life were spent in vainly struggling against that fatal policy which, at the moment when he might have given it a death-blow, he had been induced to take under his protection.  His exertions redeemed his own fame, but they effected little for his country.

He found two parties arrayed against the Government, the party of his own brothers-in-law, the Grenvilles, and the party of Lord Rockingham.  On the question of the Middlesex election these parties were agreed.  But on many other important questions they differed widely; and they were, in truth, not less hostile to each other than to the Court.  The Grenvilles had, during several years, annoyed the Rockinghams with a succession of acrimonious pamphlets.  It was long before the Rockinghams could be induced to retaliate.  But an ill-natured tract, written under Grenville’s direction, and entitled A State of the Nation, was too much for their patience.  Burke undertook to defend and avenge his friends, and executed the task with admirable skill and vigour.  On every point he was victorious, and nowhere more completely victorious than when he joined issue on those dry and minute questions of statistical and financial detail in which the main strength of Grenville lay.  The official drudge, even on his own chosen ground, was utterly unable to maintain the fight against the great orator and philosopher.  When Chatham reappeared, Grenville was still writhing with the recent shame and smart of this well-merited chastisement.  Cordial co-operation between the two sections of the Opposition was impossible.  Nor could Chatham easily connect himself with either.  His feelings, in spite of many affronts given and received, drew him towards the Grenvilles.  For he had strong domestic affections; and his nature, which, though haughty, was by no means obdurate, had been softened by affliction.  But from his kinsmen he was separated by a wide difference of opinion on the question of colonial taxation.  A reconciliation, however, took place.  He visited Stowe:  he shook hands with George Grenville; and the Whig freeholders of Buckinghamshire, at their public dinners, drank many bumpers to the union of the three brothers.

In opinions, Chatham was much nearer to the Rockinghams than to his own relatives.  But between him and the Rockinghams there was a gulf not easily to be passed.  He had deeply injured them, and in injuring them, had deeply injured his country.  When the balance was trembling between them and the Court, he had thrown the whole weight of his genius, of his renown, of his popularity, into the scale of misgovernment.  It must be added, that many eminent members of the party still retained a bitter recollection of the asperity and disdain with which they had been treated by him at the time when he assumed the direction of affairs.  It is clear from Burke’s pamphlets and speeches, and still more clear from his private letters, and from the language which he held in conversation,