made him unable to take a wide view of his position, filled him with a vehement prejudice against the whole Whig party, and made him rest for support on the personal friendship of a second-rate man, who laboured under the unpopularity attending his Scotch birth and his supposed favour with the Princess of Wales. The behaviour of the young King was at first all that could be desired. In his family relations indeed he was nearly always respectable. He still further added to his popularity by directing a change in the law with regard to the judges, so that their commissions no longer terminated with the death of the King. They henceforward held their commissions for life, unless deprived of them at the joint petition of the two Houses of Parliament. They were thus rendered absolutely independent of Court favour. [Sidenote: First signs of change. 1761.] The six months which elapsed before the dissolution of Parliament passed without any great changes, although there was no lack of indication of what was coming. The King's name was constantly put forward. Newcastle, who had kept all patronage in his hands, found places filled without his knowledge, and complained that he was met with the uniform answer that it was the King's desire; and Bute openly rebuked Lord Anson for filling the Admiralty boroughs without consulting the King. With the dissolution of Parliament the changes in the ministry began. Legge gave place at the Exchequer to Lord Barrington; Charles Townshend became Secretary at War, and Dashwood, another follower of Bute's, took the place that Townshend vacated, while four days afterwards (March 25th) Bute was appointed one of the Secretaries of State in the place of Lord Holderness, who had been removed and handsomely compensated. The admission of Bute to the ministry could hardly fail to produce the dismissal of Pitt, for on the great question of the day they were in direct antagonism. Bute, in pursuance of his policy of opposition to all that the Whigs had done, was determined if possible to break off the English connection with the Continent; and, unable to see the difference between buying troops from a Prince of Hesse and assisting the greatest monarch of the time in a war from which England was reaping nothing but benefit, he intended to refuse the payment of the King of Prussia's subsidy, and was strongly bent upon peace. [Sidenote: The campaign of 1761 produces a desire for peace.]