to fill any place inferior to that which he had so lately occupied is not certain. His presence in that place, and indeed in any other, would have made the Ministry a coalition Ministry. This was precisely what Pitt intended it should not be; and as for the moderation of Rockingham, it was shown by his refusing even to receive Pitt when the latter called at his house.[1]
In the new arrangements Shelburne was appointed Secretary of State notwithstanding the strongly expressed dislike of the King.[2] Pitt would not tolerate dictation by the King any more than by the aristocracy, though he veiled his rule over the former in forms and under expressions which, to those even who knew him best, seemed redolent of more than courtier-like servility, and even permitted a place at the Board of Admiralty to be given to Jenkinson, the former Private Secretary of Bute, whose great abilities at least were not in dispute. On the 13th of July he had written to Shelburne, then at Bowood, asking him to come to town immediately, "as he had an earnest desire to see him, and receive his lights and confidential opinions on the important business in which by the King's orders he was engaged." Shelburne hastened from the country,[3] and, on the 15th, found Pitt at Hampstead so prostrated by illness, and a stormy interview with Temple on the previous day, as to be utterly unfit to see him, and only able to write another letter "to express his warm sense of the confidence and friendship of Lord Shelburne together with a most anxious impatience to be in a condition to see him, and confer on the present crisis."[4] The illness continuing, no interview was possible till the 20th, when Shelburne "found Pitt much reduced by his fever." At this interview he was offered the seals, and, on the 23rd, the Royal objection to the appointment having in the interval been overcome, his formal appointment was notified to him in the following letter:
