Parliament and the rights of the people, whilst they ordered that the city members should be instructed to advance in every way the business of the House, and particularly by the granting of supplies.[517] [Sidenote: Pitt's struggle with the Coalition, 1783-1784.] Fox's East India Bill had been strongly opposed by Pitt, who at the early age of twenty-three had been Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons under the Shelburne ministry. It was to this youth that the king now appealed for assistance, and although the task of forming a ministry of any stability was almost beyond hope, Pitt undertook the struggle. As it was useless to look for any support in the Commons he chose his cabinet entirely from the Upper House, reserving for himself the post of First Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Even before Pitt was able to take his seat as prime minister (a new election being necessary on his accepting office), it was evident that the Opposition intended to show him no pity or favour. It was not until the 12th January (1784)--the day that the House re-assembled after the Christmas recess--that he made his first appearance as prime minister. He came prepared with an India Bill, similar in most respects to that which he afterwards succeeded in carrying, but the Bill was now rejected although by a small majority. For weeks he struggled against the violent attacks of the Opposition, refusing either to resign or to dissolve Parliament until he could take his opponents at a disadvantage. [Sidenote: Civic honours for Pitt, Feb., 1784.] At length, the nation at large became attracted by the indomitable courage and unflinching honesty of the young minister and began to rally round him. The city of London had been from the outset one of his staunchest supporters. On the 10th February (1784), the Common Council voted him the Freedom of the City and a gold box for his zeal in "supporting the legal prerogative of the crown and the constitutional rights of the people."[518] On the 28th, he was made free of the Grocers' Company and hospitably entertained by them in their hall. There are members of the Grocers' Company still alive who can recall the time when "the immortal memory of William Pitt" was honoured in solemn silence at all public gatherings in Grocers' Hall, and the esteem in which the company continues to hold one of the greatest statesmen that England has ever produced recently manifested itself afresh, when on the 28th February, 1884, the Grocers celebrated the "Pitt Centenary" by a banquet in their hall. [Sidenote: Dissolution of Parliament and defeat of Whigs, 1784.]