I beg your Lordship will be so good to convene your brothers and Sir George, and communicate my letter to them, which is addressed to you jointly. It is a most untoward circumstance that I cannot set out immediately to join you. I am extremely crippled and worn down with pain, which still continues. I make what efforts I can, and am carried out to breathe a little air. I write this hardly legible scrawl in my chaise.

Let me recommend to my dear Lord to preach prudence and reserve to our friend Sir George, and if he can, to inspire him with his own.

I heard some time since that the Princess inquired after my health: an honour which I received with much pleasure, as not void, perhaps, of some meaning.

I have writ more to-day than my weak state, under such a shock as the news of to-day, will well permit. Believe me, my dearest Lord,

Ever most affectionately yours,

W. PITT.

Fox will be Chancellor of the Exchequer, notwithstanding any reluctancy to yield to it in the Ministers : George Grenville may be offered Secretary at War; I am sure he ought to be so. I advise his acceptance. The Chancellor is the only resource; his wisdom, temper, and authority, joined to the Duke of Newcastle's ability as Secretary of State, are the dependance for Government. The Duke of Newcastle alone is feeble · this, not to Sir George.

MR. PITT TO EARL TEMPLE.

Bath, March 11, 1754.

MY DEAREST LORD,-I hope you will not disapprove my answer to Lord Chancellor'. I include in you your brothers, for your Lordship's name is Legion. You will see the answer contains my whole poor plan; the essence of which is to talk modestly, to declare attachment to the King's government, and the future plan under the Princess, neither to intend nor intimate the quitting the service, to give no terrors by talking big, to make no declarations of thinking ourselves free by Mr. Pelham's death, to look out and fish in troubled waters, and perhaps help trouble them in order to fish the better but to profess and to resolve bonâ fide to act like public men in a dangerous conjuncture for our country, and support Government when they will please to settle it; to let them see we shall do this from principles of public good, not as the bubbles of a few fair words, without effects (all this civilly), and to be collected by them, not expressed by us; to leave them under the impressions of their own fears and resentments, the only friends we shall ever have at Court, but to say not a syllable which can scatter terrors or imply menaces. Their fears will increase by what we avoid saying concerning persons (though what I think of Fox, &c., is much fixed), and by saying very explicitly, as I have (but civilly), that we have our eyes open

1 Mr. Pitt refers to a letter addressed by him to Sir George Lyttelton, with the intention that it should be shown to the Lord Chancellor : it was accompanied by a private letter to Sir George: both are dated Bath, March 10, and are very curious specimens of Pitt policy. They are printed in Phillimore's Memoirs and Correspondence of Lord Lyttelton, pp. 449-453.

to our situation at Court, and the foul play we have had offered us in the Closet: to wait the working of all these things in offices, the best we can have, but in offices.

My judgment tells me, my dear Lord, that this simple plan steadily pursued will once again, before it be long, give some weight to a connection, long depressed, and yet still not annihilated. Mr. Fox's having called at my door early the morning Mr. Pelham died is, I suppose, no secret, and a lucky incident, in my opinion. I have a post letter from the Duke of Newcastle 2, a very obliging one. I heartily pity him, he suffers a great deal for his loss.

5

Give me leave to recommend to your Lordship a little gathering of friends about you at dinners, without ostentation. Stanley, who will be in Parliament: some attention to Sir Richard Lyttelton I should think proper; a dinner to the Yorkes very seasonable; and, before 1 Mr. Pelham died about six o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, the 6th instant. The activity of Fox upon this occasion is remarkable. He was at Mr. Pitt's door early: in the Diary of Bubb Dodington, we are told that he was at Lord Hartington's before eight o'clock in the morning; and a letter from Lord Hardwicke to Mr. Pitt, in the Chatham Correspondence, mentions "a certain person" (meaning Fox) "who, within a few hours after Mr. Pelham's death, had made strong advances to the Duke of Newcastle and myself."

2 This letter is not to be found in the Chatham Correspondence.

3 Mr. Hans Stanley, of Paultons, in the New Forest. He was a grandson of Sir Hans Sloane, and M.P. for the borough of Southampton. He was subsequently a Lord of the Admiralty, and employed on several diplomatic missions to Paris, &c. He died in 1780.

* He had recently been made a Knight of the Bath. He was M.P. for Brackley.

5 There were at this time four sons of the Lord Chancellor in Parliament, viz., Philip (afterwards Lord Royston, on his father's being made Earl of Hardwicke), M.P. for Cambridgeshire; Charles Yorke, Member for Reigate; Joseph Yorke, for East Grinstead; and John Yorke, for Higham Ferrers.

VOL. I.

I

things are settled, any of the Princess of Wales's Court. John Pitt not to be forgot: I know the Duke of B-2 nibbles at him: in short liez commerce with as many members of Parliament, who may be open to our purposes, as your Lordship can. Pardon, my dear Lord, all this freedom, but the conjuncture is made to awaken men, and there is room for action. I have no doubt George Grenville's turn must come. Fox is odious, and will have difficulty to stand in a future time. I mend a little. I cannot express my impatience to be with you. W. PITT.

MR. PITT TO MR. GRENVILLE.

Bath, March 14, 1754.

MY DEAR GRENVILLE,-The favour of your letter of the 12th instant was very intelligible and very acceptable. The kind and affectionate manner in which you wish me amongst you, adds to the impatience I already had of being there to a degree almost intolerable. I am making all the efforts possible to prepare me for the journey. I am carried down stairs, and packed up like a bale of goods in my chaise, to inure me to motion. I begin to bear it upon smooth ground without much uneasiness; my appetite returns, my pains subside, and my nights are tolerable: if no relapse comes, I hope a week will go a good way towards enabling me to crawl, if not to walk. As soon as I am capable of that degree of self-motion, I will set out.

You cannot, my dear Grenville, in any situation ever so critical, need my assistance. My warmest wishes,

1 John Pitt was now M.P. for Dorchester.

2 The Duke of Bedford.

absent or present, you will always have; but I have much need of seeing the faces of my friends again, after a long absence, and tedious scene of pain and confinement. My most affectionate remembrances to the brothers, and most humble compliments to Mrs. Grenville. W. PITT.

SIR GEORGE LYTTELTON TO MR. GRENVILLE.

Hill Street, Monday Evening, 18th March, 1754. MY DEAR GRENVILLE,-I wish you would let me know your opinion, whether I shall send an express to Mr. Pitt to morrow or not. I think that things are now as much settled as they are likely to be 'till the dissolution of the Parliament, and he will be impatient to know some particulars. If he is coming to town the express will meet him on the road. I have had no answer from him to my last letter; have you? In case you think I should send an express, be so good to tell your brother Jemmy to send the man to me to-morrow morning about half an hour after ten; and as you have seen Fox's letter, I wish you would write yourself an account of it, which may be sent with mine. If you choose that the express should go early in the morning, send him to me to-night, any time before 12 o'clock.

MR. PITT TO EARL TEMPLE.

Bath, March 24, 1754.

MY DEAR LORD,-Not being able to write much today, I beg your brother George will excuse my writing separately, and receive my thanks for his letter in this