But the Exchequer is a peculiar office requiring peculiar gifts. A dull man may succeed in it if he possess them; without them the greatest talents will fail. Lyttelton possessed none of them. He was unable, it was alleged, to work out the simplest sum in arithmetic. He was ignorant of the first principles of finance. The Exchequer never had a more preposterous Chancellor, till Dashwood appeared. He had better have left it alone. Fox, whose accession to the leadership was said to have inspired Murray with courage, must have watched with gloomy forebodings the figure set up in the Exchequer to face the lightnings of Pitt. The most that he could hope was that it would act as an efficient conductor. Yet Fox needed all the strength that he could muster. For no one despised his chief more than he, or had a greater respect for the powers of his rival. It should further be noted that this ministry had a luckless connection which made it known as 'the Duke's ministry'; for it had been formed under the auspices and at the recommendation of the disastrous Cumberland. 'Never,' says Almon, 'was an administration more unpopular and odious.' [Sidenote: Nov. 21, 1755.] War had now been declared between the Government and Pitt, who now certainly had the latent countenance of the Heir Apparent, or of the clique who represented the Heir Apparent; and there was no delay in coming to blows. The very day after Pitt's dismissal, Welbore Ellis, a Lord of the Admiralty, who was destined to live on as a Nestor in politics and be made a peer by Pitt's son, moved for 50,000 seamen, mentioning that the peace establishment was 40,000. It was a formal motion, and members were leaving the House, when they were recalled by the awful tones of Pitt, declaring that he shuddered at hearing that our naval resources were so narrowed. He recalled his former protest in 1751 against reduction. He would hunt down the authors of these disastrous measures which made the King's crown totter on his head. This noble country of ours was being ruined by the silly pride of one man and the subservience of his colleagues, and some day we should have to answer for it; unless already overwhelmed by some catastrophe brought about by France, our hereditary enemy. All this trouble arose from the petty struggle for power. What power was it that was sought, what kind of power, was it only that of doing good? On an English question like this he would not impede unanimity but implore it; he would ask favours in such a cause of any minister, would have gone that morning to Fox's first levee to ask him to accept 50,000 men besides marines. (The vote asked for was for 50,000 men, including 9113 marines.) If that could be obtained it would be the first thing done for this country since the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. He obscurely intimated charges of treachery and collusion. And now, he added, shame and danger had come together. He himself had been alarmed by intelligence on the highest authority. These