President, Lord Carlisle, Privy Seal, Mr. Fox and Lord North, Secretaries, Duke of Portland, Treasury, Lord Keppel, Admiralty. The King observed he supposed they meant to fill the vacancies, and he wanted to know how they were to be filled, and the other measures of 'imposition' he was supposed to assent to. He was informed that they did not mean to meddle with his Bedchamber or the charge of the Horse;—that on this he had sent to Mr. Pitt, who seemed to think that he ought not to submit to so unwarrantable a demand, as to agree to acquiesce in whatever measures such a Cabinet would pursue; advised against the making peers, giving life offices as well as tides without knowing to or with whom; and upon this he had conferred with Mr. Pitt privily, and in his presence wrote to the Duke of Portland and to Lord North; that by this he considered Mr. Pitt meant to accept the office; that the next morning he had a note from Mr. Pitt signifying that he thought it requisite before any arrangements were made, to feel the sense of the House on the Earl of Surrey's motion;[1] that he acquiesced in this, trusting that Mr. Pitt would contrive to take the sense of the House, and recommending to him by a note to declare in the course of the debate his resolution to stand forth; that he saw him afterwards at the tevJe, and he explained this was to be the measure of the day; that he was much disappointed when he heard we had proposed a resolution which had not passed, and still more the next day when Mr. Pitt wrote to him, that it was his final resolution to decline. He desired me to consider what he could do consistently with what he declared to be his final resolution, not to submit to the combination; though Thurlow, he said, had despondingly urged him to it. It was obvious that the last step had increased the difficulties in the way of the measure, had he been inclined to it. I thought there were but three measures to choose out of, to try again for an Administration of his own, to try what could be done with Lord North, or
- ↑ On the 31st of March Lord Surrey was to move that "a considerable time having elapsed without an Administration responsible for the conduct of public affairs, the interposition of this House on the present alarming crisis, is become necessary."
