the kingdom, whatever his early connections might have been, was in office, and called himself a Whig.  But this extraordinary appearance of concord was quite delusive.  The administration itself was distracted by bitter enmities and conflicting pretensions.  The chief object of its members was to depress and supplant each other.  The Prime Minister, Newcastle, weak, timid, jealous, and perfidious, was at once detested and despised by some of the most important members of his Government, and by none more than by Henry Fox, the Secretary-at-War.  This able, daring, and ambitious man seized every opportunity of crossing the First Lord of the Treasury, from whom he well knew that he had little to dread and little to hope; for Newcastle was through life equally afraid of breaking with men of parts and of promoting them.

Newcastle had set his heart on returning two members for St. Michael, one of those wretched Cornish boroughs which were swept away by the Reform Act of 1832.  He was opposed by Lord Sandwich, whose influence had long been paramount there:  and Fox exerted himself strenuously in Sandwich’s behalf.  Clive, who had been introduced to Fox, and very kindly received by him, was brought forward on the Sandwich interest, and was returned.  But a petition was presented against the return, and was backed by the whole influence of the Duke of Newcastle.

The case was heard, according to the usage of that time, before a committee of the whole House.  Questions respecting elections were then considered merely as party questions.  Judicial impartiality was not even affected.  Sir Robert Walpole was in the habit of saying openly that, in election battles, there ought to be no quarter.  On the present occasion the excitement was great.  The matter really at issue was, not whether Clive had been properly or improperly returned, but whether Newcastle or Fox was to be master of the new House of Commons, and consequently first minister.  The contest was long and obstinate, and success seemed to lean sometimes to one side and sometimes to the other.  Fox put forth all his rare powers of debate, beat half the lawyers in the House at their own weapons, and carried division after division against the whole influence of the Treasury.  The committee decided in Clive’s favour.  But when the resolution was reported to the House, things took a different course.  The remnant of the Tory Opposition, contemptible as it was, had yet sufficient weight to turn the scale between the nicely balanced parties of Newcastle and Fox.  Newcastle the Tories could only despise.  Fox they hated, as the boldest and most subtle politician and the ablest debater among the Whigs, as the steady friend of Walpole, as the devoted adherent of the Duke of Cumberland.  After wavering till the last moment, they determined to vote in a body with the Prime Minister’s friends.  The consequence was that the House, by a small majority, rescinded the decision of the committee, and Clive was unseated.