Montague was very cunning, that it was not easy to track him, but that it might be taken for granted that for whatever he did he had some sinister motive, and that the safest course was to negative whatever he proposed.  Though that House of Commons was economical even to a vice, the majority preferred paying high interest to paying low interest, solely because the plan for raising money at low interest had been framed by him.  In a despatch from the Dutch embassy the States General were informed that many of the votes of that session which had caused astonishment out of doors were to be ascribed to nothing but to the bitter envy which the ability and fame of Montague had excited.  It was not without a hard struggle and a sharp pang that the first Englishman who has held that high position which has now been long called the Leadership of the House of Commons submitted to be deposed.  But he was set upon with cowardly malignity by whole rows of small men none of whom singly would have dared to look him in the face.  A contemporary pamphleteer compared him to an owl in the sunshine pursued and pecked to death by flights of tiny birds.  On one occasion he was irritated into uttering an oath.  Then there was a cry of Order; and he was threatened with the Serjeant and the Tower.  On another occasion he was moved even to shedding tears of rage and vexation, tears which only moved the mockery of his low minded and bad hearted foes.

If a minister were now to find himself thus situated in a House of Commons which had just been elected, and from which it would therefore be idle to appeal to the electors, he would instantly resign his office, and his adversaries would take his place.  The change would be most advantageous to the public, even if we suppose his successor to be both less virtuous and less able than himself.  For it is much better for the country to have a bad ministry than to have no ministry at all, and there would be no ministry at all if the executive departments were filled by men whom the representatives of the people took every opportunity of thwarting and insulting.  That an unprincipled man should be followed by a majority of the House of Commons is no doubt an evil.  But, when this is the case, he will nowhere be so harmless as at the head of affairs.  As he already possesses the power to do boundless mischief, it is desirable to give him a strong motive to abstain from doing mischief; and such a motive he has from the moment that he is entrusted with the administration.  Office of itself does much to equalise politicians.  It by no means brings all characters to a level; but it does bring high characters down and low characters up towards a common standard.  In power the most patriotic and most enlightened statesman finds that he must disappoint the expectations of his admirers; that, if he effects any good, he must effect it by compromise; that he must relinquish many favourite schemes; that he must bear with many abuses.