The whimsical or the Hanover Tories continued zealous in appearance with us till the peace was signed.  I saw no people so eager for the conclusion of it.  Some of them were in such haste that they thought any peace preferable to the least delay, and omitted no instances to quicken their friends who were actors in it.  As soon as the treaties were perfected and laid before the Parliament, the scheme of these gentlemen began to disclose itself entirely.  Their love of the peace, like other passions, cooled by enjoyment.  They grew nice about the construction of the articles, could come up to no direct approbation, and, being let into the secret of what was to happen, would not preclude themselves from the glorious advantage of rising on the ruins of their friends and of their party.

The danger of the succession and the badness of the peace were the two principles on which we were attacked.  On the first the whimsical Tories joined the Whigs, and declared directly against their party.  Although nothing is more certain than this truth:  that there was at that time no formed design in the party, whatever views some particular men might have, against his Majesty’s accession to the throne.  On the latter, and most other points, they affected a most glorious neutrality.

Instead of gathering strength, either as a Ministry or as a party, we grew weaker every day.  The peace had been judged, with reason, to be the only solid foundation whereupon we could erect a Tory system; and yet when it was made we found ourselves at a full stand.  Nay, the very work which ought to have been the basis of our strength was in part demolished before our eyes, and we were stoned with the ruins of it.  Whilst this was doing, Oxford looked on as if he had not been a party to all which had passed; broke now and then a jest, which savoured of the Inns of Court and the bad company in which he had been bred.  And on those occasions where his station obliged him to speak of business, was absolutely unintelligible.

Whether this man ever had any determined view besides that of raising his family is, I believe, a problematical question in the world.  My opinion is that he never had any other.  The conduct of a Minister who proposes to himself a great and noble object, and who pursues it steadily, may seem for a while a riddle to the world; especially in a Government like ours, where numbers of men, different in their characters and different in their interests, are at all times to be managed; where public affairs are exposed to more accidents and greater hazards than in other countries; and where, by consequence, he who is at the head of business will find himself often distracted by measures which have no relation to his purpose, and obliged to bend himself to things which are in some degree contrary to his main design.  The ocean which environs us is an emblem of our government, and the pilot and the Minister are in similar circumstances.