The coalition was triumphant. It was condemned by the public, and the verdict has been endorsed by posterity. Though it is true that North carried on the war with America only to please the king, that was not then known, and his conduct in that, and almost every important matter, was utterly opposed to the principles which Fox professed. What ground was there for mutual confidence? For eight years Fox had reviled North with extraordinary bitterness. If his words were just he had no business to ally himself with him. "My friendships," he said, with a Latin quotation, "are perpetual, my enmities are not so," a good reason for reconciliation with a private enemy; but political quarrels should be founded on differences of principle. Fox's words illustrate his adherence to the whig notion that the politics of the nation might be treated by the members of a few great families as their personal concerns. Of the two, North was at first more blamed than Fox, for it seemed pusillanimous in him to forgive Fox's treatment, but neither escaped censure. The king was furious. He had no love for Shelburne, but he hated Fox, and determined if possible to avoid falling into the hands of the coalition. He offered the treasury to Pitt, who with admirable discernment saw that his time was not yet come, and refused it. He tried Gower; he tried to detach North from the coalition; he even offered terms to the coalition; then again he pressed Pitt to take the treasury, and failing in all these attempts, sought help from Chatham's nephew, Thomas Pitt, and failed to obtain it. From February 24 to April 2 the country was without an organised government. George was almost in despair, talked of retiring to Hanover, and spoke bitterly of the ingratitude of North, whose past subservience to him had been largely rewarded. At last he was forced to accept the coalition ministry, to give Portland the treasury, and to submit to the exclusion of Thurlow, who had been chancellor since 1778 in the ministries of North, Rockingham, and Shelburne.