the head of this article. We do not wonder at the alienation which ensued. Under the circumstances of the case it could scarcely be otherwise. Lord Bute evidently made a point of retaining Mr. Grenville. His talents were considerable, yet not so first-rate as to permit his setting up on his own account. Separated from his brother and brother-in-law, he was probably expected to be at once useful and pliant, serviceable as the leader of the lower house, and grateful to the favorite who commended him to the king. The following letter discloses the terms of intimate friendship in which Grenville's aid was sought :

'MY DEAR GEORGE,-I write to you in a very painful minute. Mr. P. has taken leave of us, and the king left in a most perilous situation to form a new ministry. I avoided the desiring you to stay in town, though I thought this event likely, and that out of real tenderness to you, judging it more eligible for my friend to go to the country and remain there 'till the king desired his presence, than by waiting here to seem in a state of expectancy. I hope you will think my opinion no unkind one. I own to you, so impossible have I found it for some time past to go on with any hopes of success, that I should have thought it necessary at this juncture for our sovereign to have taken new ministers, though untried, inexperienced men; but the high opinion I have of you, the warm friendship I feel for you, and the entire confidence I place in you, makes me see this dereliction with much more indifference than I otherwise should do. I know your love for the king; and I flatter myself, when his service demands your presence, you will not lose a minute in coming here.. Jenkinson flatters me I may see you to-morrow at dinner. "Till then, my dear George, adieu! Yours most entirely, BUTE.'

Grenville Papers, vol. ii., pp. 392, 393.

Lord Bute's ministerial efforts were unavailing. His influence with the king and the princess dowager was omnipotent; but throughout the nation he was regarded with disfavor, which neither his capacity nor his experience enabled him to surmount. The English people are specially hostile to court favorites; and in the present case national antipathies were employed to spread the discontent. The cabinet, moreover, was divided, and some of the Government measures were open to very severe and damaging reflections. Mr. Pitt, on first leaving office, was cautious and moderate; but his terrible oratory was ere long directed against the policy of the Crown. It was therefore felt necessary to enlarge what Lord Bute termed 'the too narrow bottom of the cabinet.' This was announced to Mr. Grenville October 10th, 1762, and negotiations were set on foot with a view to it. These, however, proved abortive, and the favorite was compelled to bow before the storm of popular disfavor. It would be difficult to exaggerate his un

popularity. It was at once intense and universal. Wherever he appeared, the voice of the people was raised against him, and serious apprehensions were entertained for his personal safety. Writing to Lord Hardwicke, April 11th, Viscount Royston says:

"The alarms of Lord Bute's family about his personal safety are reported here to be the immediate cause of this sudden and unexpected abdication. I shall make no reflections on this strange scene; your lordship has already reflected much better for yourself. The nil admirari of Horace seems in our days to be as applicable to politics as it is to ethics and philosophy.'Memoirs, vol. i. p. 165.

Bute pleaded ill-health as the cause of his retirement; but no person was deceived. It was known on all hands, and by all parties, that he resigned office because he could no longer carry on the government. Had it been possible to do so with safety to himself and the king, he would have remained nominally, as he was still really, the adviser of his sovereign. His sole dependence had ever been on the royal favor. In the closet he was omnipotent, but without that charmed enclosure he was amongst the weakest and most detested of men. His powers of mischief indeed were still considerable. He could sow dissension, could whisper away reputation, could raise up amongst 'the king's friends' opponents to the king's ministers; and thus perplex councils, which he was not permitted to rule, and embarrass men on whom had been devolved the management of national affairs. As a minister, however, he was incompetent and powerless. The king would have retained him; but the necessity of affairs constrained his resignation. On the 25th of March, 1763, he wrote to Mr. Grenville, informing him of his purpose, and inviting him to take the premiership. It was imposed, however, as a condition, that he should forget old grievances, and cordially take the assistance of all the king's friends that are determined to give it.' Bute, it is obvious, possessed full power to name his successors, and he probably expected to rule the royal councils, though nominally separated from them. How far he was disappointed is shown in the subsequent part of this history.

On the 8th of April, Mr. Grenville was declared First Lord of the Treasury, and a fortnight afterwards appeared the celebrated 'Number forty-five of the North Briton,' in which severe strictures were passed on Lord Bute and the king's ministers.

'After a week's deliberation, Wilkes was seized on a general warrant, and brought before Lords Halifax and Egremont, by whom he was committed to the Tower. His demeanour on the occasion would have served as a warning to wiser men against meddling with such a firebrand. On arriving at the place of his imprisonment, he wounded the stately pride of

Lord Egremont, by desiring to be confined in the same apartment where his father, Sir William Windham, had been kept on a charge of Jacobitism; and the national vanity of Lord Bute, by hoping that, if possible, he might not be lodged where any Scotchman had been prisoner.

On the very day of his commitment to prison, his friends procured a writ of habeas-corpus from the Court of Common Pleas; and on the 3rd of May he was brought before Lord Chief Justice Pratt. In a speech, which lasted an hour, Wilkes complained "that he had been worse treated than any rebel Scot," a remark that was hailed with loud acclamations by the crowd in Westminster Hall. Three days afterwards, Pratt delivered his judgment, in which he declared that Wilkes was "entitled to his privilege as a member of parliament, because, although that privilege does not hold against a breach of the peace, it does against what only tends to a breach of the peace." Wilkes was, in consequence, set at liberty.'Ib. p. 166.

We avoid entering on the disgraceful contest that ensued. The government most stupidly committed itself to a conflict with Wilkes on unconstitutional grounds, and in a spirit of bitter personal hostility. Unpopular itself, it converted an audacious and profligate demagogue into a martyr for liberty, thus enabling a reckless adventurer to trade on the patriotism and generosity of the people. But we need not enlarge. There is no difference of opinion as to the worthlessness of Wilkes, or the policy of that ministry which suffered itself to be embroiled in such a contest. The Grenville Correspondence' supplies ample proof of the close intimacy that existed between Lord Temple and Wilkes, and of the pecuniary aid which the former supplied to the latter. We are glad that the intimacy did not extend to Pitt. The coarse manners and profligacy of Wilkes might be tolerated by the master of Stowe, but would have been sadly out of place in the presence of the elder Pitt. We dismiss the subject with a brief extract from a letter of Wilkes to Lord Temple, July 9, 1763, in which his hatred to the king, and his servility to his noble correspondent, are sufficiently indicated:

I hear from all hands that the king is enraged at my insolence, as he terms it I regard not his frowns nor his smiles. I will ever be his faithful subject, never his servant.

Churchill has stolen some of my ideas :

"I cannot truckle to a fool of state,

Nor take a favour from the man I hate."

Hypocrisy, meanness, ignorance, and insolence, characterize the king I obey. My independent spirit will never take a favour from such a man. I know that I have neither the lust of power nor of money; and if I leave my daughter less dirty coin, I will leave her more honest fame. I trust, next to her own virtue, her greatest honour will be derived from her father. I am every day more and more philosophie and retired. I live

to the world, not with the world. I am my own man and Lord Temple's. If I have any talents which can please, they shall ever be dedicated to his service. I know that next winter I shall be wholly the man of business, and indefatigable in it; yet all my pursuits shall be directed, all my studies drawn to the focus he prescribes.'-Grenville Papers, vol. ii. p. 73.

Of the Grenville administration we say little. It was shortlived, and its record is inglorious. Mr. Macaulay is not far wrong in representing it as the worst 'which has governed England since the Revolution.' Destitute alike of royal favor and of popular support, it was the mere creature of the day, called into existence to serve the purpose of Lord Bute, when constrained to retire from the king's councils, and incapable, therefore, of maintaining itself when his support was withdrawn. So long as it was possible, Bute remained at the head of affairs; and when this could be continued no longer, he sought to perpetuate his policy and rule, through the medium of a nominee. This could not continue long. Grenville was too proud and ambitious to act the part assigned him by Bute; the king detested his ministers; the American colonists were driven into rebellion; and the prosecution of Wilkes, notwithstanding his utter worthlessness, turned against the government whatever patriotism existed at home. Negotiations, therefore, were speedily opened with Mr. Pitt, who was summoned to the royal presence in August, 1763. The meeting took place at Buckingham Palace on Saturday, the 27th, and was immediately reported by Grenville to the Earl of Halifax. My interview,' says the minister,' was very short, and no notice was taken of the long audience that preceded mine. I have since heard from other hands that carte blanche is given, which account tallies with such observations as I could make.' Pitt himself considered the arrangement concluded, and immediately summoned his political friends together. He miscalculated, however, the state of the royal mind. Bute's influence was still omnipotent; and though in the early stage of the negotiation he had favored Pitt's views, he was subsequently induced to throw his weight into the scale of Grenville. When, therefore, according to appointment, Mr. Pitt attended the king on the 29th, he was astonished to find that his whole arrangements were objected to, and a resolution obviously formed to retain the existing ministry. It is usual with the advocates of George III. and his favorite, to attribute the failure of this negotiation to the hard terms imposed by Mr. Pitt. They are shut up to this No other is open to them consistently with the royal integrity; yet it is quite clear that this line of defence is the mere result of necessity, and has no foundation in the

course.

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facts of the case. No objection was taken on the 27th to the terms proposed. On the contrary, they were supposed to be ceded; and the marvellous change exhibited on the 29th we are compelled to attribute to the interviews which, in the meantime, had taken place between the king and Lord Bute, and subsequently between the former and Mr. Grenville. irresolution and timidity of Lord Bute, rather than the extravaThe gant demands of Mr. Pitt, were the cause of the decision announced by George III. on the 29th. The Grenville Correspondence' throws much light on this knotty point of Court intrigue, and does not certainly raise our estimate of the straightforwardness and integrity of the king. Other proofs of duplicity exist in abundance, and the admirers of George III. will do well not to insist largely on his personal honor. We are much of Lord Shelburne's opinion, who, writing to Mr. Pitt, felicitates him personally and very sincerely on a negotiation being at an end, which carried through the whole of it such shocking marks of insincerity, and if it had taken another turn, must have laid a weight on his shoulders of a most irksome nature, on account of the peculiar circumstances attending it.'

Grenville was retained, and aid was procured from the Bedford section of the whigs. The alienation, however, between the king and his favorite on the one hand, and his nominal advisers on the other, became daily more obvious. Application was again made to Pitt, and for a time he was expected to take the lead of affairs. The Duke of Cumberland, uncle to the king, was the negotiator, and has left a narrative of the transaction which possesses much historical value. Lord Temple, however, refused to join Mr. Pitt, who, in consequence, declined the proffered honor. Lord Albemarle, referring to the failure of this negotiation, remarks, that if Pitt had been guided by his political principles, he would at once have coalesed with Lord Rockingham and his friends. But, influenced by Temple (who wished the brothers,' as they were called, should form a government of themselves), he declined the overtures of the court.' We are not clear that his lordship is right on this point. His theory does not square with the facts of the case, while the issue is more satisfactorily accounted for on a different supposition. The object of the king, it must be remembered, was to rid himself of George Grenville, towards whom he entertained a stronger dislike-and that is saying much-than to Pitt and Temple. It seems, therefore, in the highest degree improbable that the notion assigned by Lord Albemarle should have been entertained. It would have been, in fact, to countervail the policy of the king by forcing on him three unwelcome