_Party connections._--The broad distinctions of party contributed to weaken the real supremacy of the sovereign. It had been usual before the revolution, and in the two succeeding reigns, to select ministers individually at discretion; and, though some might hold themselves at liberty to decline office, it was by no means deemed a point of honour and fidelity to do so. Hence men in the possession of high posts had no strong bond of union, and frequently took opposite sides on public measures of no light moment. The queen particularly was always loth to discard a servant on account of his vote in parliament; a conduct generous perhaps, but feeble, inconvenient, when carried to such excess, in our constitution, and in effect holding out a reward to ingratitude and treachery. But the whigs having come exclusively into office under the line of Hanover (which, as I have elsewhere observed, was inevitable), formed a sort of phalanx, which the Crown was not always able to break, and which never could have been broken, but for that internal force of repulsion by which personal cupidity and ambition are ever tending to separate the elements of factions. It became the point of honour among public men to fight uniformly under the same banner, though not perhaps for the same cause; if indeed there was any cause really fought for, but the advancement of a party. In this preference of certain denominations, or of certain leaders, to the real principles which ought to be the basis of political consistency, there was an evident deviation from the true standard of public virtue; but the ignominy attached to the dereliction of friends for the sake of emolument, though it was every day incurred, must have tended gradually to purify the general character of parliament. Meanwhile the Crown lost all that party attachments gained; a truth indisputable on reflection, though while the Crown and the party in power act in the same direction, the relative efficiency of the two forces is not immediately estimated. It was seen, however, very manifestly in the year 1746; when, after long bickering between the Pelhams and Lord Granville, the king's favourite minister, the former, in conjunction with a majority of the cabinet, threw up their offices, and compelled the king, after an abortive effort at a new administration, to sacrifice his favourite, and replace those in power whom he could not exclude from it. The same took place in a later period of his reign, when after many struggles he submitted to the ascendency of Mr. Pitt.[408]