[63] "Lord Chatham found it necessary to gain new friends, and enfeeble his opponents; but his endeavours failed. The harsh manner in which he dismissed Lord Edgcumbe from the appointment of Treasurer of the Household, with a view to gratify the Duke of Newcastle by bestowing it on Sir John Shelley, the Duke's near relation, disgusted many respectable members of Administration. The Duke of Portland, the Earls of Bessborough and Scarborough, and Lord Monson, withdrew their support; and Sir Charles Saunders, Sir William Meredith and Admiral Keppel, resigned their places at the Board of Admiralty."--Adolphus: _History of England, November, 1766_.
Overtures were made to the "Bloomsbury Gang," but without any real effectual result, for, though one or two of the minor members joined the Government, the Duke of Bedford held aloof.
A king, however, has no difficulty in securing adherents, and George collected such as could be induced to rally round his standard into a body that called itself the King's Friends. "Ministers are no longer the public servants of the state, but the private domestics of the sovereign," Junius thundered. "One particular class of men are permitted to call themselves _the King's Friends_, as if the body of the people were the King's enemies: or as if his Majesty looked for a resource or consolation in the attachment of a few favourites against the general contempt and detestation of his subjects. Edward and Richard the Second made the same distinction between the collective body of the people and a contemptible party who surrounded the throne." Unfortunately for George, all reputable parliamentarians belonged to some party already existing, and, as Sir George Trevelyan has put it admirably, "The only recruiting ground that was left open to his Majesty's operations lay among the waifs and strays of politics; among the disappointed, the discontented and the discredited; among those whom Chatham would not stoop to notice, and Newcastle had not cared to buy; and out of such material as this was gradually organized a band of camp-followers promoted in the ranks, at the head of which no decent leader would have been seen marching through the lobby."[64]