William Pitt the Younger the Coalition's majority shrink as some Members of Parliament left the Opposition to abstain. In March 1784, Parliament was dissolved, and a general election ensued. An electoral defeat for the Government was out of the question because Pitt enjoyed the support of King George III. Patronage and bribes paid by the Treasury were normally expected to be enough to secure the Government a comfortable majority in the House of Commons but on this occasion the government reaped much popular support as well. In most popular constituencies, the election was fought between candidates clearly representing either Pitt or Fox and North.
William Pitt the Younger opinion in support of the war. The Pitt government waged a vigorous propaganda campaign contrasting the ordered society of Britain dominated by the aristocracy and the gentry vs. the "anarchy" of the French revolution, and always sought to associate British "radicals" with the revolution in France. Though the Pitt government did drastically reduce civil liberties and created a nationwide spy network with ordinary people being encouraged to denounce any "radicals" that may have been in their mist, the historian Eric Evans argued the picture of Pitt's "reign of terror" as portrayed by the Marxist historian E.P Thompson is incorrect, stating