Note 911 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

‘A court,’ as Lord Albemarle observes,—‘a court that required ministers to be, not the public servants of the state, but the private domestics of the sovereign.’ Albemarle's Mem. of Rockingham, vol. i. p. 248. Compare Bancroft's American Revolution, vol. ii. p. 109. In the same way, Burke, in 1767, writes: ‘His majesty never was in better spirits. He has got a ministry weak and dependent; and, what is better, willing to continue so.’ Burke's Correspond. vol. i. p. 133. Ten years later, Lord Chatham openly taunted the king with this disgraceful peculiarity: ‘Thus to pliable men, not capable men, was the government of this once glorious empire intrusted.’ Chatham's Speech in 1777, in Adolphus, vol. ii. pp. 499, 500.