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but dependents and underlings for office in the House of Commons. He resolved, in pursuance of these views, to take the Treasury, to appoint Dr., now Sir George Lee, as his Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to cajole Sir Thomas Robinson into resuming the Seals. To this scheme the King gave his consent, and every thing seemed ready to commence its execution, when it was again suspended on some fresh irresolutions and waverings of the "aspen Duke,” as Horace Walpole not unaptly terms him.

For a long time, amidst all these struggles and intrigues, -nearly three months from first to last, did England remain without a Government, while Parliament was still sitting, while there was a formidable war to wage. "In 66 our present unaccountable state," writes an experienced observer, "no man knows who is Minister and who not. "We inquire here, as the old woman at Amsterdam did long "ago, OU DEMEURE LE SOUVERAIN?"* Yet it is only justice to acknowledge that this state of no Government, - when the temporary holders of office refrained from all great enterprises or farsighted views, and would transact none but the most ordinary and needful business, was little, if at all, worse than the state of Government when Newcastle had been at its head.

The design of Newcastle to become again the only responsible Minister seemed to presage great confusion, and gave much alarm to all thinking persons interested in the permanence of the British Monarchy. Not last amongst these were the Princess Dowager and her little Council. She resolved to make an effort to show the Duke the dangers of the path he was pursuing, and at the same time to draw from Pitt, if possible, some mitigation of his terms. For this purpose, and as a mediator between them, she pitched upon Lord Chesterfield; sent Lord Bute to sound him, and succeeded in obtaining his assistance. "Certainly," says Lord Waldegrave, "they could not have chosen a more "prevailing negotiator than the Earl of Chesterfield. For,

* Lord Chesterfield to Mr. Dayrolles, August 15. 1757.

"besides being a man of letters and a wit, which carries "great weight and authority with the dull and ignorant, he "had distinguished himself as a man of business in many of "the highest offices, and, having given up all Ministerial "views of his own, might now very justly be esteemed a 'man totally unprejudiced and disinterested. He wrote "a very able letter to the Duke of Newcastle, the purport "of which was, that his administration would never be "strong and permanent till he was firmly united with Pitt "and Leicester House."* On the other hand, he also exerted his influence with Pitt (of whom he had been an early friend and correspondent **), and prevailed upon him to relax a little, and but a very little, from his first demands. There were undoubtedly at this time the strongest reasons both for Newcastle and for Pitt to desire a junction. Newcastle had fallen, and might fall again, for want of eloquent support in the House of Commons, and of popular favour out of doors. Pitt had fallen, and might fall again, for want of that Court-craft, that borough interest, that Parliamentary connection, which Newcastle had spent a long life and a large fortune in acquiring. Singly each was weak; united they would be irresistible. And if the Duke could be brought to confine himself to his favourite department of patronage, to strengthen his boroughs, pamper his hangers-on, - to make or to unmake tidewaiters and excisemen, Pitt would have power to pursue unchecked his vast designs for the nation's pre-eminence and glory.

to

Both statesmen accordingly entered more readily than might have been at first sight expected into Chesterfield's views, and held several conferences, under his mediation and Bute's. Articles of peace and amity were agreed upon, and a plan of administration was framed. But the King disapproving these proposals, and calling upon Newcastle to perform his recent and solemn promise, was met by a

*Memoirs, p. 110.

** See the two first letters in the Chatham Correspondence, dated 1741.

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direct breach of faith, - the Duke now refusing to take part in any administration unless he had the assistance of Pitt and his associates. "He has now proved himself," said His Majesty, "what I have long thought him, equally false "and ungrateful. I believe that few princes have been ex"posed to such scandalous treatment."

Thus incensed, the King threw himself into the arms of Fox, who consented to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, while His Majesty pressed upon Lord Waldegrave, as his personal friend, the First Lordship of the Treasury. It was with great reluctance that Lord Waldegrave obeyed; but, once embarked, he acted with both spirit and judgment. The Earl of Egremont was to become Secretary of State, the Earl of Winchelsea to continue First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Earl Granville Lord President. All the other arrangements were nearly completed, when the Duke of Newcastle, terrified at the prospect of an administration formed without his aid, had recourse to an expedient which he had kept in reserve, and which he hoped would effectually embarrass His Majesty's affairs. This was to urge on the resignations of those who still remained in office. At his secret instigation, accordingly, Lord Holderness, the other Secretary of State, waited on the King at Kensington to resign his employment. Such a step at such a juncture was resented by his Royal Master as a signal act of ingra titude, Holderness being a mere cypher in office, and having been more than once upheld against powerful representations by His Majesty's personal favour and goodness. The King, however, behaved with great dignity and temper on this trying occasion. He did not condescend to use reproaches, but stopped short Lord Holderness's explanations with these words: "You come here to resign; I have "no curiosity to know your reasons." And when Lord Waldegrave immediately afterwards entered the closet, the King said, coolly: "Holderness has resigned. You may "think I was surprised, but the loss is not considerable." *

* Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs, p. 121.

No sooner was this step taken than the Duke of Newcastle, whose mind, small indeed for every other object, was large enough to contain the most various and opposite kinds of fear, became haunted with the apprehension of incurring the Royal displeasure. He wrote the next morning to Lord Waldegrave, requesting to see him before he went to Court. Lord Waldegrave called accordingly, when His Grace began by expressing great uneasiness lest the King should suspect him of having caused Holderness's resignation. He called God to witness, that, far from having given to it any sort of encouragement', it was quite unknown to him till he received a letter from Lord Holderness announcing his resolution a very hours before it was executed, — and he begged Lord Waldegrave to state the case fairly to the King.

They then passed on to other conversation, in the course of which Lord Waldegrave said that certainly the King did suspect the Duke of thwarting his business in several instances; and that, to give an example, Lord Halifax had declined a high appointment on the sole ground that he did not think himself at liberty to take any without the Duke of Newcastle's consent. "His Grace," as Lord Waldegrave relates it, "did not think it necessary to make answer to "particular facts, but said in general that it was hard he "should be condemned because some gentlemen endeavoured "to clear themselves by loading him...... That he had given "me notice some days ago of a man near the King's person, "a favourite, one in whom His Majesty had the greatest "confidence, who would soon resign his employment; that "I might easily guess he meant Holderness, though he had "not named him; and that with a single word he could cause 66 so many resignations as would give the Court a very empty appearance. I did not think it necessary to add to his "confusion by comparing his last words with the solemn "declaration which I was to make in His Grace's name concerning Holderness's resignation, but contented myself "with telling him that if it was in his power to deprive the

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"King of his servants, and if he really intended it, the 'sooner it was done the better, that His Majesty might "know with certainty what he had to expect, and whom he "had to depend on."

The prospect of so many resignations, as it grew nearer and more certain, daunted in some degree the Monarch's resolution. The heart of Fox also failed him, notwithstanding the jovial exhortations of Lord Granville, and the angry reproaches of the Duke of Bedford. "It is useless," said Bedford, "to give ourselves any further trouble, for 66 we cannot possibly go on without a principal actor in the "House of Commons, and Fox has not spirit to undertake it." On his part the King bitterly inveighed against the chief Whig nobility, who, he said, chose rather to be the footmen of the Duke of Newcastle than the friends and counsellors of their Sovereign. But His Majesty had no longer any alternative but to yield. He sent for Lord Mansfield to Kensington, and gave him full powers to negotiate with Pitt and Newcastle. Lord Hardwicke, though declining to resume the Great Seal, was zealous and useful in promoting the desired arrangement. Thus, after several days of further haggling, the new Ministry was at length completed, and kissed hands on the 29th of June. It was nearly in the form that Pitt had from the first prescribed. Newcastle returned to the Treasury, with not one of his own party at the Board, and with Legge for his Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pitt became again Secretary of State; and, as if the better to secure his own ascendency, with the cypher, Holderness, for his colleague. Partly from the same motive, perhaps, he replaced Lord Anson at the Admiralty. Pratt, a most rising lawyer, and a personal friend of Pitt, was made Attorney General, and Temple, Lord Privy Seal.

But the most surprising appointment was that of Fox, who sunk down to Pitt's former post of Paymaster, without a seat

Compare Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs, p. 133. with Lord Orford's (vol. ii. p. 223.). The King reverted more than once to the phrase footmen of the Duke of Newcastle."