tion, refused. In this perplexity the King ordered the Duke of Devonshire to try to compose some Ministry for him, and sent him to Pitt, to try to accommodate with Fox.' Pitt, with a list of terms a little modified, was ready to engage, but on condition that Fox should have no employment in the cabinet. Upon this plan negotiations have been carrying on for this week. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge, whose whole party consists of from twelve to sixteen persons, exclusive of Leicester-house, (of that presently,) concluded they were entering on the government as Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer; but there is so great unwillingness to give it up totally into their hands, that all manner of expedients have been projected to get rid of their proposals, or to limit their power. Thus the case stands at this instant: the Parliament has been put off for a fortnight, to gain time; the Lord knows whether that will suffice to bring on any sort of temper! In the meantime the government stands still; pray Heaven the war may too! You will wonder how fifteen or sixteen persons can be of such importance. In the first place, their importance has been conferred on them, and has been notified to the nation by these concessions and messages; next, Minorca is gone; Oswego gone; the nation is in a ferment; some very great indiscretions in delivering a Hanoverian soldier from prison by a warrant from the Secretary of State have raised great difficulties; instructions from counties, boroughs, especially from the city of London, in the style of 1641, and really in the spirit of 1715' and 1745, have raised a great flame; and lastly, the countenance of Leicester-house, which Mr. Pitt is supposed to have,' and which Mr. Legge thinks he has, all these tell Pitt that he may command such numbers without doors as may make the majorities within the House tremble.

Leicester-house is by some thought inclined to more pacific measures. Lord Bute's being established Groom of the Stole has

1 "The Duke of Devonshire advised his Majesty to comply with Pitt's demands, whereupon the administration was formed; on which account the Duke was unjustly censured by some unreasonable friends; for he joined Pitt rather than Fox, not from any change of friendship, or any partiality in Pitt's favour, but because it was more safe to be united with him who had the nation of his side, than with the man who was the most unpopular; a reason which will have its proper weight with most ministers."-Waldegrave's Memoirs, p. 87.-WRIGHT.

2 Meaning that the Jacobites excited the clamour.—WALPOLE.

3 Lord Temple, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 11th, says, "Lord Bute used expressions so transcendently obliging to me, and so decisive of the determined purpose of Leicester-house towards us, in the present or any future day, that your own lively imagination cannot suggest to you a wish beyond them."-Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 191.-WRIGHT.

satisfied. They seem more occupied in disobliging all their new court than in disturbing the King's. Lord Huntingdon, the new Master of the Horse to the Prince, and Lord Pembroke, one of his Lords, have not been spoken to. Alas! if the present storms should blow over, what seeds for new! You must guess at the sense of this paragraph, which it is difficult, at least improper, to explain to you; though you could not go into a coffee-house here where it would not be interpreted to you. One would think all those little politicians had been reading the Memoirs of the minority of Louis XIV.

There has been another great difficulty: the season obliging all camps to break up, the poor Hanoverians have been forced to continue soaking in theirs. The county magistrates have been advised that they are not obliged by law to billet foreigners on public-houses, and have refused. Transports were yesterday ordered to carry away the Hanoverians! There are eight thousand men taken from America; for I am sure we can spare none from hence. The negligence and dilatoriness of the ministers at home, the wickedness of our West Indian governors, and the little-minded quarrels of the regulars and irregular forces, have reduced our affairs in that part of the world to a most deplorable state. Oswego, of ten times more importance even than Minorca, is so annihilated that we cannot learn the particulars.

My dear Sir, what a present and future picture have I given you! The details are infinite, and what I have neither time, nor, for many reasons, the imprudence to send by the post: your good sense will but too well lead you to develope them. The crisis is most melancholy and alarming. I remember two or three years ago I wished for more active times, and for events to furnish our correspondence. I think I could write you a letter almost as big as my Lord Clarendon's History. What a bold man is he who shall undertake the administration! How much shall we be obliged to him! How mad is he, whoever is ambitious of it! Adieu!

485. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Nov. 6, 1756.

AFTER an inter-ministerium of seventeen days, Mr. Pitt has this morning accepted the Government as Secretary of State; the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Fox being both excluded. The Duke of Devonshire is to be at the head of the Treasury; the Chancellor