is the copy of the one delivered to me by Lord Halifax, but I received this a day or two before that one. I am more and more grieved at the accounts from America. Where this spirit will end is not to be said; it is undoubtedly the most serious matter that ever came before Parliament. It requires more deliberation, candour, and temper than I fear it will meet with. GEORGE R. MR. PITT TO THE COUNTESS STANHOPE. Burton Pynsent, June 20. 1766. MADAM, THE honour of your Ladyship's letter was conveyed to me from Mr. Peel, as well as the drawings which Lord Mahon has been so very obliging to send me. The drawings are so well done, and in so good a manner, that coming from a hand unknown I should think myself fortunate to be possessed of them. I shall not then be suspected of flattery when I assure Lord Mahon that, in my collection, these two pieces shall hold the foremost place, and I beg his Lordship will accept my very sincere acknowledgments for his kind and pleasing presents. All the Virtuosi here, great and small, join in one applause. How shall I next express to Lady Stanhope my respectful sense of the great honour her Ladyship's most obliging letter does me? and be able to say, with what true pleasure their friends and servants at Burton Pynsent receive every repetition of kind remembrance from the two respectable inhabitants of Geneva? Poor Geneva! How unlike its former self, and how little deserving such guests! I cannot but lament such a fall from a happiness to be envied by greater states into faction, confusion, and French mediation; the consummation, in my sense, of all political misery. Your Ladyship sees how the old surly English leaven works still in a retired breast. Farming, grazing, haymaking, and all the Lethe of Somersetshire cannot obliterate the memory of days of activity. France is still the object of my mind whenever a thought calls me back to a public world, infatuated, bewitched; in a word, a riddle, too hard for Edipus to solve. After this short description your Ladyship will not wonder that I am where I am; and that I do not attempt to explain further to you things 1766. GRAFTON PAPERS. 353 to me unintelligible. Wherever or however situated, I beg to assure your Ladyship of the unalterable respect with which I am, &c. &c. WILLIAM PITT. MR. PITT TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. MY LORD, Harley Street, past two o'clock, Sunday, (July 27. 1766.) ALL being entirely fixed with Mr. C. Townshend, who has accepted the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, your Grace is desired to be at the Queen's House to-morrow at twelve. His Majesty's intention is that we should arrange things for kissing hands on Wednesday, which may very well be, if your Grace should be of that opinion. I think it imports the King's Government that this kind of Inter-Ministerium should not be protracted. I shall be to-morrow at the Queen's House, where I hope to have the honour of seeing the Duke of Grafton perfectly well, and perfectly satisfied with his Chancellor of the Exchequer. I took my chance to-day at Lord Rockingham's door, but found his Lordship going out, so was not let in. I meant to make a visit of respect as a private man to Lord Rockingham, and, had I found his Lordship, to have told him as Pitt to Lord Rockingham what I understood to be the King's fixed intentions. I am ever, with respectful and warm attachment, &c. WILLIAM PITT. I saw Mr. Yorke yesterday; his behaviour and language very handsome; his final intentions he will himself explain to the King in his audience to-morrow. EARL GOWER TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. (Extract.) Trentham, August 22. 1766. YOUR Grace says that a fundamental principle on which the present administration have embarked is to conciliate and unite. It gives me infinite pleasure to hear that their intention is such, for it is the only principle which can give Mahon, History. V. 23 stability to administration or ease to the Crown; and that this was my opinion I had the honour to tell your Grace more than once last winter. EARL OF CHATHAM TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. North End (Hampstead), Saturday, 4 o'clock (August 23. 1766). MY LORD, I HAVE the honour to agree entirely with your Grace in the view of the declining of Lord Gower.* The issue is not what I expected. The fruit of the offer will be full of advantage; and if His Majesty shall be pleased to form an Admiralty with Sir Charles Saunders and Mr. Keppel (Sir Charles First Lord Commissioner), I have no doubt that the public in general, and the sea service in particular, will receive such an arrangement with satisfaction and applause; the fleet will be well filled and served, and harmony ensured at the Board. Confirmed in these views by your Grace's full concurrence, I have presumed to write to the King this day to submit most humbly this arrangement to His Majesty's wisdom. It is necessary for me to be to-morrow at St. James's, which will oblige me to defer the honour of receiving your Grace's commands as you pass. I trust to Heaven we shall have your Grace confirmed safe and well by Sunday. The next week we all hope to fill with important objects, meetings upon East India affairs (the greatest of all objects according to my sense of great), as well as the whole outline of the ensuing Session. The Duke of Rutland has in the most handsome and noble manner, through Lord Granby, offered his office for the accommodation of the King's affairs. Lord Hertford has been spoke to by His Majesty upon the subject, of which his Lordship will more properly give your Grace an account. The answer from Berlin is anxiously expected. That our expectations of seeing the Duke of Grafton well may be answered to-morrow is the ardent wish of your Grace's most devoted humble servant, CHATHAM. He had been offered, through the Duke of Grafton, the first seat at the Admiralty Board. 1766. GRAFTON PAPERS. 355 EARL OF CHATHAM TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. Bath, October 19. 1766. MY DEAR LORD, It is with much difficulty, and at the same time with peculiar pleasure, that I attempt a few lines to return your Grace my respectful and warm thanks for the honour of several most obliging letters. That of the 17th, just received, gives me great satisfaction, as it informs me of a very agreeable conclusion to a matter which, I confess, gave me much uneasiness.* As to the phalanx your Grace mentions, I either am full of false spirits infused by Bath waters, or there is no such thing existing. The gentleman your Grace points out as a necessary recruit ** I think a man of parts, and an ingenious speaker. As to his notions and maxims of trade, they can never be mine. Nothing can be more unsound or more repugnant to every first principle of manufacture and commerce than the rendering so noble a branch as the cottons dependent for the first materials upon the produce of French and Danish islands, instead of British. My engagement to Lord Lisburne for the next opening at the Board of Trade is already known to your Grace; nor is it a thing possible to waive for Mr. Burke. Mr. Hussey ***, I believe, is in Cornwall. That gentleman's ability and weight are great indeed, and my esteem and honour for his character the highest imaginable. I flatter myself with some share of his regard; but as to his intentions my Lord Chancellor may possibly be more able to inform your Grace when you meet than I can promise to do. Mr. Nugent I have not yet seen, having missed him when he was so good as to call. The enclosed draft †, which is submitted to the consideration of your Grace, the Secretaries of State, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has the approbation of Lord Camden and Lord Northington. If new matter should arise before the Meeting, the Speech will, to be sure, adapt itself to the event. * On that day the Earl of Cardigan was created Duke of Montagu. ** Edmund Burke. *** Richard Hussey, Attorney General to the Queen, and Counsel to the Admiralty. Of the King's Speech for the opening of Parliament. I have the most sensible joy in being able to acquaint your Grace that Lord Spencer has, with infinite goodness, listened favourably to my earnest entreaties, and will move the Address. Your Grace will be so good as to think of a Seconder. I think of going about Wednesday next for one day to Burton Pynsent, and hope to pay my respects to your Grace in town about the 4th of November. My hand recovers very slowly, but my general health is mended by the waters, and I trust that a second reprieve of ten days will help my hand. I am, &c. CHATHAM. I hope the Special Commission will not be delayed. EARL OF CHATHAM TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. Wednesday (November 26. 1766). MY DEAR LORD, I BEG to return your Grace many thanks for the obliging trouble you are so good as to take, and to express at the same time my just sense of the friendly and kind intention of the correspondent whose note your Grace takes the trouble to inclose. As to the present crisis, I view it in its whole extent, but knowing where there is firmness, I cannot consider the journey to Woburn as matter of alarm.* I doubt much whether Mr. Rigby is even now, after yesterday's vote, admissible **; if he is, it is as much as can be said, and that only on condition of another conduct. Unions with whomsoever it be give me no terrors; I know my ground, and I leave them to indulge their own dreams. If they can conquer, I am ready to fall, but I shall never consent to take any premature step from the consideration of what Rigby's manoeuvres may produce. I repeat again that I doubt whether the above-said gentleman can be admitted; * It appears from the Political Register that the Duke of Portland, Lords Scarborough, Monson, &c. had resigned on the 26th of November; this was a Wednesday, and serves to fix the date of Lord Chatham's letter. He sent for Lord Gower on the very evening of the resignations (Lord Orford's Memoirs. vol. ii. p. 396.), and offered places for his Lordship and others of the Duke of Bedford's friends. Lord Gower, in answer, said that he would go to Woburn and consult the Duke, which he did next day. ** Alderman Beckford's Resolution on East India Affairs, carried November 25. by 129 votes against 76. |