Next day Pitt had another opportunity for attack on the charge involved by the employment of Hessian troops, who, he declared, would cost 400,000_l._ more than the same number of British troops. But, a few days afterwards, there was a still better occasion, when Barrington brought forward the estimate for the Hanoverian troops, and commended it as a better bargain than the Hessian, which had been passed, and was therefore secure. Pitt at once harped on the same strain, and, lauding the Hanoverian estimate, fell still more vehemently on the Hessian. No one could find fault with the Hanoverian, that we owed to His Majesty; but the subsidiary juggle with Hesse was the work of his Ministers. 'Nothing but good flows from the King; nothing but ruin from his servants. I choose that they shall fall by a friendly hand, and that the condemnation of his patrons should come from the noble lord himself (Barrington). But must we engage mercenaries because France does? She engages them,' he said, with one of his phrases of picturesque energy, 'because she has not blood enough in her own veins for the purpose of universal monarchy.' He despaired of preserving Minorca, he continued with gloomy prescience, yet the waste on these Hessians would have saved that island, would have conquered America. He broke out bitterly against the departmental character of the Government. 'I don't call this an administration, it is so unsteady. One is at the head of the Treasury; one, Chancellor; one, head of the Navy; one great person, of the Army. But is that an administration? They shift and shuffle the charge from one to another. One says, "I am not the General;" the Treasury says, "I am not the Admiral;" the Admiralty says, "I am not the Minister." From such an unaccording assemblage of separate and distinct powers with no system, a nullity results. One, two, three, four, five lords meet. If they cannot agree, "Oh, we will meet again on Saturday!" "Oh," but says one of them, "I am to go out of town." Alas! when no parties survive to thwart them, what an aggravation it is that no good comes from such unanimity!' Fox, in reply, asked if Pitt wished to see a sole Minister, a question that suggests that there was already an impression abroad that Pitt was aiming at the dictatorship which he afterwards received, or else that Pitt, if he obtained office, would be so overbearing as to become the sole Minister. Pitt, at any rate, did not accept the allusion as to himself. He said that he did not wish to see a single Minister, but system and decision. Indeed, he gracefully added, were Fox sole Minister there would be decision enough.[321] On May 11 (1756) a royal message apprised Parliament of the treaty concluded with Prussia (the Convention of Westminster, signed January 1756), and asking his faithful Commons for supplies.