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Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/69

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1737-1757
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
43

Mr. Pitt into Parliament,[1] and there exists a letter of his to this day among the family papers containing some very strong professions of attachment, to which he did not pay much regard afterwards.[2] Mr. Fox was not wanting in his cant likewise, but, finding probably that they could not govern, could not resist the temptation of joining to attack the Castle of Whiggism. The Duke of Newcastle was obliged to collect all the second people he could and to have recourse to the professions, who furnished him with two very remarkable men, in the instances of Lord Hardwicke and Lord Mansfield. Unluckily, however, he not only wanted aid in the House of Commons but in the Cabinet too. He had no resolution nor mind of his own.

"There was an old man in the Secretary of State's office, Mr. Morin, afterwards my Secretary, who was clerk in the Duke of Newcastle's time and appointed to attend at his house. He told me that it was a great pity that the Duke of Newcastle should do Mr. Stone's business and Mr. Stone the Duke of Newcastle's; that he used to attend at Newcastle House till twelve at night doing nothing, and then the Duke would sit down to write despatches and cut out work for him to copy the whole night. The Duke of Newcastle once showed Sir Robert Walpole a despatch. Sir Robert said it was incomparably drawn, and had but one fault, which was that nothing should be wrote at all. Lord Chesterfield used to say of him that he lost an hour in the morning and was all the day looking after it. To show the difference of characters, Mr. Weston was Under-Secretary of Lord Granville, who was in the habit of giving the heads of what he would have wrote to Mr. Weston; and never had occasion to alter one word, except on some occasion a who for a which. It is difficult to say to whom this does most honour; to Lord Granville or to Mr. Weston. But Mr. Weston was no politician, and never went out of his office. Mr. Stone intrigued and caballed. On the other hand Lord

  1. For the borough of Aldborough in Yorkshire.
  2. This is probably the letter given at vol. i. p. 85 of the Chatham Correspondence.