Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/143

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1757-1762
SHELBURNE, BUTE, AND FOX
117

I should have been very sorry to see his enemys so sanguine, as I own they were when I left town, if I did not believe there was very little foundation for their being so. However, so much attention should be paid to it, that if you please, you may advise Lord Bute from me to make sure of as many individuals as may be engaged between this and the meeting of the House of Commons, and many may be more easily engaged than they can be after it is met.

. . . . . .

If there is firmness and courage without contempt of danger, things will go on very well; but then I depend on a firmness that may fix those enemys, his friends.

Ever yours,
H. Fox.

Fox to Shelburne.

September 4th.

My dear Lord,—I wished your Lordship a place because I wished to see you fixed, and no more exposed to those gusts which youth and spirit and a noble mind, are so apt to be carry'd out of the way by. But now the storm is raised, the violence with which it is directed at Lord Bute, will, if I know your Lordship, fix you most thoroughly. And you so little want, and so little like those agréments of a place which are so tempting to most other people, that I can be content now to see you wait till your first may be a very great employment, to which a steady course (as yours will now be) cannot fail to bring you. I was very glad to be so kindly remembered by your Lordship, but I must have expressed my thoughts very ill if I conveyed to your Lordship (what Mr. Selwyn understood from you) that I complained that my friends had forgot me. Indeed I have no reason for such complaint. He assures me my enemies don't forget me either. I could wish they would, but I wish it with so little anxiety, that if they knew how small a diminution they make of my happiness at Kingsgate, they would not give them-