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"Carlisle received the staff* on Sunday, and is, I believe, in perfect good humour. The history of that transaction is a most curious one. Lord Rockingham offered, Lord Carlisle, after some time to consider, accepts; and then Lord Ssays, he had thought of it for the Duke of Marlborough, and that something at least must be done for Lord Charles Spencer before this matter is settled. I talked to him very roundly upon this affair, and of course he and his friend gave way, and the thing was done, only less graciously than it ought. In short, everything that we apprehended upon this subject is true even beyond our apprehensions: it must be our business to preserve our credit and character, which I think we cannot lose but by our own faults, and which is most clearly indeed all that we have to stand upon. He thinks, I know he does, that he has other ground. How it will bear him, il faut voir. That he will not delay long trying it, I very much believe, especially if we should be fortunate enough to make a peace, which I do not wish for less ardently than I did, although I am convinced that in signing it I shall sign the end of this ministry. Faisons notre devoir arrive qui pourra is the maxim which prudence as well as honesty must dictate to us.

"You recommended me to keep up my attention to two great political persons, and I have, I do assure you, spared no pains to follow your advice. With respect to the first in rank of the two,† I have succeeded to my utmost hopes; so much so, that, if we fail in his object, I am sure he will be rather displeased at others than at us. I like him better every day he is natural, open, and remarkably free, at least as far as I can judge, from those † Probably the Prince of Wales.

*Of Lord Steward.

meannesses which from his blood and his situation might

be expected. I wish I satisfied in regard to the most material of the two. profuse of compliments in public; but he has more than once taken a line that has alarmed me, especially when he dissuaded against going into any inquiries that might produce heats and differences. This seemed so unlike his general mode of thinking, and so like that of another, that I confess I disliked it to the greatest degree. I am satisfied he will be the man that the old system, revived in the person of Lord S-, will attempt to bring forward for its support. I am satisfied that he is incapable of going into this with his eyes open; but how he may be led into it, step by step, is more than I can answer for. I feel myself, I own, rather inclined to rely upon his understanding and integrity for resisting all the temptations of ambition, and especially of being first, which I know will be industriously thrown in his way, and contrasted with that secondary and subordinate situation to which they will insinuate he must be confined while he continues to act in the general system."

could say I was quite as well other person, who is perhaps the He is very civil and obliging,

Let us now listen to Mr. Hare:

"The Advocate† has, on so many occasions, shown such hostility, mixed with a great degree of arrogance, if not impertinence, towards Charles, that Charles, with all his goodnature and forbearance, has been rather exasperated against him. I thought it proceeded from the Advocate's being out of humour at the late reverse in his fortunes, and apt to take offence when none was meant; but Charles suspected it was a concerted scheme between the Advocate † Mr. Dundas.

* Mr. Pitt.

and a friend of yours, whom I need not name. Charles sent a civil message to the Advocate by the Duke of Buccleugh, and he returned a very general, vague answer, which convinced Charles that his suspicion was founded. I literally have not spoken to Charles for some days, and do not know whether anything more has passed; but when I last talked with Charles, he was determined that if the Advocate persisted in this improper behaviour, he should be turned out, or that he, Charles, would go out. What made this conduct in the Advocate more alarming was, that William Pitt, one day after Charles had declared the state of the nation to be in all respects more distressful than he had imagined, and the conduct of the late ministers more culpable in rejecting all offers of mediation, or neglecting all overtures of peace, and after he had declared that these things must be inquired into, William Pitt agreed with the Advocate, who had objected to any inquiry, on the pretence that it would cause altercation, revive animosity, and take up too much of the time of Ministers; and he totally differed from Charles in everything he had said on the subject. This circumstance very much increased our suspicion that the Advocate's hostility was systematical, and concocted not a hundred miles from Berkeley-square."

Thus the Ministry, sapped in its foundations, was not destined to endure. But it must be said, to the credit of this second short Administration of Lord Rockingham, that it broke the continuity of Tory power, gave legislative sanction to Mr. Burke's economical reforms, laid the groundwork of a reconciliation with America, and put an end, for a time at least, to the King's personal government.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SHELBURNE ADMINISTRATION-PEACE OF 1783.

THERE can be little doubt that personal antipathy to Mr. Fox was from this time rooted in the royal bosom. Before Mr. Fox's entrance into office, George III. looked upon him as a dissolute and unprincipled man in whom he could place no confidence, and from whom he could expect no support. But a stronger feeling than distrust and dislike now sprung up. The Prince of Wales, as soon as he was old enough to appear in public, took a course very distasteful to his father. Coming from a strict and religious home, he surprised and shocked society by his very lax morals, while he gained the goodwill of many by his agreeable manners and convivial disposition.* He offended the King by inattention, and by evincing openly his want of respect for his royal parent. One day when the Prince of Wales, with his uncle the Duke of Cumberland, attended the King's hunt, the Prince and the Duke, at the end of the day's sport, got into the only hack-chaise that could be procured, and went off to London, leaving the King to shift as he could. Another offence was the Prince's habit of frequent visits to Mr. Fox's house, where, though not in his presence, language

* Walpole's "George III."

*

little decorous to the Sovereign was frequently heard. On the day Mr. Fox resigned the seals of office the Prince dined with him, and, expressing much kindness towards him, assured him that he should ever consider Lord Rockingham's friends as the persons the most to be depended upon and as the best friends of the country. Thus the King was shocked by the morals, thwarted by the politics, and deeply irritated by the personal connexions of his son. While he was painfully struggling against party, he saw a new banner of Opposition unfurled by the heir to the throne, and attributed to his late Minister the alienation of one from whom he had expected submission and obedience.

Charles Fox, now released from the forced industry of office, fell back into licentious habits and idle dissipation. Mr. Hare, one of his best friends, said he saw him seldom except at supper at Brooks's, with Lord John Townshend.

Lord John Townshend, then Mr. John Townshend, was the son of the Marquis Townshend. He was a young man of very lively parts, and by his talents and devotion seems to have gained at this time an influence with Mr. Fox, the results of which were of great importance.

Lord Shelburne used the time of the prorogation of Parliament to hasten the negotiations for peace. On the 23rd of November these negotiations were so far advanced that the Secretary of State wrote to the Lord Mayor of London to acquaint him that the negotiations carrying on at Paris were brought so far to a point as to promise a decisive conclusion, either for peace or war, before the meeting of Parliament, which on that account was to be prorogued to the 5th of December. On that day, expectations having been raised to the highest pitch, the King * Fitzpatrick's "Journal." Corr.

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