For a very long time the very name of Prime Minister stank in the nostrils of the public and of Parliament. The word "Premier" was used in 1746,[130] but as late as 1761 we find George Grenville in a debate in the Commons declaring "Prime Minister" to be an odious title. The holder of it long occupied an anomalous position. Legally and constitutionally he had no superiority over any other Privy Councillor. Eight members of the Cabinet took precedence of him, by virtue of office--a fact which naturally resulted in situations puzzling to the lay mind--the exact rank of the Prime Minister being apparently impossible to define. When Lord Palmerston visited Scotland in 1863, the commander of the naval guardship was very anxious to receive that distinguished statesman with all the ceremony befitting his exalted position. On the subject of salutes due to a Prime Minister the naval code-book unfortunately maintained an impenetrable silence, and gave the officer no information as to how he should act. He eventually solved the difficulty in a thoroughly tactful manner by giving Palmerston the salute of nineteen guns which were due to him as Lord Warden of the Cinq Ports.[131] Mr. Gladstone, who was ever most punctilious in matters of etiquette, always resolutely declined to leave a room in front of any person of higher social rank, and many a youthful peer vainly endeavoured to induce the aged Prime Minister to precede him. [130] Coxe's "Pelham Administration," vol. i. p. 486. [131] Ashley's "Life of Palmerston," vol. ii. p. 233. The Prime Minister continued to occupy an ambiguous position until quite recently. It was not, indeed, until the close of Mr. Balfour's Premiership that his proper precedence was recognised. Matters were simplified, however, when he held some ministerial office, as First Lord of the Treasury, Lord President of the Council, or Foreign Secretary, whereby he became entitled to an adequate salary and an assured, if inadequate, precedence. Sir Robert Walpole, who held the Premiership for twenty-one years--though not consecutively[132]--was the first Prime Minister in the modern sense of the word, the first to sit in the Commons, and the first to resign because of an adverse vote of Parliament. [132] Walpole was First Lord of the Treasury for more than twenty-one years, but Macaulay says that he cannot be called Prime Minister until some time after he had been First Lord.--"Miscellaneous Writings," p. 359.