on questions of policy were superadded the old feuds as to official rights, and to these the first important communications exchanged between the two offices had given a practical importance.[1]
There was yet another important question on which Shelburne was at variance with his colleagues. He differed from them on the subject of the arrest of Wilkes. He had joined the Ministry and been sworn a Privy Councillor on the 20th April. On the 23rd, No. 45 of the North Briton appeared, and on the 24th the warrant for the arrest of its author was issued from the office of the Secretary of State under the hand of Halifax, who had neither waited to consult the law officers nor, as it would appear, any of his colleagues, except the other two members of the triumvirate, Grenville and Egremont, who with him constituted the real Government.[2] Almost immediately after the issue of the warrant, Shelburne asked the opinion of a professional adviser as to the legality of the course adopted; and received a reply condemning the whole conduct of Halifax in the clearest and strongest terms. As Shelburne, towards the close of the year, consulted the same legal adviser on the further issues raised by the arrest of Wilkes, it is probable that the opinion given on the present occasion was well received.[3]
Thus the Secretaries of State and the President of the Board of Trade disagreed on almost every important question, and although the King, at the advice of Mansfield, "supported the latter against Egremont in order to play them one against the other and so keep the power in his own hands,"[4] yet, by the end of June, so dissatisfied had Shelburne grown with the position of affairs that he sent Bute a note threatening to resign immediately. In reply, Bute wrote as follows:
"June 23rd.
"My dear Lord,—I do beseech you for the future spare me the pain of thinking that on my not answering
