he would fail to assign the Treasury to Temple instead of giving it as formerly to Newcastle. The peace he was willing to acquiesce in, now that it was made, while retaining all his old dislike for the authors of it.[1] But after allowing due weight to altered circumstances, there can be little doubt that both absolutely and relatively the greatness of the character of Pitt had been slowly forcing itself on the mind of Shelburne, who though neither at this time nor subsequently remaining blind to the many failings and faults which disfigured and impaired it, was now far removed from the frame of mind in which two years before he had written to Blackstone at Oxford expressing no very high opinion of the popular hero.[2] He also knew that Pitt had expressed a favourable opinion of him, and praise coming from such a source doubtless had some effect.[3]
The circumstances of the time now came to give a peculiar importance to this change of opinion. At the time of the formation of the Grenville Ministry an unsuccessful attempt had been made to induce Bedford to form a part of the new arrangements, but the returned Ambassador, who had not yet forgiven Bute for having—as he believed—divulged his secret instructions to the French Minister, declined to accept office so long as his betrayer was to have any share, whether open or secret, in the direction of affairs.[4] The negotiation thus broken off in April was renewed almost immediately afterwards, and lasted intermittently all the summer,[5] through the medium of Shelburne on the one side and Gower on the other, without however leading to any definite result; till in the month of August, the King who had by this time found the pedantry of Grenville intolerable, resolved to get rid of him, and recall not only Bedford, but Pitt and Temple as well. At the same moment the disagreements between Shelburne and Egremont were at their height, and the
- ↑ Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, i. 150.
- ↑ Blackstone to Shelburne, October 19th, 1761: "You know I have the happiness to concur with your Lordship in entertaining no very high opinion of the multitude's idol."
- ↑ Rigby to Shelburne, April 1763.
- ↑ Bedford to Bute, April 1763.
- ↑ Walpole, Memoirs, i. 287; Gower to Shelburne, June 20th, 1763.
