The King then pressed Pitt to form a government, when he refused on the 27th made overtures to Gower, and eventually endeavoured to detach North from the Coalition, by offering him the Treasury if he would desert Fox. The King then sent for the Duke of Portland, and offered to give way on all points except that Thurlow must remain Lord Chancellor. The Duke, who knew Thurlow's intractability and feared his influence over the King, refused to yield to this stipulation, and negotiations were broken off. George's mind threatened to give way under the sense of humiliation from which he was suffering, and William Grenville was impressed by his mental agitation and the "inconceivable quickness" of his utterances. On March 23 he again invited Pitt to form an administration, declaring that, "after the manner I have been personally treated by both the Duke of Portland and Lord North, it is impossible that I can ever admit either of them into my service." Pitt, however, refused to lead such a forlorn hope, and George again announced his intention to go to Hanover[222] and was with difficulty weaned from his purpose by Thurlow. "There is nothing easier, sir, than to go over to Hanover," said the latter. "It may not, however, prove so easy to return from thence to this country, when your Majesty becomes tired of Germany. Recollect the precedent of James II, who precipitately embraced a similar expedient. Your Majesty must not think for a moment of adopting so imprudent and hazardous a step. Time and patience will open a remedy to the present evils."[223] Only then did George give way, and on April 2 accept the Coalition Ministry. [222] "The present King [George IV]," Lord Holland wrote, "told me a story of his father's plan of retiring to Hanover, and described, with more humour than filial reverence, his arrangement of the details, and especially of the liveries and dresses, about which he was so earnest that it amounted almost to insanity."--_Memorials of Fox._ [223] Wraxall: _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times_. The Coalition was, however, foredoomed to a brief existence. It was unpopular in the country, where it was regarded as an unnatural alliance, from which was apprehended, as Wilberforce happily put it, "a progeny stamped with the features of both parents, the violence of the one party, and the corruption of the other." "Lord North, for twelve years, with his war and contracts, The people he nearly had laid on their backs; Yet stoutly he swore he sure was a villain If e'er he had bettered his fortune a shilling. Derry down, down, down, derry down. "Against him Charles Fox was a sure bitter foe, And cried, that the empire he'd soon overthrow; Before him all honour and conscience had fled, And vowed that the axe it should cut off his head. Derry down, down, down, derry down.