MR. PITT TO EARL TEMPLE.

Monday, March 19, 1753.

MY DEAR LORD,—I remain under so great uneasiness with regard to the part you shall determine to take upon the Duke of Bedford's question', that I cannot help presuming on your friendship and infinite goodness to me, so far as to trouble you upon it. If you should entertain any thought of supporting or going with the question, give me leave, my dear Lord, to implore you to lay it aside, as I am deeply persuaded that nothing could be so fatal to me and to all our views, so nothing imaginable could give me a concern equal to seeing your Lordship take such a step. I need a thousand pardons for this liberty, and I trust your kind and affectionate friendship has them to bestow upon the man who loves you with the most warm and tender friendship.

W. PITT.

If you will call in this evening, the satisfaction to my mind will be infinite.

The question alluded to was the motion intended to be made on the following Thursday, in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Bedford, to have all the papers laid before the House relative to the charge of Jacobitism, made by Lord Ravensworth on the authority of a lawyer named Fawcett, against the Bishop of Gloucester, Stone, sub-preceptor to the Prince of Wales, and Murray the Solicitor General. Mr. Pitt's intreaties show the part which Lord Temple was inclined to take upon this question, and they appear to have had sufficient weight to have prevented his giving any support to the Duke of Bedford's motion, either by speaking or voting. In fact, only four lords accompanied the Duke below the bar, consequently there was no division, and the motion was negatived.

MR. POTTER TO MR. GRENVILLE.

2

Friday Night, January 11, 1754. DEAR SIR,-I took the liberty of leaving my name at Lord Temple's door this morning, and depend upon your favour to inform him that my principal business in town was to desire his assistance towards the nomination of Mr. Wilkes as High Sheriff of Bucks. You have been so good as to give me leave to rest that business in your hands. Lady Packington's3 steward goes down to Aylesbury on Monday, and has received orders to engage her tenants in my interest singly, the name of Wilkes being too well remembered at Worcester to be entitled to any favour from the Tories of that county.

While I am writing, I receive an account that Lord Temple has a tenant at Ashendon named Bates, a Quaker preacher. There is in Aylesbury but one

1 Thomas, second son of John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple, and Recorder of Bath. He came into Parliament at the general election in 1747, for St. Germans, and at that time he was Secretary to the Princess of Wales. Horace Walpole, writing to Sir Horace Mann, in November of that year, mentions him as a young man of great promise—“ The world is already matching him against Mr. Pitt." His subsequent career, however, did not correspond with these anticipations. He was M.P. for Aylesbury in 1754, and afterwards sat for Oakhampton. He held the offices of Joint Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and Paymaster of the Forces. He inherited a very large property from his father, amounting, it was said, to at least 70,000l. He died at his seat called Ridgmont, in Bedfordshire, June 17, 1759.

2 John Wilkes, so often to be mentioned hereafter in these volumes, was probably indebted to Potter for his introduction to Earl Temple, with whom he subsequently became so intimately acquainted.

The manor of Aylesbury, and considerable property there, formerly belonged to the Pakington family of Westwood, in Worcestershire, from whom it was purchased by George, Marquess of Buckingham.

Quaker, named Edmunds; I have reason to think he is well inclined to me, but Bates, I am told, can make him warmer in his zeal. If there is the shadow of a reason against Lord Temple's laying his commands upon Bates, I beg he would not undertake it. If there is no reason against it, Lord Temple has already been so good, that when I show him how it is in his power, I know I need not ask him to serve me.

I set out to-morrow morning for Bath. Should any incidents arise which would make my attendance in London proper, I presume to depend on your friendship for a hint. I am, with the greatest truth,

Your faithful and obliged Friend and Servant,

DEAR GRENVILLE,-You would have been troubled with a letter from me, in consequence of my commission to Mr. Hoare, if I had not hoped to have made my report to you in person long ago; but gout, and much proper pain in both feet, has prevented, and lameness still prevents, my return to town.

I conclude you have already received a petition from Mr. Hoare, praying farther time; indeed it is a very necessary request, however unjustifiable the cause of the necessity may be. I found, when I came here, the architectural part of your brother's monument a good deal advanced; but the principal thing, the figure, not only not begun, but the second model, which he had designed to work from, by no means without great objec

tions to it. His brother, the painter, who interests himself much for the excellence of the thing, has made several designs of a figure, and particularly one which seems to me to have great merit. It is simple, graceful, and in the manner of the ancients, though the drapery be modern, and, above all, it has a happy expression in the attitude. This is to be the model for the statue; but your patience is like to be thoroughly tried, for a twelvemonth or more will be the least time necessary to allow the sculptor, with any hopes of the statue coming out not quite unworthy the noble subject. I need not say how much I long to be amongst you. I am sorry to see, every post, in the papers, that there are so many public reasons to make me impatient till I see my friends, besides the many private ones that always make me wish myself in Upper Brook Street.

W. PITT.

MR. POTTER TO MR. GRENVILLE.

Bath, February 8, 1754.

DEAR SIR,-Mr. Pitt tells me that there is an opportunity to congratulate you. I am fond of all such opportunities, and therefore it is no wonder if I embrace the present. I wish, indeed, it were less compli cated in its nature, and the removal of anxiety had less share in the occasion of rejoicing, but since occasions of condolence will happen, may they ever end in congratulations. Your two boys have been dangerously ill, and are perfectly recovered. I know how much you and Mrs. Grenville have suffered while they were ill, not to feel with you upon the re-establishment of their health.

I am interested in all that concerns you; and when I say you, I take the liberty to consider Mrs. Grenville in the good old sense, as bone of her husband's bone. May those bones long continue united, and may all that springs from them be an increase of your mutual happiness.

Receive the old-fashioned wishes of an old-fashioned heart. Mr. Pitt has had a smart fit of the gout this, I doubt not, he has told you: but perhaps he has not informed you that he is the picture of health. I hope he is not a hypocrite. You will expect to hear something of myself, but as I can give you no accounts that will please you, I will only say that I propose being in town in about ten days, with an intention to return hither as soon as the elections are over.

THOS. POTTER.

MR. PITT TO MR. GRENVILLE.

Bath, March 6, 1754.

DEAR GRENVILLE,-The post of this day has brought a much worse account of Mr. Pelham than your letter which had given me much uneasiness. I am infinitely concerned at the state of his health. I hope, however, there is room to think that he may be safe from any present danger, as he began to mend. I am myself still suffering much pain, under the third attack of the gout in both feet. I am indeed much out of order, and worn down with pain and confinement: this gout which I trusted to relieve me has almost subdued me: I am the horse in the fable, non equitem dorso, non frænum depulit ore. I must, however, endeavour to look forward