Lord Melville had tendered his resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty. His enemies, however, were not satisfied, but demanded the erasure of his name from the list of privy councillors. The first impulse of Pitt was to haughtily refuse. Melville, as generous and disinterested toward others as he was imprudent and negligent in the administration of public affairs, as well as with his personal fortune, interposed. The majority was threatening. Melville prayed Pitt to yield to the storm. A sad allusion to the grief of his family alone betrayed the bitterness of his soul. "I will not conceal from you," wrote he, "that my opinion in this matter is not entirely free from all personal consideration. I hope that I have firmness enough to support all the trouble that they may cause me; but you know me well enough to comprehend how my domestic affections suffer from the grief and constant agitation that these debates, mingled with so much personal bitterness, naturally cause to those who are nearest to me." When Pitt announced to the House that he had already requested the king to erase the name of Lord Melville from the list of privy councillors; he added, with great emotion, "I confess, and I am not ashamed to confess it, that whatever may be my deference to the House of Commons, and however anxious I may be to accede to their wishes, I certainly felt a deep and bitter _pang_ in being compelled to be the instrument of rendering still more severe the punishment of the noble lord."--"As he uttered the word _pang,_" says Lord Macaulay, "his lip quivered, his voice shook, he paused, and his hearers thought that he was about to burst into tears. He suppressed his emotion, however, and proceeded with his usual majestic self-possession." {408} When Lord Melville appeared before the House of Lords, at that bar of the illustrious accused, that the friendship of Pitt had provided--in place of a criminal prosecution demanded by the opposition--the great minister was no longer there to sustain him by his faithful attachment and generous confidence. At the time of the acquittal of Lord Melville, Mr. Pitt was dead (1806). In the cabinet Lord Sidmouth showed much animosity towards Melville. His enmity was increased by the nomination of his successor, Sir Charles Middleton. For a moment the dissatisfaction was calmed by the intervention of some mutual friends; but finally terminated in the withdrawal of Lord Sidmouth, and his faithful partisan Lord Buckinghamshire, from the cabinet. The king had frankly declared to Mr. Pitt that "he was much hurt by the virulence against Lord Melville, which is unbecoming the character of Englishmen, who naturally, when a man is fallen, are too noble to pursue their blows; besides," he added, "if any disunion should manifest itself, he would decidedly take the part of Mr. Pitt, having every reason to be satisfied with his conduct since the first hour of his entrance into his service."