During the winter of 1770-71 some changes took place in the ministry. Weymouth, finding himself unequal to meet the Spanish crisis, resigned the seals, and Rochford took the southern and Halifax the northern department. Hawke was succeeded at the admiralty by Sandwich, who worked hard, though he appears to have applied his industry and abilities too largely to personal arrangements. Bathurst, an insignificant person, became lord chancellor, Thurlow attorney-general, and Wedderburn, hitherto a bitter opponent of the ministry, solicitor-general; he ratted disgracefully, and was perhaps insincere from the first. Determined to attain the chancellorship, he may have intended to force North to give him office, by showing himself dangerous in opposition. George Grenville died in November, 1770, and several of his friends, headed by the Earl of Suffolk, a man of small ability, went over to the ministerial side. Suffolk was made privy seal and, on the death of Halifax in the following June, became secretary of state. He was succeeded as privy seal by Grafton, who, in accepting the office, showed his lack of confidence in his colleagues by stipulating that he should not be summoned to cabinet meetings. Besides the serious blow which the opposition at large sustained in the death of Grenville, Beckford's death, soon after his egregious performance at St. James's, deprived Chatham of an eager follower and the city party of its leader. Later in the year, too, died Granby, who a few months before repented of the support he had given to the ministry and had joined the opposition.