Lord Hillsborough himself, in his letter dated April 22, 1768, 'laments, that the same moderation had not continued.' I am further convinced, that it is only by recurring to the same principles, that the King can obtain any of those great objects, whatever hands he may employ, and that he might, by doing so in America, secure the commerce and customs of that country, upon any footing Parliament might judge expedient; might secure the growing produce both of the quit rents and post-office; might command a respectful, if not an affectionate language from the several assemblies; besides very possibly a supply, if it should be judged reasonable, in the way of requisition.[1]
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"On Thursday night Mr. Charles Fox received a letter from Lord North, acquainting him that the King had ordered a new commission to be made out for the treasury, and that his name should be left out of it.[2] I know nothing from any authority of his successor. The town talks of Lord Beauchamp, or Sir William Meredith, or Mr. Cornwall.
"In the mean time, the public have been amused with a very solemn trial in the House of Lords upon literary property; which ended in the reversal of certainly a very extraordinary decree of Lord Mansfield's, who showed himself the merest Captain Bobadil that, I suppose, ever existed in real life. I ought, instead of being a bad writer, to be a good painter, to convey to your Lordship the ridicule of the scene. You can, perhaps, imagine to yourself the Bishop of Carlisle,[3] an old metaphysical head of a college, reading a paper, not
- ↑ Shelburne to Chatham, February 3rd, 1774.
- ↑ Fox was at this time a Lord of the Treasury in the Administration of Lord North. His debts, amounting to the enormous sum of £140,000, had recently been paid by hit father, Lord Holland, and being thus relieved of financial anxiety, he began to show signs of adopting an independent attitude in Parliament, which led to his abrupt dismissal. His father, Lord Holland, died on July 1st, 1774; and his mother a few days afterwards. They left him considerable legacies. On the death of the second Lord Holland almost immediately afterwards (December 26th, 1774), he succeeded to the Irish sinecure which Henry Fox had got settled on himself and two lives in 1754. (See supra, Ch. II. and III.) Thus by an extraordinary succession of events Charles Fox in 1774 suddenly found himself a wealthy man.
- ↑ Dr. Law, formerly Master of St. Peter's College, Cambridge.
