Melancholy is the spectacle of a great light which is going out, and of a power once supreme losing its influence over men. Lord Chatham had the good fortune to cast a final gleam before falling forever. After two years of a mysterious retreat, he reappeared in public life in 1769, and the Duke of Grafton's ministry could not withstand his attacks. Lord North, still young, and without high political ambition, of an amiable character, and personally agreeable to the king, had just accepted the heavy burden of power (January, 1770). {271} Lord Chatham pretended to see in this new combination that persistent influence of Lord Bute which was a favorite theme for the attacks of the pamphleteers, whether it was a question of John Wilkes, or of that mysterious writer, still hidden after more than a hundred years, under the name of Junius. "Who does not know," he cried, "that Mazarin, though absent from France, was always there; and do we not know an analogous case? When I was recently called to public service, I hastened upon the wings of my zeal. I agreed to preserve a peace which I detested--a peace which I should not have made, but which I was resolved to maintain because it had been made. I was credulous, I admit, but I was taken in; I was deceived; the same mysterious influence still existed. My cruel experience has at length painfully convinced me that behind the throne there is hidden something greater than the throne itself." The situation of affairs in America became each day more serious. On his accession to office. Lord Chatham had consented to extract a revenue from the colonies. A customs law had established taxes upon tea, glass, and paper, creating a permanent administration for collecting external imposts. The distinction which the colonists had previously established was thus turned against them, and they abandoned it forever. The time for legal fictions was past. [Footnote 1] [Footnote 1: Cornelis de Witt's History of Washington.] {272}