ABSTRACT
William Pitt had sympathy with the King's desire to avoid a party administration, and was always more disposed to listen to his overtures than to Newcastle's, for one of his main principles was that the King's government must be carried on. Pitt indeed had a difficult choice between the King, whose system of government seemed to him open to least objection, and the Whigs, with whom he was more often in harmony on great national and constitutional questions. The alliance thus brought about was cemented by a great dinner at Devonshire House attended by Pitt and the Whig magnates. In the House of Commons Pitt led the opposition with his old spirit. Pitt, true to the policy of conciliation to both countries: Ireland and America, which he had adopted in his own ministry, distrusted the policy already inaugurated by Grenville and Charles Townshend.
