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in the ministry while he disapproved of the manner in whichboth domestic and foreign affairs were conducted. But this ■censure is unjust. Indeed it is to be remarked that the wordministry, in the sense in which we use it, was then unknown.*The thing itself did not exist; for it belongs to an age inwhich parliamentary government is fully established. Atpresent the chief servants .of the crown form one body. Theyare understood to be on terms of friendly confidence with eachother, and to agree as to the main principles on which theexecutive administration ought to be conducted. If a slightdifference of opinion arises among them, it is easily compro-mised: but, if one of them differs from the rest on a vitalpoint, it is his duty to resign. While he retains his office, heis held responsible even for steps which he has tried to dis-suade his colleagues from taking. In the seventeenth century,the heads of the various branches of the administration werebound together in no such partnership. Each of them wasaccountable for his own acts, for the use which he made of hisown official seal, for the documents which he signed, for thecounsel which he gave to the King. No statesman was heldanswerable for what he had not himself done, or inducedothers to do. If he took care not to be the agent in what waswrong, and if, when consulted, he recommended what wasright, he was blameless. It would have been thought strangescrupulosity in him to quit his post, because his advice as tomatters not strictly within his own department was not takenby his master; to leave the board of Admiralty, for example,because the finances were in disorder, or the board of Trea-sury because the foreign relations of the kingdom were in anunsatisfactory state. It was, therefore, by no means unusualto see in high office, at the same time, men who avowedlydiffered from one another as widely as ever Pulteney differedfrom Walpole, or Fox from Pitt.

* Norlb’s Examen, 69.

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