CHAPTER III
LORD SHELBURNE AND THE KING
1780-1782
Shelburne, under the influence of the feelings described in the previous chapter, now seldom appeared in Parliament, but remained at Bowood. "You must be so good," he wrote to Barré, "as to make up a Christmas party for us; for otherwise I assure you we live so excessively happy in this obscurity, that we shall lose all habit of company. Apprise Lord Dartrey that he must not think of going away before his time, and tell him (but take care that Lady Dartrey is not on the same floor) that we will play all Christmas-day and the money go to the poor."[1] "I hear very little politics," he told Lady Ossory, "and nothing which inclines me to give up the farmer," and he describes himself as spending five or six hours of the day in tracing roads or rides, and two or three more in reasoning with his tenants about allotting ground.[2] The only speech he made during the whole session was on the 25th of January 1781, when the King sent a message announcing that a rupture with Holland had taken place. The circumstances which led to the ancient friend and ally of England being at this moment added to the number of her already too numerous enemies, constitute one of the most disgraceful chapters of the history of this country.[3] The quarrel originated out of the vexed question of the
- ↑ Shelburne to Barré, December 1780.
- ↑ Shelburne to Lady Ossory, January 1781.
- ↑ he diplomatic history of the Armed Neutrality has been written in great detail, and after consulting the original authorities at Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Amsterdam, by Mr. Bancroft. History of the United States, x. ch. xii. xx.
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