Monday. Lord Shelburne has my consent to communicate to the Boards and any others he thinks proper on this subject; Mr. Pitt and Mr. Townshend may state what they have to say to me on that day, as well as the Duke of Rutland; the Chancellor and Lord Camden should also come and deliver any opinion that occurs to them, for I shall certainly not take the smallest step, till I have heard all the Cabinet. It is unpleasant to be again, indeed from necessity, left to extricate myself, to the assistance of Divine Providence, and that fortitude which a rectitude of intentions always produces and I must again depend on. Of one thing I can answer, that no difficulties shall drive me to throw myself into the hands of any party, and that a coalition of the best of all parties, not the narrow line of one can prevent anarchy."[1]
On the 23rd Shelburne called a Cabinet, and in the evening a larger assembly of his own friends. To both meetings he declared his resolution of resigning, which on the following day he accordingly did; recommending the King to send for Mr. Pitt. This advice the King instantly followed. "Our friends," writes Mr. Pitt to his mother the following day, "are eager for our going on, only without Lord Shelburne, and are sanguine in the expectation of success, Lord Shelburne himself warmly so."[2] After sounding the ground however, he was obliged to inform the King that the task was as hopeless for him as for Shelburne.
"Every argument I could think of," writes the King to the latter, "I employed to actuate Mr. Pitt to take the step which would undoubtedly do him credit; and on reflecting since, I am clear I could not add any more;
- ↑ The King to Shelburne, February 22nd, 1783.
- ↑ Pitt to Lady Chatham, February 24th, 1783. Lord Shelburne nevertheless subsequently, in conversation with Bentham, twice complained of Pitt in regard to these transactions. "On the day of his resignation," he told Bentham, "there was a meeting of Peers on that occasion at Lansdowne House. Pitt, fearing the intimation of resignation was not sufficiently explicit, came out to him from the Peers to desire he would make it more so. He did; and then Pitt, having got his assurance, accepted the place. … It seemed to sit very heavy on him; but I did not perceive either time wherein the treachery consisted, nor how Pitt was to blame. There seemed to be a tacit reference to some compact expressed or understood."—Bentham, x. 214.
