Not many months elapsed before the new ministers found it absolutely necessary to declare war against Spain, the very point upon which Pitt had resigned. A general peace was effected by the treaty of Paris, signed February 10, 1763, by which Canada and other French possessions in North America were ceded to England. Pitt inveighed strongly, more strongly perhaps than was quite fair and candid, against the terms of this treaty; but he took no active part to overthrow the existing administration. In August, 1763, the King made overtures to induce him to return to office; and it is not very clearly known upon what account this negotiation failed. When Wilkes’s case brought forward the question of general warrants, Pitt took a strong part in condemning the use of them. In January, 1765, he received a second uncommon testimony of respect for his public conduct from Sir William Pynsent, an aged baronet of ancient family in Somersetshire, who, dying, bequeathed to him his property, to the amount of nearly 3000_l._ a year. To the scheme for raising a revenue in America, Mr. Pitt was very strongly opposed. Illness prevented his attendance in the House of Commons when that scheme was first brought forward; but in his speech on the meeting of parliament, January 14, 1766, after tidings of the disturbances in America had been received, he declared his opinion in the strongest terms. “It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, since I have attended in parliament. When the resolution was taken in the House to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have been carried in my bed, so great was the agitation of my mind for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind friend to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my testimony against it.... It is my opinion that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of government and legislation whatsoever.” He recommended that the Stamp Act should be repealed absolutely and immediately, but that the repeal should be accompanied with an assertion of the sovereign power of this country over the colonies, couched in the strongest terms that could be devised, in every point whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pocket without their consent. These declarations coincided with the policy of the Marquis of Rockingham, who had been summoned by the King to form an administration in July, 1765, and who, without any fault on his side, was involved in all the difficulties and dangers which resulted from his predecessor’s ill-judged scheme for taxing America. Mr. Pitt had previously been applied to, but declined taking office upon the terms proposed; and he showed a coolness towards the Rockingham administration, which appears to have been uncalled for by any difference in their political opinions, and which, as far as we can