It is necessary to observe that Pitt's great ambition was that all the various departments should be entirely dependent upon him; he did not like to have any men about him except those of his school, or immediately attached to his system,--his _fides Achates_, as they were classically termed by Dundas; and among these young men the names of Castlereagh and Canning are especially resplendent: both were subject to his power, but of essentially opposite characters, and jealous of each other. Castlereagh was so firm and decided, that he never gave up an idea he had once formed; his manner of speaking was slow, and rather heavy, but serious, and never thoughtless. Canning, on the contrary, was sarcastic, and rather inclined to classic declamation; an orator, rather spoiled from a constant striving after effect. Castlereagh was often listened to with impatience, nevertheless, he generally attained his object; while Canning, by the generality of people, was only viewed in the light of an eloquent speaker. Castlereagh was a statesman; Canning, a man of words, rather theatrical, not to be relied on, and with an indescribable levity of language and purpose. Castlereagh would have laid down his life for his party, or for an idea; Canning was a renegade to his party, he supported every thing with ability, and gloried in his oratorical triumphs, at the very time he was compromising his cabinet. When Pitt, their illustrious chief, died broken-hearted by the victory of Austerlitz, the king considered it indispensable, in order to conclude a peace with France, that Fox and Grenville, the leaders of the Whigs, should assume the ministry; it was an unfortunate attempt, often repeated in England. Fox, and all his friends, shewed themselves perfectly devoid of political knowledge, and they also evinced extreme incapacity, which gave occasion to the remark that a Whig ministry was a misfortune both for the country and for the party itself; for the country, because it compromises it, and for the party, because the Whigs always forfeit their reputation, throwing away, in a ministry which lasted fifteen months, the fruit of fifteen years of popularity. As might be expected, Canning and Castlereagh were the most violent opponents of Fox's cabinet. The debates in parliament during this ministry form a curious study; Canning and Castlereagh did not like each other, though they were on the same side of the question, and this was mainly owing to the difference in their talents, as well as in the character of their minds and intellects. Castlereagh attacked the administration by means of reasoning, an appeal to figures, and a sort of traditional influence, which produced a great effect upon the Tories; while Canning, on the contrary, trusted to poetical sallies, or ridicule. Above all, Fox was out of place at the head of affairs.