Pitt was, as he might well be, proud of, and emboldened by, his immense popularity; and when the new Parliament assembled in the month of May, 1784, he had to encounter an opposition so numerically feeble, that his arduous duties were entered upon with some degree of satisfaction. He was now in a position to maintain his ground; and that he could do so against the fierce and unsparing attacks of such potent adversaries as Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, amply proves the care, attention, and industry with which, by hard and continuous study, he had fitted and prepared himself to enact so great and heroic a part. Pitt, as has been stated, was the pupil of Lord Shelburne, first Marquis of Lansdowne; and at that distinguished nobleman’s house he became acquainted with Dr. Price, a clever Dissenting Minister, who furnished him, among other suggestions, with his original scheme of redeeming the National Debt by means of a Sinking Fund, which, in 1786, he developed and submitted to the House, in a speech of six hours’ duration; and it was accepted without a division. But the aspiring and ambitious statesman, however austere and absorbed he might be, had other arrangements to make, besides re-organizing a party, and, as the head of it, devising vast financial operations. It was necessary to find fair and bewitching ladies of rank to smile upon his efforts, and render his side attractive; and there can be no doubt that in this important respect Fox was much more propitiously situated. He had also to countervail the advantage which his great antagonist derived from troops of aristocratic friends, by arraying under his banner the adventurous genius and rising intellect of the country. His bearing in public was peculiar, and certainly not such as to attract the affectionate sympathies of his contemporaries; he displayed little of “the soft green of the soul,” and his manner was utterly unbending. Yet so enormous was his influence out of doors at this early period that he was solicited to represent numerous constituencies; but he preferred being returned, by a large majority, for the University of Cambridge, which had twice previously shut the door in his face, and of which he was afterward chosen High Steward.