The Rockingham administration was undeniably weak--"a lutestring ministry, fit only for summer wear," Charles Townshend called it. The Duke of Grafton, one of the Secretaries of State, was unreliable, and Conway, the other, whose courage on the field was imperturbable,[36] on the Treasury Bench was infirm of purpose; while the Duke of Newcastle, who had reluctantly yielded his claim to the Treasury and accepted the post of Lord Privy Seal (to which, as a propitiatory gift, was for the nonce attached the patronage of the Church), and Lord Winchelsea, President of the Council, were old men. Every effort was made to secure the support, or at least the neutrality, of Pitt, and, with this object in view, places were found for his friends--the Duke of Grafton and General Conway, as already mentioned, were made Secretaries of State, his brother-in-law, James Grenville, was appointed Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and his confidential legal adviser, Nuthall, one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, while Lord Lyttelton was offered the post of Cofferer of the Household, and Chief Justice Pratt was raised to the peerage as Baron Camden. Pitt, however, had no kindly feeling for an administration that divided the Whigs, and, though not actually hostile, he let it be clearly known that he had no confidence in it. "The openings from Lord Rockingham to your Lordship and Colonel Barré, you will easily believe do not surprise me," he wrote in reply to Lord Shelburne in December, 1765; "nothing being so natural as for ministers, under the double pressure of affairs all in confusion, and doubtful internal situation to recur to distinguished abilities for assistance." [36] "I don't pretend to be like Henry Conway, who walks up to the mouth of a cannon with as much coolness and grace as if he was going to dance a minuet."--George Stanhope.