Bath kissed hands as First Minister, and received the seals of the Secretaries of State to transmit to Carteret, who was ill. The new Secretary at once announced by circular his appointment to the foreign ministers. But there all ended. When old Horace Walpole was told that this ministry was settled he shrewdly remarked: 'I presume in the same manner as what we call a settlement in Norfolk; when a house is cracked from top to bottom and ready to fall, we say it is settled.'[174] Winnington was to have been the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thrice did the King press the seal into his hand, and thrice did Winnington return it. 'Your new ministers, sir, can neither support Your Majesty nor themselves,' said he.[175] He insisted, moreover, that they could not depend on more than 31 peers and 80 commoners. History does not confirm even so moderate a computation, but it may be presumed that this was the Court contingent on which any minister could count. Harrington, one of the actual Secretaries of State, on whom the King confidently reckoned for assistance in the new arrangement, resigned, after a stormy scene with his master, who never forgave him. Every one resigned or tried to resign, and there was no one to fill their places. To Pelham himself Carteret had made overtures; but Pelham told the King that the Whig junto would have nothing to do with Bath or Carteret. At last, the only measure left to the hapless monarch was to shut himself up and forbid his door to the crowd that sought admittance in order to give up their keys and staves and official insignia. He was soon compelled to send for Bath and to tell him that it would not do. Bath exhorted him to be firm, and offered by means of the Prince of Wales to secure Tory support. But with Charles Edward still in arms in the Highlands, the King could not bring himself to approach the foes of his house, and under no circumstances would he owe salvation to his son. Both Princes of Wales, the real and the titular, were almost equally repugnant to him. Another version of the story states that it was Bath who told the King that the project would not work. It matters little which is correct, for the position was self-evident, but George was probably stouter than Bath.