[529] Thus a Whig ministry was gradually forming.

There were now two Whig Secretaries of State, a Whig Keeper of the Great Seal, a Whig First Lord of the Admiralty, a Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Lord Privy Seal, Pembroke, might also be called a Whig; for his mind was one which readily took the impress of any stronger mind with which it was brought into contact.

Seymour, having been long enough a Commissioner of the Treasury to lose much of his influence with the Tory country gentlemen who had once listened to him as to an oracle, was dismissed, and his place was filled by John Smith, a zealous and able Whig, who had taken an active part in the debates of the late session.

[530] The only Tories who still held great offices in the executive government were the Lord President, Caermarthen, who, though he began to feel that power was slipping from his grasp, still clutched it desperately, and the first Lord of the Treasury, Godolphin, who meddled little out of his own department, and performed the duties of that department with skill and assiduity.
William, however, still tried to divide his favours between the two parties.