development of an inner cabinet, and such a body is understood to have existed for many years during which cabinets have been of a size undreamt of by ministers of George III. The solidarity of the cabinet is now secured by the peculiar functions and powers of a prime minister.[9] It was not so at the accession of George III. That there should be an avowed prime minister possessing the chief weight in the council and the principal place in the confidence of the king is a doctrine which was not established until the first administration of the younger Pitt; and though the title of prime minister had come into use by 1760, it was still regarded as invidious by constitutional purists. According to George's system he was himself to be the only element of coherence in a ministry; it was to be formed by the prime minister in accordance with his instructions, and each member of it was to be guided by his will. The factious spirit of the whigs, the extent to which they monopolised power, and the humiliating position to which they had reduced the crown, afford a measure of defence for his scheme of government. Yet it was in itself unconstitutional, for it would have made the ministers who were responsible to parliament mere agents of the king who was not personally responsible for his public acts. And it was not, nor indeed could it be, carried out except by adopting means which were unconstitutional and disastrous. It necessarily made the king the head of a party. He needed votes in parliament, and he obtained them, as the whig leaders had done, by discreditable means. If his ministers did not please him he sought support from the members of his party, "the king's friends," as they were called; and so there arose an influence behind the throne distinct from and often opposed to that of his responsible advisers. [Sidenote: _THE KING'S SCHEME._]