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General Conditions in the Eighteenth Century 417 726. Development of the Cabinet and the Office of Prime Minister. Walpole was England's first prime minister. The existence of "two well-defined political parties standing for widely different policies forced the king to choose all his ministers from either one or the other. The more prominent among his advisers came gradually to form a little group who resigned together if Parliament refused to accept the measures they advocated. In this way the "cabinet government," begun under William III, developed, with a prime minister, or premier, at its head. Under weak monarchs the prime minister would naturally be the real ruler of the kingdom. 727. George III and Parliament. Finally, George III, who came to the throne in 1760, succeeded in creating a party of his own, known as the "King's Friends," and with their aid, and a liberal use of what would now be regarded as bribery and graft, ran the government much as he wanted to. His mother, a German princess, had taught him that he ought to be a king like those on the Continent ; and, in spite of the restrictions of Parliament, he did rule in a high-handed and headstrong way. During the war with the American colonies, which soon broke out, he was practically his own prime minister. 728. Growing Demand for Reform. The really weak spot in the English constitution, however, was less the occasional high- handedness of the king than the fact that Parliament did not represent the nation as a whole. Already in the eighteenth cen- tury there was no little discontent with the monopoly which the landed gentry and the rich enjoyed in Parliament. There was an increasing number of writers to point out to the people the defects in the English system. They urged that every man should have the right to participate in the government by casting his vote, and that the unwritten constitution of England should be written down and so made clear and unmistakable. Political clubs were founded, which entered into correspondence with political societies in France; newspapers and pamphlets poured from the press in enormous quantities ; and political reform found champions in the House of Commons.