assured me that if any member had had the fancy to have lifted up his wig, they would have found his ears as whole as their own. At last, the violence of the clamour out of doors, the treachery of Sir Robert's old friends, his loss in the Queen, the King's indifference if not timidity (who thought of nothing but Germany), the activity of young men who were getting up in various lines, and who naturally pushed out the old ones, all put together obliged Sir Robert to resign. The town was taken. All was anarchy and confusion. Places and Pensions, as always happen, lay at the bottom of all that passed, the distribution of which requires no extraordinary capacity, and consequently lets in everybody into consultations, where the greatest fool has as much to say as the wisest man of the party and often more. There was little or no principle anywhere, and very little real grievance to be complained of, except Hanover and the German influence, which nobody, however bold in the height of opposition, cared to touch, when every man thought himself upon the eve of having something, and consequently did not care to make himself personally odious at Court.
"Mr. Pulteney had no talent for administration I believe by nature; but if he had any he must have lost them in the years of the nonsense of a nonsensical opposition. He told me himself that there was no describing the tumult things were in. Opposition is at anyrate an arrière bande without subordination. This one by all accounts was particularly so, and out of the House of Commons Mr. Pulteney had neither dignity nor sense to keep any order. He was timid about taking the Treasury, fearing to be accountable for the Secret Service, and in short had strongly imbibed several notions which I suppose he had begun by imposing on the House of Commons. He was run down, as a man without firmness and conduct always must be. He spoke in the House of Lords afterwards, but without the least success. I asked him once, why more was not done for the public, upon which he flew into a degree of passion, and said there was no comprehending or describing the confusion that prevailed; that he lost his head,
