Henry Pelham's administration was known by the slang nickname of the "Broad-bottomed Ministry." It is known by that nickname in history still; will doubtless always keep the title. The great overmastering passion of the Pelhams was the desire to keep office and power in their hands at any price. Of the two brothers Henry Pelham was by far the abler man. His idea was to get around him all the really capable administrators and debaters of every party, and thus make up a Ministry which should be all-powerful, and of which all the power should be in his hands. Like his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, he had a sort of half good-natured cynicism which never allowed him to doubt that if the offices were offered to the men, the men would on any conditions accept the offices. The events that he had lately seen had not induced him in any way to modify his opinion. He had heard Pitt thundering away against Carteret in exactly the same strain as Pitt and Carteret used to thunder against Walpole. He had heard Pitt denounce Carteret as "an execrable, a sole minister, who had ruined the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fiction which made men forget their country." He had seen the policy of Walpole quietly carried out by the very men who had bellowed against Walpole, and had succeeded at last in driving him from office forever. He knew that no one now among those who used to call themselves "the Patriots" cared one straw whether Spain did or did not withdraw her claim to the Right of Search. His idea, therefore, was to get all the capable men of the various parties together, form them {246} into an administration, and leave them to enjoy their dignity and their emoluments while the King and he governed the country. It was in this spirit and with this purpose that he set himself to form the "Broad-bottomed Ministry." He was not, like his royal master, tormented or even embarrassed by personal dislikes; he would take into his Ministry any one who could be of the slightest use to him. He would have kept Lord Carteret if Carteret had not made himself impossible. [Sidenote: 1745--The Chesterfield of Dublin Castle]