Shelburne to Bute.
November 4th.
My dear Lord,—I am this moment honored with yours. I was in hopes His Majesty had seen the Duke of Rutland to-day, but I entirely agree with your Lordship that he should see him as soon as possible. Perhaps if twelve hours were given him to consider after the King had seen him and the change offered him, his female friend would probably influence him to accept. Mr. Fox says: "If the Duke of Rutland's behaviour warrants it, let him be summoned to the Conciliabulum, and let Lord Granby, by your Lordship (meaning me), Calcraft, and others be made more drunk with praise than he ever was with champagne. Let Lord Bute get them to declare, and we will with these Simpletons distance the other old Families, those Phantoms they talk of so much." He is certainly very sorry about the Duke of Devonshire, and wishes it had been first debated and considered, " What good can it do? What harm may it do? " but that, not out of regard to his Grace, nor meaning to extenuate the offence, nor at present even to lessen the King's resentment, but merely with a view to what is to come, and from being of opinion that he is the most timid of those who may be now considered as endeavouring by the basest means to take His Majesty prisoner, and therefore that this indignity should be reserved for those who, though they had deserved, had not received any as yet. But as it is done, your Lordship may depend upon it, he will join you in justifying, not defending, it to the world. As to the Duke of Cumberland, I always told your Lordship, if Mr. Fox connected himself with you, His Royal Highness could not prevail to make him do anything contrary to the spirit of his engagements with you, but I never said that Mr. Fox's judgment of the Duke was to be taken. He feels that the Duke dishonors himself by such a conduct as you describe, and therefore halts to think it possible. And I believe I described his conduct so warmly and so home to the Duke, by adding what the King had
