or hoped to find, through the influence of Bute his way to office and emolument. The growing hatred for Bute extended itself as rapidly as unjustly to the nation from which Bute came. The story of Bute's Ministry is a story of astonishing mistakes. The Tories, who for five-and-forty years had inveighed against the political corruption which, fostered by Walpole, seemed to have culminated under Newcastle, now boldly went in for a system of flagrant bribery which surpassed anything yet essayed by the most cynical of Whig ministers. The Paymaster's Office became a regular mart where parliamentary votes were bought and sold as unblushingly as humbler folk bought and sold groceries across a counter. A Ministry weakened by an unpopular peace, and only held together by such cynical merchandise, was not likely to withstand a strong storm, and the storm was not long in rising. To swell the exchequer, the Ministry proposed to raise revenue by a tax on cider and perry. It was resolved to levy an imposition of four shillings per hogshead on the grower of the apple wine and the pear wine. The cider counties raised a clamor of indignation that found a ready echo in London. Pitt, Beckford, Lyttelton, Hardwicke, Temple, all spoke against the proposed measure and {31} denounced its injustice. George Grenville defended the bill. [Sidenote: 1763--George Grenville's characteristics] Grenville was one of those honorable and upright statesmen who do not contrive to make either honor or rectitude seem lovable qualities. He had first made himself conspicuous as one of the Boy Patriots who rallied with Pitt against Walpole. His abilities ran with swiftness along few and narrow channels. He was desperately well informed about many things, and desperately in earnest about anything which he undertook. Blessed or cursed with a solemnity that never was enlivened by a gleam of humor, a ray of fancy, or a flash of eloquence, Grenville regarded the House of Commons with the cold ferocity of a tyrannical and pompous schoolmaster. A style of speech that would have made a discourse upon Greek poetry seem arid and a dissertation upon Italian painting colorless--if it were possible to conceive Grenville as wasting time or thought on such trifles--added no grace to the exposition of a fiscal measure or charm to the formality of a phalanx of figures. He was gloomy, dogged, domineering, and small-minded. His nearest approach to a high passion was his worship of economy; his nearest approach to a splendid virtue was his stubborn independence. He abandoned Pitt for Bute because he detested Pitt's prodigal policy, but Bute was the more deceived if he fancied that he was to find in Grenville the convenient mask that he had lost in Newcastle; and the King himself had yet to learn how indifferent the dry, morose pedant and preacher could be not merely to royal favor, but even to the expression of royal opinion. It was truly said of him by the greatest