Already the ministry on which such great hopes had been placed had broken up. Rockingham died in July 1782. The two sections of which the government was composed had different aims. The Rockingham section, which now looked up to Fox, rested on aristocratic connexion and influence; the Shelburne section was anxious to gain popular support by active reforms, and to gain over the king to their side. Judging by past experience, the combination might well seem hopeless, and honourable men like Fox might easily regard it with suspicion. But Fox's allies took good care that their name should not be associated with the idea of improvement. They pruned Burke's Economical Reform Bill till it left as many abuses as it suppressed; and though the bill prohibited the grant of pensions above £300, they hastily gave away pensions of much larger value to their own friends before the bill had received the royal assent. They also opposed a bill for parliamentary reform brought in by young William Pitt. When the king chose Shelburne as prime minister, they refused to follow him, and put forward the incompetent duke of Portland as their candidate for the office. The struggle was thus renewed on the old ground of the king's right to select his ministers. But while the king now put forward a minister notoriously able and competent to the task, his opponents put forward a man whose only claim to office was the possession of large estates. They forced their way back to power by means as unscrupulous as their claim to it was unjustifiable. They formed a coalition with Lord North, whose politics and character they had denounced for years. The coalition, as soon as the peace with America and France had been signed (1783), drove Shelburne from office. The duke of Portland became the nominal head of the government, Fox and North its real leaders. The India Bill.