of Europe; the bad opinion of Ld Rockingham's understanding; his horror of C. Fox; his preference of me compared to the rest of the Opposition; that it was unbecoming him to speak to many; that the general wish was for a Broad Bottom."[1]
Shelburne after this interview reported what had passed to Rockingham. "You can stand without me," he said, "but I could not without you," and they resolved to wait. The King next sent for Gower, who however told the King that he could not help him.[2] "The following day," says Shelburne, "I stated to the Lord Chancellor the several advantages of the King sending to Lord Rockingham, which would result to himself and to the public, and would enable me to be of far more service both to him and to the public; but if he had conceived an invincible aversion to this measure, rather than see his health impaired, or that he should risk any desperate measure, I certainly would not run away from any opportunity of serving his Majesty or the public, providing the objection went no further, than what regarded the overt act stated of sending to Lord Rockingham in the first instance."[3] In the evening of the same day he made a bitter invective in the House of Lords against Lord North and Lord Stormont, in order to make it quite clear to the King, that it was not with them that he intended under any circumstances to ally himself.[4] On the 23rd the Chancellor came to see Shelburne, and informed him "that he had found the King invincible as to sending to Lord Rockingham himself; that the King had it in contemplation to send for a number of principal persons, in which he might be included, but was dissuaded from that measure as liable to many objections, and could not bring himself further than to receive his Lordship through me. I restated to the Chancellor the reasons for still
- ↑ Lansdowne House MSS. The allusion in the chapter of Autobiography, i. 36, to the situation in 1782 as resembling that which followed the fall of Sir Robert Walpole, when Pulteney admitted having "lost his head," may refer to these events or to those in the June following.
- ↑ Walpole, Journals, ii. 522-524.
- ↑ Lansdowne House MSS.
- ↑ Parliamentary History, xxii. 1232. Walpole, Journals, ii. 524.
