self and Pitt. To myself because the public would evidently look upon me as not yet ripe for it; to Pitt because the same public would consider it as a mark of partiality and personal favour. Against this, therefore, I protest." Finally, as we have seen, Canning became Treasurer of the Navy; but he greatly lamented the exclusion of Fox and Grenville from the public service, and condemned the admission into the Cabinet of Mulgrave and Montrose.

As his Private Secretary, the new Prime Minister named Mr. William Dacres Adams, son of one of the members for Totness. The choice of Mr. Adams was made on the recommendation of Mr. Long, and was fully justified by his ability and attachment to the end of his chief's career. Mr. Adams was afterwards Private Secretary to the Duke of Portland; he has filled several other official posts; and he is still living in retirement at his seat in Sydenham. To his kindness I owe the communication of many interesting particulars and important manuscripts.

There were also at this time divers changes in the Royal Household, which it is not very necessary to examine in detail. The Earl of Dartmouth succeeded the Marquis of Salisbury as Lord Chamberlain. Lord John Thynne succeeded the Right Hon. Charles Greville as Vice-Chamberlain. This Mr. Greville was a veteran who had been named to a political office, rather to the public surprise, a quarter of a century before. In 1796 some one chanced to ask Pitt how so tiresome a man had come to be a Privy Councillor. "It was by dint of solicitation, I suppose," said Pitt, in a laughing

mood. "For my own part, I would rather at any time have made him a Privy Councillor than have talked to him!" 4

During all these days the mental state of the King continued to be a matter of anxiety. Mr. Pitt had noticed some increase of agitation in his second interview of the 10th of May; but when His Majesty found that the administration was practically forming in the manner that he wished, he was satisfied and soothed. On the 12th he told the Duke of Portland that, now, he and Pitt met like old friends who had never parted. "It seems certain," adds Lord Malmesbury, "that what has passed, far from hurting the King, seems to have relieved him."

On the 16th, however, the Chancellor and Pitt felt it their duty to transmit a joint representation to His Majesty, earnestly entreating him to avoid all unnecessary causes of excitement, and to comply with the rules which his physicians had enjoined. I do not find that the King made any answer to this joint request; but on the 18th, when the political arrangements were almost completed, he addressed the Chancellor as follows::

The King to Lord Eldon.

"Queen's Palace, May 18, 1804.

"The King having signed the Commission for giving his Royal Assent, returns it to his excellent Lord Chancellor, whose conduct he most thoroughly approves. His Majesty feels the difficulties he has had, both poli

VOL. IV.

4 Diaries of Lord Colchester, vol. i. p. 75.

K

tical and personal to the King; but the uprightness of Lord Eldon's mind, and his attachment to the King, have borne him with credit and honour, and (what the King knows will not be without its due weight) with the approbation of his Sovereign, through an unpleasant labyrinth.

"The King saw Mr. Addington yesterday. Mr. Addington spoke with his former warmth of friendship for the Lord Chancellor; he seems to require quiet, as his mind is perplexed between returning affection for Mr. Pitt, and great soreness at the contemptuous treatment he met with, the end of last Session, from one he had ever looked upon as his private friend. This makes the King resolve to keep them for some time asunder. "GEORGE R."

In conversation with the Duke of Portland a few days later, we learn that the King called the Grenvilles "the brotherhood," and said they must always either govern despotically or oppose violently. The Duke told Lord Malmesbury that he had little doubt of the King doing well. Quiet would set him right, and nothing else. Not quite so sanguine was Mrs. Harcourt, who came to see Lord Malmesbury the next day. She said that the King was apparently quite well when speaking to his Ministers, or to those who kept him a little in awe, but that to his family and dependents his language was incoherent and harsh, quite unlike his usual character. He had made capricious changes everywhere, from the Lord Chamberlain to the grooms and footmen. He had turned away the Queen's favourite coachman, made footmen grooms, and vice versa; and, what was still worse, because more notorious, had removed Lords

of the Bedchamber without a shadow of reason. All this, said Mrs. Harcourt, afflicts the Royal Family beyond measure. The Princesses are quite sinking under it.

The 27th of May, on which Lord Malmesbury wrote these last entries in his journal, supplied another proof that even a mere trifle might still throw the King's mind from off its balance. Going down to Windsor on the 26th, his carriage was followed some way, and loudly cheered, by a party of Eton boys. This had such an effect upon His Majesty, that when he met a different party of the boys next morning, he said to them, "I have always been partial to your school. I have now the additional motive of gratitude for being so. In future I shall be an anti-Westminster."

Yet Mr. Rose, from whom we derive this story, declares that when, on the 5th of June, he attended a Council to kiss the King's hand on his appointment— which was the first time he had seen His Majesty since his recovery "the King spoke to me for about ten minutes, and I never saw him more entirely composed and collected; if anything, less hurried in his manner than usual."

CHAPTER XXXIX.

1804.

Charge against Messrs. Drake and Spencer Smith-Execution of the Duke d'Enghien- The First Consul proclaimed Emperor of the French Pitt's projected Continental alliances - Overtures of Mr. Livingston-Pitt's Memorandum - Wilberforce's renewed motion on the Slave Trade - Proclamation prohibiting the Trade in the conquered Colonies - Pitt's Additional Force Bill-Vote of Credit - Pitt's measures of Defence - Criticisms of Lord Grenville and Fox-Napoleon's Plan of Invasion - The Catamarans — Successful operations of the British out of Europe - Battles of Assye and Argaum War with Spain - Seizure of the Treasure Ships — Pitt's notes on the War, Germany, and Napoleon - Attempted reconciliation between the King and the Prince of Wales - Case of Lord Auckland.

ON the 18th of May Mr. Pitt took his seat in the House of Commons, on his re-election. Keen debates and weighty business, foreign and domestic, claimed at once his care.

As regards the Continent, the rumours of immediate invasion had been rather fainter for some time past. There was reason to believe that the spirit of our people and the magnitude of our armaments had caused the enemy to pause in his designs. There was reason to believe that the name of Pitt, as restored to our national councils, would be a further earnest of our energy and resolution. Still, however, the camp at Boulogne was not raised; the flotilla of boats was not dispersed. Such considerations of the internal state of England, so far as they wrought at all with the First Consul, merely