The rage and humiliation, like the joy and pride of France, exceeded the extent and importance of the success. Admiral Byng, peremptorily recalled, was with great difficulty brought safe and sound to London, so strong was the anger of the mob. The government made no effort to protect him. On the first representations being made to him against the admiral, who was honest and brave, but a blind slave of rule and badly provided alike with ships and sailors, the Duke of Newcastle hastily replied, "Oh! certainly, certainly; he will be judged immediately; he will be hanged immediately." In spite of the efforts made in his favor in the Houses, as well as by Marshal Richelieu and Voltaire, Byng expiated with his life the check he had sustained and the wounded pride of his country. The Duke of Newcastle was at last overcome by his notorious incapacity. William Pitt seized the reins of power for a short time, of which the aversion of the king was not long in depriving him. The great orator had refused to come to an understanding with Mr. Fox, who bitterly reproached him with afterwards sustaining the treaties of subsidies and alliances which he had lately attacked so passionately. {233} France had just entered into an alliance with Maria Theresa; the houses of Bourbon and Austria were making common cause; all the available forces of England were engaged in the struggle, and Pitt did not hesitate to recruit in the highlands. "Men are never wanting to a good cause," he said afterwards. "I have lately employed the very rebels in the service and defence of the country. Being thus brought back to us, they have fought for us, and have gladly shed their blood to protect those liberties which in the past they wished to destroy." It was in vain that George II. still strove against the minister, who imposed the national will on him as the favor of heaven. In vain, making use of the royal prerogative against him, did he force him to yield up the seals of office from the beginning of April, and involve in his disgrace Lord Temple, his brother-in-law. In vain did he seek to form a new cabinet, with the insatiable thirst of the Duke of Newcastle for the nominal side of power, and the desire which Fox felt to actually govern. Parliament as well as the people demanded the powerful hand which could guide them through the bursting storm. On the 29th of June, 1757, Pitt was named secretary of state, and rallied around him some illustrious names, but he was the sole efficient master of the government, and was resolved to bear alone the whole burden of it. The most sagacious observers interchanged gloomy forebodings. "England has no longer any course but to cut her cables and set sail towards an unknown ocean," wrote Horace Walpole. "It matters little who may be in power," said Lord Chesterfield; "we are lost at home and abroad--at home by our debts and our growing expenses; abroad by our incapacity and bad luck. ... We are no longer even a nation." {234}