2 - The Defeat of the Pitt–Fox Alliance, October 1754–March 1755

Summary

The offenders and the offended have too often shown their disposition to soothe, or to be soothed, by preferments, for one to build much on the duration or implacability of their aversions.

Horace Walpole to Mann, i Dec 1754 HW 20, p.453.

The last opposition was a coalition of disappointed Patriots with disaffected Tories: the views and objects of the first ceased with the death of the late Prince of Wales, and they are become reasonable and practicable mortals reunited to the Old Corps; the Tories are not inconsiderable in numbers, but, for want of heads and hearts, and the plausible pretext of patriotism, they are loose, disconcerted, and a band incapable of acting, and will continue so as long as the ministry has no other demands to make but what is necessary for the current service of the year in time of peace…

Horatio Walpole to Joseph Yorke, 23 July 1753: W. Goxe, Memoirs of Horatio, Lord Walpole (London, 1802)

The central theme of the 1754–5 session was not the defeat by Fox, Pitt and Legge of an unconstitutional attempt by Newcastle to subordinate the Commons to ministerial direction from the Lords, or their compelling him to share his sole power through the informal opposition which they offered to his measures from the Treasury bench. It is on the contrary the story of Newcastle's successful efforts to prevent their ambitions from destroying his ascendancy.