During the session of 1781–82 the powers of Burke, Fox, and Pitt were united in a strenuous opposition to the administration of Lord North. After staggering under their blows for some weeks, the ministry fell, and Lord North was succeeded by Rockingham in February of 1782. Rockingham’s ministry, however, was terminated by the death of its chief after a short period of only thirteen weeks. Lord Shelburne was appointed his successor, and he chose Pitt as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Thus Burke and Fox were passed by, and not only the responsible leadership of the Commons, but also the finances of the empire, were entrusted to a youth of twenty-three. The reason of this preference certainly was not an acknowledged pre-eminence of Pitt; but rather in the attitude he had assumed in the course of his attacks on the administration of North. He had not inveighed against the king, but had attached all the responsibility of mismanagement to the ministry, where the Constitution itself places it. Fox, on the other hand, had allowed himself to be carried forward by the impetuosity of his nature, and had placed the responsibility where we now know it belonged—upon George III. The consequence had been that the enraged king would not listen to the promotion of Fox, though by constitutional usage he was clearly entitled to recognition. That Fox was offended was not singular, but it is impossible even for his most ardent admirers to justify the course he now determined to take. He had been the most bitter opponent of Lord North. He had denounced him as “the most infamous of mankind,” and as “the greatest criminal of the state.” He had declared of his ministry: “From the moment I should make any terms with one of them, I should rest satisfied to be called the most infamous of mankind.” He had said only eleven months before: “I could not for a moment think of a coalition with men who, in every public and private transaction as ministers, have shown themselves void of every principle of honor and honesty.”[A] And yet, notwithstanding these philippics, which almost seem to have been delivered as if to make a coalition impossible, Fox now deserted his old political companions, and joined hands with the very object of his fiercest denunciation. The Coalition thus formed voted down the Shelburne ministry in February, 1783. [A] Fox’s Speeches, II., 39.