Bute's resignation was said by his friends to be the natural sequence of his policy, and to have been determined before he accepted the seals of office. The noble patriot, so his henchmen insisted, had seen his country wasted by a pernicious, unnecessary war, and he had secured the office of prime minister in order to, and solely in order to, achieve peace. This done, they continued, his self-imposed task was complete, and he withdrew from public affairs, "without place or pension, disdaining to touch those tempting spoils which lay at his feet."[176] These reasons for the surrender of office cannot, in the light of present knowledge, be accepted. Bute retired owing to dissension in his Cabinet. Indeed, for this there is his own admission. "Single in a cabinet of my own forming; no aid in the House of Lords to support me, except two peers [Lords Denbigh and Pomfret]; both the Secretaries of State silent; and the Lord Chief Justice, whom I myself brought into office, voting for me, yet speaking against me; the ground I tread upon is so hollow, that I am afraid, not only of falling myself, but of involving my Royal Master in my ruin. It is time for me to retire."[177] [176] _Letter from a Gentleman in Town to his Friend in the Country, occasioned by a late resignation._ [177] Adolphus: _History of England_. The failings of Lord Bute have already been discussed, and in taking leave of him some mention must be made of his good qualities. It has been said that his besetting fault was a lust of power, his great weakness inability to use the power which his intrigues secured him; but he was a good husband, a kind father, and, what more concerns the public, a brave man, for he faced exceptional unpopularity without flinching, and, according to his lights, honest. It would be objectionable to say to-day of a living English statesman that he was honest in financial matters, for it is inconceivable that any other would be tolerated; but it must not be forgotten that the tone of political men was then very different. In Bute's day gross immorality was no bar to employment in the highest offices of state, nor was overt dishonesty a disqualification. We have seen how Lord Halifax was persuaded to accept the Admiralty because of the opportunities to acquire wealth, and it is notorious that the great and able Henry Fox accumulated a vast fortune during his tenure of office of Paymaster-General. Dashwood, who, according to Walpole, was a vulgar fool, who "with the familiarity and phrase of a fishwife, introduced the humours of Wapping behind the veil of the Treasury," was a thoroughly vicious scoundrel; Rigby, whose accusers have exhausted the terms of vituperation, was also a Paymaster-General, and left half-a-million of money; Grafton, a great-grandson of Charles II by the Duchess of Cleveland, was a notorious profligate. The list might be continued until it embraced a large proportion of the politicians on both sides. No