the direct bribery of members absolutely ceased. But they were utterly inoperative in rendering the House of Commons really representative of or responsible to the people of England. [Sidenote: The Coalition.] The jealousy which the mass of the Whigs entertained of the followers of Chatham and their plans was more plainly shown however on the death of Lord Rockingham in July. Shelburne, who had hitherto served as Secretary of State, was called by the king to the head of the Ministry, a post to which his eminent talents and the ability which he was showing in the negotiations for the Peace clearly gave him a title. But Shelburne had been hampered in these negotiations by the jealousy of Charles Fox, who as joint Secretary of State with him claimed in spite of usage a share in conducting them, and who persisted without a show of reason in believing himself to have been unfairly treated. It was on personal grounds therefore that Fox refused to serve under Shelburne; but the refusal of Burke and the bulk of Rockingham's followers was based on more than personal grounds. It sprang from a rooted distrust of the more popular tendencies of which Shelburne was justly regarded as the representative. To Pitt, on the other hand, these tendencies were the chief ground of confidence in the new Ministry; and, young as he was, he at once entered office as Chancellor of the Exchequer. But his tenure of this post was a brief one. The Shelburne Ministry in fact only lasted long enough to conclude the final peace with the United States on the base of their independence; for in the opening of 1783 it was overthrown by the most unscrupulous coalition known in our history, a union of the Whig followers of Fox with the Tories who still clung to Lord North. In Parliament such a coalition was irresistible, and the resignation of Shelburne at once made way for an administration in which both the triumphant parties were represented. But the effect on England at large was very different. Whatever new credit the Whigs had gained with the country during their long exclusion from office had been due to their steady denunciation of the policy and temper of Lord North's administration. That they should take office hand in hand with men whom they had for years denounced as the worst of Ministers shocked even their most loyal adherents; and the shock was the greater that a new seriousness in politics, a longing for a deeper and more earnest treatment of political questions, was making mere faction intolerable to Englishmen. But behind all this was the sense that something more than mere faction had really brought the two parties together. It was their common dread of the popular tendencies which Shelburne's Ministry represented, their common hatred of parliamentary reform, which hushed for the moment the bitter hostility between the followers of Rockingham and the followers of North. Yet never had the need of representative