If he employed men of the other party, there was great risk of treachery.

If he employed men of both parties, there was still some risk of mistakes; there was still some risk of treachery; and to these risks was added the certainty of dissension.

He might join Whigs and Tories; but it was beyond his power to mix them.

In the same office, at the same desk, they were still enemies, and agreed only in murmuring at the Prince who tried to mediate between them.

It was inevitable that, in such circumstances, the administration, fiscal, military, naval, should be feeble and unsteady; that nothing should be done in quite the right way or at quite the right time; that the distractions from which scarcely any public office was exempt should produce disasters, and that every disaster should increase the distractions from which it had sprung.
There was indeed one department of which the business was well conducted; and that was the department of Foreign Affairs.