However, the difficulty was increased. The question seemed at first to be, whether Cæsar or Pompey should have the honour of supporting Crassus--when neither would, Crassus made a show of venturing to stand alone: and it seemed almost as easy for him, as for either of the others. For Fox could neither trust to a Parliament devoted to Newcastle; nor dared, in his own unpopular situation, to call a new one. Pitt had no party at all: a new Parliament would have suited him best, for he could not have fewer adherents than in the old one; and, considering the temper of the nation on the late miscarriages, in which he had no hand, might acquire some clamorous voices; but that very dissatisfaction made the expedient too dangerous. How each was counselled by his friends may be seen in a moment. Stone, cold and never sanguine, advised Newcastle to give up a desperate game: Murray threw in censures on his conduct to Fox: the Duke of Grafton, though hating Fox, wisely suggested a reconciliation with him: the Chancellor, sullen and mortified, protested he would follow his Grace, but endeavoured to encourage him to stand alone, affirming they could carry everything by their numbers; and having ever been ready to torture the law to annoy his enemies, he could not help expecting to find the same support from it for himself and his friends. Sir George Lyttelton concurred with him--and if that was encouragement, offered to accept any employment. Nugent and Lord Duplin, on the contrary, dissuaded such rash measures; the latter said, sensibly, “Fox and Pitt shall not need but sit still and laugh, and we must walk out of the House.” Fox’s court (except Doddington, who was too shrewd not to think ill of their cause, and who accordingly acted disgust on not having been more consulted) talked as if triumphant, the moment they heard the reconciliation of Newcastle and Pitt was desperate. The Duke of Marlborough said, Newcastle must be sent to Sussex; Claremont was too near. The Duke of Bedford would have permitted him to retire thither with a pension, and eagerly drove Fox to unite with Pitt. The party of the latter, that is, Lord Temple, was indecently forward to come into place, and having always hated by the scale of his ambition, he had only passions to sacrifice, not principles, when the terms of his advancement were to be adjusted. Newcastle sinking, catched at feathers: his Grace proposed to Lord Egmont to be Secretary of State; but he demanded an English Peerage for his son, as the price of his own acceptance of one of the first posts in England. Ministers were become such precarious tenures, that scarce any man would list in them under places for life. The foreign Ministers, a nation not apt to joke, complained bitterly of our frequent revolutions; and D’Abreu, the Spanish Resident, said, before they ventured to negotiate, they were obliged to ask who would be Minister next Session?