was not unforeseen; but did not please those the better who were disposed to dislike it. Lord John Cavendish, who had most unwillingly been dragged into the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared, that nothing should make him retain it under any other man than his late friend, for whose sake he had undertaken it. Mr. Fox more directly protested against Lord Shelburne. The Duke of Richmond and General Conway endeavoured to prevent disunion in the new system, and on Wednesday night did not despair; but on Thursday, at Court, Mr. Fox arrived, took Lord Shelburne aside, asked him abruptly, if he was to be First Lord of the Treasury; and, being answered in the affirmative, said, "then, my Lord, I shall resign"-went into the Closet, and left the Seals, which he had brought in his pocket, with the King.

The schism begun, has gone farther. Every body knew that the Rockingham and Shelburne squadrons, who had never been cordial even in opposition, had with great difficulty been brought to coalesce in the formation of the Administration; and some knew, that their conjunction had not proceeded with much amity. In the first moment, it was still hoped by moderate men that the breach-I mean the present-would not go far; as many disapprove Mr. Fox's precipitation. But he and Lord John had not taken their part with indifference. A meeting of the late Marquis's friends was held yesterday at Lord Fitzwilliam's-the nephew or Octavius of the late Cæsar, but no more likely to be an Augustus, than the Marquis was a Julius. After a debate of six hours the whole junto, except the Duke of

In the House of Commons, on the 9th of July, Mr. Fox stated, that the cause of his resignation was a difference of opinion upon some essential points between him and those who remained in his Majesty's councils. General Conway, after insinuating that disappointment in a contest for power was the real cause of Mr. Fox's resignation, positively declared that, in his judgment, there was no disagreement in the Cabinet sufficient to justify Mr. Fox in withdrawing himself from it. This declaration from one of the Ministers made it necessary for Mr. Fox to rise again. He acknowledged that the appointment of Lord Shelburne to be First Lord of the Treasury, was one reason which induced him to retire. Since that promo tion, he said, the Administration was no longer that which the Parliament and the nation had brought in; that he had not the least confidence in the present Administration, and that he had, as was his duty, resigned: he did not affect such a stoic indifference for what all the rest of the world earnestly aspired to, as to pretend that he had, without regret, resigned high distinctions of fortune, power, honour, and glory; but he did not hesitate a moment to give up all these advantages, rather than submit to the treachery and infamy of continuing in office, and patronizing by his name an Administration and its measures, which, in his conscience, he disapproved and believed dangerous to the country. Mr. Burke exclaimed, with uncommon warmth, that he had no confidence in the Administration, constituted as it now was; that he saw in them, indeed, 'satis eloquentiæ, sed sapientiæ parum ;' and that in his soul he believed the government was more safely entrusted to the hands of the late Ministry. Mr. Pitt answered them in severe terms; said that their great talents ought to be considered at that time as public property; and that to withhold their assistance from the public when it stood so much in need of them was a species of treachery. He ascribed their resignation to a dislike of men, and not of measures; to private pique, and not to public grounds. See Life of Pitt, vol. i. p. 83, and Life of Romilly, vol. i. p. 237.-ED.

Richmond, resolved to secede; but, by whole junto, you must not understand all who have been adherents to Lord Rockingham. Some who had been, would not attend this novel institution of hereditary right, nor understand why the Government is to be permanent in two or three great families, like the Hebrew priesthood in one tribe; General Conway, you may be sure, was not of that assembly. He never would attach himself to either or any faction; and, though they may change their note, the dissidents themselves yet allow that they have no claim to his allegiance, and that he always acts by the rule of right-they forget that that law ought to supersede the ties of party.

Mr. Fox's proclamation of his pretensions-which I allow are very good, if qualifications gave a right of succession, (which he did not indeed directly claim, naming the Duke of Portland for successor to Lord Rockingham, who certainly would not degenerate if insufficience proved the true heir,)-has called forth a rival, who it was foreseen, must become so sooner or later. Don't you anticipate me, and cry out "What! Mr. William Pitt?" Yes! he is to be Secretary of State-at two and twenty-that is some glory!*

What else is to be, I am sure I cannot tell you. Perhaps by Tuesday night more may be settled; for, as the Parliament is to rise on Wednesday, the posts that may be vacant will be filled up, for the new writs to issue. Guesses I do not name, not to be obliged to contradict them. The new Opposition will be weak in numbers, and have none at all but dignified cyphers in the House of Lords. Lord Rockinham's party was not numerous, though the strongest of any single faction; and it loses its real chief, the Duke of Richmond, and a few more. Fox and Burke are its only efficient men. There are other points on which you might wish to question me; but I do not choose to write more than might be in the newspapers, but with this difference, that I relate nothing but facts that have entity.

* Lord Shelburne having been promoted to the head of the Treasury, and Mr. Fox and Lord John Cavendish having resigned their respective situations, Mr. Thomas Townsend and Lord Grantham were made Secretaries of State, and Mr. Pitt Chancellor of the Exchequer. "Thus," says the Bishop of Winchester, "did Mr. Pitt, when he was little more than twenty-three years old, attain the important office of Finance Minister in the House of Commons, where all measures relative to the revenue must originate; and at a time when the pecuniary concerns of the country were known to be in a state of the greatest embarrassment in consequence of a long and expensive war, which still continued. He did not, like other eminent statesmen, who began their political career in the House of Commons, previously pass through some subordinate office; nor did he wait till the period of life which had hitherto been considered as necessary to mature the judgment, and to qualify even men of the most brilliant talents for the higher departments of executive government. He was at once, at this early age, placed in a situation which before had always been filled by persons of tried discretion and long-esta blished character, and which, from peculiar circumstances, was now attended with greater difficulties than had been encountered by any of his predecessors." Life, vol. i. p. 85.-Ed.

Monday.

The meeting at Lord Fitzwilliam's was not so unanimous as I had heard. Lord Temple was warmly with the Duke of Richmond, and two or three other Lords. The former, it is supposed, will be Secretary of State with his cousin Pitt. The Duke is grossly abused by the new Separatists, as he has been before by the late Administration. When a man is traduced by both sides, it is no bad symptom of his virtue. If a man sacrifices all parties to his momentary interest, he may be universally despised, but he does not provoke. If his change proceeds from conscience, he must be aspersed, that his integrity may not shine. As the Duke was conspicuously more proper for the first post than Lord Rockingham, he had more reason to be dissatisfied with the nomination than to support it. The trifling post of Master of the Ordnance could not be an object worthy of his ambition or selfishness; and, by retaining it, he shows he did not aim at a higher.

Tuesday.

If any thing extraordinary should happen before Friday, I will write again on that day, as this must go away to-night. I shall go to Strawberry at the end of the week, and come to town very seldom before winter; consequently shall know nothing but general news, which I shall send you as usual. I never trouble myself about the disposition of places; I wish for peace fervently, and must preserve my own, if I cannot contribute to that of the public or of particulars. Luckily, I remember that I am older than almost any man left upon the stage, and will not hobble like Nestor to the Siege of Troy, with boys three hundred years younger than myself, who would be tired of my old stories of their grandfathers. Adieu!

LETTER CCCLXXX.

Strawberry Hill, July 21, 1782.

YOUR letter of the 6th which I received to-day, sets me to writing, though I have no novelty to tell you since the new arrangement of the Administration;* of which I think I gave you a sketch in my

* The following is a list of the Shelburne Administration, as finally settled: Lord Shelburne, First Lord of the Treasury; Mr. Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord Grantham and Mr. Thomas Townsend, Principal Secretaries of State; Lord Thurlow, Lord Chancellor; Lord Keppel, First Lord of the Admiralty; Lord Camden, President of the Council; Duke of Graftou, Lord Privy Seal; Duke of Richmond, Master-General of the Ordnance; Lord Ashburton, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; Sir George Yonge, Secretary at War; Henry Dundas, Esq., Treasurer of the Navy; Colonel Barré, Paymaster of the Forces; Lloyd Kenyon,

last of the 9th. The most material part to you is the addition of Lord Grantham as Secretary of State. He is a sort of old acquaintance of yours when he was at Vienna, and I suppose, at Madrid; though I believe you never met. He is a very agreeable pleasing man. Lord Shelburne is certainly the Minister paramount.

The moment is certainly a solemn one; the combined fleets are at the mouth of the Channel, but Lord Howe, though with inferior force, is watching them, and is very different from such old women as Harda or Darby, and has a most chosen set of officers, men, and ships; as at land we have General Conway, instead of that log of wood, Lord Amherst, whose stupidity and incapacity were past belief, though, before he was known, he was for a moment a hero; for more moments supposed a great man, the Lord knows why.

I have been here these ten days, consequently know nothing more than what you see in the papers; I must therefore owe the rest of my letter to answering yours. It is not worth while even for the sake of a paragraph, to tell you that my last morsel of gout was acquired by being blooded twice for the influenza, which I had one of the first. I am now mighty well for me.

I am quite ignorant of your nephew's late campaign in Kent, of which I know nothing but by your letter. I do but cast my eyes on the newspapers; which are detestable for their lies, blunders, and scandal, and are half filled by letters of the partisans of different factions, whose sole object is to mislead and infuse prejudices. I never look at the advertisements and paragraphs that relate to elections: and must be surfeited, you may well imagine, after sixty years, with the clamours of parties, with which I have nothing to do. Your nephew I have not seen for some time. He has, I think, a good heart: but, being a little volatile and precipitate, his honesty is apt to make him take his part without much consideration. This may draw him into difficulties, but not disreputable ones. Experience will make him more wary; and he will distrust his own judgment, when he finds it is not an infallible guide.

I do not recollect what you said of an old portrait: you told me something about one, but I forget what; you now say I have seen it -not to my knowledge. My memory and other defects tell me how old I grow. I hope at least to remember that I do forget. Ancient folks are apt to parry and palliate their decays: it is my duty to watch them, and convince myself of them; which one should think would not be difficult-but self-love is such a flatterer! Adieu!

Esq., Attorney-General; Richard Pepper Arden, Esq., Solicitor-General; Earl Temple, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; and the Hon. William Wyndham Grenville, Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant.-ED.

LETTER CCCLXXXI.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 20, 1782. I DID think it long since I heard from you; but your letter of July 30th explains your silence, on your ignorance to whom you was to address yourself on the late changes. In fact, no new Secretaries of State were appointed for some time, none therefore could write to you; nor could I tell you who was your new principal, till you had one. Events there have been none to tell you; for the hide-and-seek at which the combined fleets have been playing with ours, produced none till each returned to its own home. Ours, they say, is to relieve Gibraltar, but I do not answer for the truth. I have been in town but two nights for a great while, and know no better than the newspapers what is passing. I have heard here that we have abandoned Georgia and the Royalists to the mercy of their enemies; but perhaps there is not a word of truth in it. A suburban village is no very authentic coffee-house. Our Jamaica and Leeward fleets are arrived safely. Such articles are very important in war, though they made no figure in the history of a campaign. the fleets might almost sail up hither; for we have had such incessant deluges of rain, that our quiet Thames looks like a little turbulent ocean, and seems setting up for itself too, like others of its sovereign's dominions.

Monsieur de Grasse has been here, and was graciously treated; which is more than it is thought he will be at home. I hope he will not be used as inhumanly as poor Admiral Byng, whose fate the French so justly condemned.*

I shall be very sorry if your attendance on the Duchess of Parma has over-fatigued you: may you be quit for the ennui which such ceremonies must create after a certain age! I never feel my antiquity so much as when I am obliged to appear at any of those functions. Courts were not made for old age; it requires all the giddy insensibility of youth not to be struck with such farces. How one should smile if one could look down on a crowd of insects acting importance, dignity, or servility! And how would one of them reciprocally smile, could they observe one of our species tottering to the last to so foolish a pantomime! The young are a sort of insects who do remark that foolishness in their seniors-and they are in the right.

Count de Grasse landed at Portsmouth on the 5th of August; where he, together with his officers, were most hospitably entertained by Vice Admiral Sir Peter Parker, until the Count had permission to proceed to London. During his stay in the metropolis, he took up his residence at the Royal Hotel, in Pall Mall. The Count was the first commander-in-chief of a French fleet or army who had been prisoner in England since the reign of Queen Anne, when Marshal Tallard was taken by the Duke of Marlborough, and confined to the town and environs of Nottingham. On his return to France, the Count published a Memoire Justificatif. -ED.

VOL. II.-22.