is said that at the Cabinets during his two Ministries he used briefly to discuss with Dundas whatever business they had not previously settled together, then informed his colleagues of his decision, and told them they might go. At such meetings Shelburne would probably have been in the way. Pitt was further fully aware of the great odium and unpopularity which the Whigs had succeeded in fastening on Shelburne during recent events; and was no doubt anxious to dissociate himself from one whom he probably regarded as a political Jonah. That these feelings animated him, was practically confessed by Lord Sydney to Mr. Orde. "He declared," the latter wrote to Shelburne, "in the strongest terms his own regard to your Lordship, and his sense of the obligations he lay under to you, which he was proud to acknowledge everywhere, and also his conviction, that there never was a Minister, who might be more depended on for spirit, ability, and steadiness, and for sacred adherence to all engagements in business. He lamented however the effect and absolute influence of prejudice, which at this moment prevented the applications which might otherwise have been made to you. He said that it was in vain to combat it. The prevalence of it would by degrees diminish and die away, but that at present it would not be much more alarming to many to bring Lord Bute forward. He touched also upon another ground of apprehension, which affected some people, that your Lordship's known principle was to be absolute; that you was to absorb all power; and others were to act only as your puppets.[1] He solemnly declared however that he spoke not this, as conveying any feeling of his own, for he had found your
- ↑ In conversation with the Abbé Morellet Lord Shelburne expressed himself on the position of the head of the Ministry relatively to his colleagues, to the effect that he should not be hampered by having the control of any particular department, and should have time to control the whole machine of Government. He had told the King, "que les choses n'iraient bien que lorsque son Ministre principal n'aurait rien à faire" (Notes of Conversations in 1783). In other words, there was to be a Prime Minister: a title which Walpole in 1741 had resented as an imputation (Parliamentary History, ix. 1287 n.). The Duke of Grafton gave his determination "not to abet Lord Shelburne's views of becoming Prime Minister "as his principal reason for resigning (Autobiography, x. 361). It was not until 1905 that the title was formally recognized. See also on the subject, Todd, Parliamentary Government, ii. 146, 152, 171. Life of Granville, i. 84.
