You are not to imagine that this declaration was made in conse.quence of any negotiation, treaty, compromise, or management. Oh, no! all treaty had been broken off; and that puissant Administration, that had swept away every thing before it at home, have laid down their arms without being beaten, and without any conditions. Such a surrender, not imagined even in idea at Christmas, is very novel. Not a month is passed since General Conway's successful motion; not that he is entitled to all the glory. Lord Cornwallis's defeat had certainly opened many eyes, which had been obstinately shut to all our other defeats and losses; and an intriguing faction in the Ministry, who did not foresee the discomfit they were bringing on themselves, had disjointed their combined powers, and given encouragement to the Opposition. When some of the Ministers had declared the recovery of America impossible, others, who had been lulled asleep by that vision, found there was more truth in that revelation than they would believe from opponents.* These steps made,

of Surrey, no fewer than four hundred members had taken their seats before four o'clock. Shortly after, Lord North entered, and rose to address the Chair; which created great confusion, one side calling out loudly for Lord Surrey to address the House, the other for Lord North. Having at length obtained a hearing, he stated, that he had come down to announce from authority, that his Majesty had come to a full determination to change his Ministers, and that the Government was at an end. He therefore conceived it unnecessary to debate a question which had for its object a removal already produced. After returning his acknowledgments to the House for the long and steady support extended to him, he added, that "a successor of greater abilities, of sounder judgment, and better qualified for the situation, was easy to be found; but that one more zealous for the glory of his country, more loyal, to his Sovereign, and more desirous of preserving the constitution whole and entire could not so easily be found. Whenever his country called on him to answer for his public conduct, he should be ready to meet any enquiry that might be thought necessary." He then moved, that the House should adjourn to Monday the 25th, in order to allow his Majesty time to form a new Administration. Lord Surrey reluctantly acceded to the motion, accompanied with a menace, that, if any portion of the Ministry should remain in office on that day, he would come forward with a motion still more personal.-Ed.

The following is the character of Lord North's Administration as drawn, at this time, by Sir Samuel Romilly: "You desire me to send you characters of the members of the present Government. Their private characters I am quite unacquainted with; and it is not easy to distinguish their characters as statesmen, for no one minister has appeared to be the author of any particular measure. All that has been done has had the approbation of the whole Administration; and there are persons who go so far as to assert, that the real authors of all the proceedings against America are still behind the curtain. Of the whole Administration taken together, the principal characteristics are want of system and irresolution; and the latter, indeed, is but a consequence of the former. Having little, confused views, they seem never, from the first, to have formed any comprehensive plan; and this original defect has increased with ill-success. Perplexed and confounded with the mazes and dangers into which they have run, like children, they rather turn away from what affrights them than endeavour to prevent it. They ward off the present evil that presses on them, but leave the morrow to provide for itself; they may truly be said in diem vivere. Their plan of operations (for system they have none) changes with every new occurrence: with every various accident, every various passion takes its turn to rule them: regarding only the immediate object before them, they magnify its importance; they are now confident of success, now plunged into VOL. II.-20

Mr. Conway's motion easily found its way. This is a brief, but I believe, a very true account of what has past.

For what is to come, I am far from being able to give you as just a view. At four o'clock to-day not the smallest advance had been made towards a new establishment. On that head it is not proper to say more. I shall have eighteen or twenty hours before this goes away to tell you, if any thing new finds its way to the public.

In your last you thanked me for the advice I gave your nephew, which he was so wise as to follow, and which proved to have been such good advice. It was not solely given for his own sake. I certainly had you in my eye too. But, though my own principles are very determined, no party views have ever, or will, induce me to give insidious counsel to a friend who asks my opinion, nor have I once allowed myself to seduce a son (and I look on your nephew as your son) to act contrary to the inclination and sentiments of his parent; I should think it most dishonourable. When your nephew, two years ago, brought over opinions that I thought would grieve you, I told him that, though they were conformable to my own, I could not encourage him in them; yet on neither of these occasions did I even hint to you, when it might look like making court to the late Ministers, nor certainly did I act thus à leur intention.*

Well! I revert to my old wishes and prayers for peace! If that arises out of the present chaos, benedicite! England's tranquillity and welfare are all my objects. I care not who the Ministers shall be, provided they do but keep those points in view. My dislike of our late measures was founded on no personal interests; nor, should my nearest friends be again employed, as they were in 1766, shall I be a jot more a gainer than I was then. You were the only person then for whom I asked a single favour-one more than I should ask now. The colour of my life has been disinterested. It shall not be contaminated in its dregs.

22nd.

Nothing-nothing at all is settled. To-day's report is, that Lord

despair. The idol they erected yesterday is cast down to-day, and perhaps will be enshrined again to-morrow. In prosperity they are proud, contemptuous, and overbearing; in adversity, supple, mean, and abject. At the commencement of the disputes with America, they treated the refractory colonists as a despicable gang of ruffians; but, the moment a league was formed with France, they prostrated themselves at the feet of those rebels they had spurned, and offered them much more than they demanded. This panic was soon dissipated by a gleam of success; the Ministers resumed confidence, and one of them was imprudent enough to hint, even in the House of Commons, that unconditional submission' was alone to be listened to;

'Quidlibet impotens Sperare, fortunâque dulci

Ebrius.'" Life, vol. i. p. 190.-Ed.

*In the course of the several debates in the House of Commons in this and the preceding year, the object of which was the removal of the Administration, Sir Horace Mann the younger repeatedly spoke and uniformly voted against the Minister.-ED.

Shelburne was yesterday!two hours with the King.* If Lord Shelburne undertakes, who will carry very little strength but ample unpopularity, I shall think him bolder than wise, and will venture for once to foretell, that he will only share in the defeat of his enemies, instead of partaking the victory of his allies. Thus I must leave you in incertitude; but it is no more than we are-if that is any compensation. Adieu !

LETTER CCCLXXIII.

Berkeley Square, March 26, 1782. Ir is natural for people to conclude, that, when a whole Administration is dissolved, another should be appointed in its room. You and I, who have lived longer than the greater part, have seen times when that has not been the case for weeks; but this interministerium has been much shorter. On Wednesday the sentence passed on the late Ministers. On Thursday evening Lord Shelburne was sent for to the Queen's house. What passed has been kept secret; except that he acquainted Lord Rockingham by message that he had not violated their union. Friday and Saturday passed without the public learning any news of an arrangement. On Sunday morning Lord Shelburne notified to Lord Rockingham, that all his Lordship's constitutional demands were granted, with carte blanche for the removal and substitution of persons, and that all that was required was the introduction of Lords Gower and Weymouth into the Cabinet. The Marquis was not pleased at Lord Shelburne's having the honour of being the negotiator, instead of transacting his own business himself; nor could digest a Cabinet in which, if Lord Shelburne should take a devious path, and in which he would command a voice or two more, the majority would not depend on the Prime Minister. The Marquis's friends saw that he was falling into a snare that might have been laid to divide the party; and prevailed, though with great difficulty, to waive the jealousy of the negotiator, but to resist the eccentric recommendation of the two other Lords. On that plan Rockingham, at six on Sunday evening, accepted the gracious offers, provided such a Cabinet (as he stated in a given List) should

*The day after Lord North announced his resignation in the House of Commons, the King sent for the Earl of Shelburne, and offered to appoint him First Lord of the Treasury; but the Earl informed his Majesty, that in his judgment no one could at present fill that situation except the Marquis of Rockingham. On the death of the Marquis, in July, the Earl of Shelburne alluded to this circumstance in the House of Lords. Of the above two statesmen, Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke acknowledged the Marquis for their leader; while Mr. Dunning and Colonel Barré looked up to the Earl for protection. Of these four distinguished persons, Mr. Fox only could be regarded as a free agent; for Mr. Burke, having lost his seat for Bristol at the general election, owed to Lord Rockingham his return for Malton; while Calne, the property of the Earl of Shelburne, sent to Parliament Mr. Dunning and the Colonel. -ED.

be accorded. This answer was transmitted to Lord Shelburne, and by him conveyed accordingly. The time pressed: the House of Commons was to meet on Monday, and were not in a mood to be dallied with. Prudence prevailed, and prevented-no matter now what; all was granted and ceded that Lord Rockingham asked. He accepted; and Mr. Dunning, Lord Shelburne's friend, moved by authority, that the House should adjourn till Wednesday, declaring that an arrangement was ready to be made.*

Here is the list of the Cabinet-Lord Thurlow to remain Chancellor; Lord Camden, President; Lord Rockingham, First Lord of the Treasury; General Conway, Commander-in-chief; Admiral Keppel, First Lord of the Admiralty; Lord Shelburne and Charles Fox, Secretaries of State; the Duke of Grafton, Privy Seal with the Duke of Richmond, Master of the Ordnance; and Lord John Cavendish, Chancellor of the Exchequer; to have seats in the Cabinet. This is all I know, and all I shall seek to know. I am totally indifferent about the arrangement of places, and hate details so much, that I am going out of town to avoid discussions and reports.

Well! this revolution is so surprising, and by me so unexpected, that I can only say, with a change in a Scripture phrase, "This is not the Lord's doing but the Commons', and it is marvellous in our eyes!" If it produces the two points I have at heart, the recovery of the Constitution (which it appears by this spirit in the House of Commons was not quite gone) and peace, I shall be content, and will never think on politics more. What has a man to do with them who never felt a titillation of ambition? The spirit of liberty alone has made me at any time attend to them; for life without freedom has but a narrower or a wider prison. Honours make one a slave to etiquette, and power to

* Although the King could not prevail upon Lord Shelburne to accept his offer, "he arranged," says Nicholls, in his Recollections of the Reign of George the Third, "the Administration with him, and then sent him to the Marquis of Rockingham, to inform him of the names of the gentlemen who were to form the Cabinet, and of the different offices they were to fill. No man," he continues, "was at that time more confidential with the Marquis than Admiral Keppel, who told me that Lord Rockingham himself was very averse to accept the office offered him; that the noble Lord thought the King had manifested such personal dislike to him, by refusing him an audience, and arranging the Administration with Lord Shelburne, that in his own opinion, he was not a fit person to be in the King's service." Nor would this reluctance, it is said, have been overcome, but for the earnest solicitations of Fox, Burke, and the Duke of Richmond. On Friday the 22nd, the Marquis had an audience of the King, at which his Majesty consented to the conditions proposed, "only attempting to stipulate," says Wraxall, "that two of his actual Ministers, the Chancellor and Lord Stormont, should be included in the new Administration. He could not obtain such terms, and it was only after considerable difficulty that Lord Thurlow was suffered to retain his situation. When the House of Commons met again on Monday the 25th, Mr. Dunning, an adherent of the Earl of Shelburne, was elected and authorized to communicate the state of affairs at St. James's. Dunning, who forty-eight hours afterwards kissed his Majesty's hands on being created a peer, informed the members that arrangements for the formation of a new Administration were in great forwardness, and moved another short adjournment till Wednesday."-ED.

solicitation. A private man, who is uncontrolled, is emperor of himself. I am going to my country palace; which is the best enjoyment that the greatest monarch knows.

Having despatched a revolution, I must now trouble you on a private melancholy affair: General Conway has heard from Mrs. Damer, that her aunt Lady William Campbell* is much out of order. I immediately advised Mr. Conway to write, and recommend to Mrs. Damer to carry her aunt directly to Florence, where you could be of the greatest comfort and assistance to them, and could best contrive means of sending Lady William home by sea from Leghorn, in as safe a manner as may be at this moment. He has done so, and begs you will be so good as to give Mrs. Damer your advice in this and any other point; especially of a physician, if there is any Dr. Cocchi at Florence. He desires, too, that you will supply her with what money she wants, and draw upon him directly.

St. Kit'st has followed Minorca! It is sad: yet let us save the Constitution, and I shall not die broken-hearted. If England is free, and America free, though disunited, the whole earth will not be in vassalage.

LETTER CCCLXXIV.

Berkeley Square, April 7, 1782.

As you have received my letters on the total revolution in the Ministry, you will not be surprised that we have been occupied by that event, and have not run, as you expected, into great heats on the loss of Minorca. It has, indeed, made no more impression than if the King had lost his pocket-handkerchief. We are like the fishwoman, who, bing reproached with the cruelty of skinning eels alive, replied, Ah, poor things, they be used to it!" She mistook her own habitude for theirs. We are at once so dissipated and so accustomed to misfortunes, that, though flayed to the bone, we forget the amputation of a finger in a moment. Were the new arrangement completed, I

* Wife of Lord William Campbell, youngest brother of the Duke of Argyll and Lady Ailsbury. Lady William was an American, born in the province of Carolina; of which Lord William had been Governor.

The old and valuable English island of St. Christopher's was doomed to be the next victim to the calamity of the times. In January, the Marquis de Bouille landed eight thousand men on the island, and was supported by the Count de Grasse with thirty two ships of the line. As the garrison under General Frazer did not exceed six hundred effective men, resistance would have been altogether ineffectual. De Bouille accelerated the surrender, by threatening to burn the plantations, and renew the devastations which he had committed at Tobago. The militia in the garrison were too much interested in this menace not to press their commander to capitulate; and the French general acceded to every requisition they made, regarding either public or private property, the garrison, or the inhabitants at large. -ED.