1757. but Sir Robert Wilmot has not yet sent me the correspondence. If there is any thing material in it, I shall send it by to-morrow night's post; if not, I shall not trouble you with it at Woburn, Colonel Wolfe was with me this morning, and I told him it was your Grace's opinion he should kiss the King's hand directly; and he either did to-day, or will to morrow. THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. My Lord Duke of Bedford, Brelefelt, May 21. 1757. I received this morning yours of the 12th, and shall be very glad if Voorst may be agreeable either to the Duchess or you. I flatter myself that some quieter summer I shall be allowed to park in it. Though I have had some accounts of the internal state of affairs at home, yet I shall always be glad to hear your opinion on them. I most sincerely join with you that it is a most melancholy consideration that his Majesty has not been able yet to form a settled plan of administration; but what can the King do alone, and when so few will assist him? I am very glad the troops will sail complete from Cork; and the two Highland battalions, I am in formed, will bring with them 300 men a-piece over 1757. complete. We have a very extraordinary war here, if I can call it a war; for the French seem not to choose to begin after all their bragging, and there is a gulf of famine between the two armies that neither care to pass. Our situation here is greatly mended, and what I once looked upon as desperate is, I flatter myself, become not extremely dangerous. I must desire you would make my compliments to the Duchess, and to Lord Gower: he and I have not prospered this year at Newmarket. I remain your most affectionate friend, WILLIAM. MR. RIGBY TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. Arthur's, six o'clock, Thursday, Since I came to town to-day, I have heard one or two things that I think it right to give your Grace the earliest intelligence of. The first is, that Lord George Bentinck is so ill that it is thought impossible he should outlive this night; and as I understand your Grace has mentioned that succession at Malmesbury to Forrester, it is proper you should know that the Duke of Newcastle has just now sent Lord Dupplin to Mr. Fox, to tell him 1757. that the King wants to know who is to come in for that borough. Will your Grace, therefore, choose to tell his Majesty that it is Mr. Forrester upon your recommendation? The other business is, to let you know that there is a regiment vacant in Ireland, by Lambton's dying about noon to-day. I hope you will pardon my submitting to your consideration upon this vacancy, that if your Grace should approve of giving it to Sandford, you will have the quartermaster-general for Sebright, or who you please, and a lieut.-colonelcy of dragoons also for who you please; for Mr. Severn, I find, will now think himself very happy with Sandford's present battalion, and he will in no shape then have been intruded upon your establishment. Few people know yet of Lambton's being dead, and I should imagine the sooner you disposed of this regiment with the King the better. Lord Loudon is come to Portsmouth. There was no news at the Secretary of State's office at three o'clock that the fleet was sailed; but I hear at this place that Lord Bolingbroke came from the Isle of Wight this morning, and says he saw them under sail. MR. FOX TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. My dear Lord, Holland House, Friday, June 14. 1757. I saw your Grace's anger when you left Kensington last Saturday, and I should not have the same high esteem that I have for your Grace, if you could have seen what you saw then without indignation. But it gave me great concern to observe, as I thought, that your Grace's displeasure fell in some measure upon me. I can with truth say that nothing would make me more unhappy, than that I should lose any of your Grace's good opinion by my behaviour in a transaction where every step your Grace has taken has increased the honour and regard I have for you, and at the same time added to the obligations I before lay under to your Grace.* If your Grace, when you say this scheme was spoiled by delay, means the delay of carrying the whole into execution when it was first determined two months ago, I think so too; I foresaw its consequences, lamented, and would have prevented that delay, but indeed this week there has been none. On Wednesday I saw the King for the first time. I instantly published my acceptance; wrote before I dined to the Duke of Argyle to receive Oswald † ; and from that time till . "Fox's junto met two or three times : Lord Granville would have infused his jovial intrepidity into them: Bedford wanted no inspired ardour; but Fox himself desponded, and Bed ford reproached him with it.' † James Oswald, Esq., member 1757. 1757. Saturday noon went about pressing men into the service, without success, indeed; but there was no doubt in those who refused my offers of my being fixed in the situation that enabled me to make them. I must add, that from Thursday, when the King was not only firm but cheerful, till Saturday, when I followed Lord Mansfield into the closet, I did not see or send message to the King; so that he was infected with no fears of mine. Nor could the execution of the business have been set about with more haste or alacrity than it was. Yet I do not blame his Majesty; for when the Duke of Newcastle showed he could draw so many into so infamous a measure, the game was lost, and his Majesty and the country deprived (I will say so, though I was to have had so large a share in it) of as able, as honest, and as firm a ministry, as this nation and these times could furnish. I would not for the world accuse myself of having had any share in the defeat of such a system; and, next to thinking so myself, should be made most miserable by your Grace's imputing it in any degree to him who honours your Grace above all men, and who is with unalterable attachment your Grace's, &c. H. Fox. P. S.-I know your Grace will have company tomorrow who will tell your Grace more, and give a more perfect account of what passes than I can do. |