wherever they are to be found, but your Lordship knows there are other causes of discontent.’ If this should be true, I imagine Lord Egremont[341] will be Secretary of State and Lord Hardwick[342] Privy Seal. Mr. James Grenville will probably lay down with his brother, which will make a vacancy at the Cofferer’s Office, one of the few I might take if there was an inclination to bring me into employment. I wish much to know Lord Bath’s opinion of Pitt’s advice. To me it seems to be that of a man who (in a political sense) _fears neither God nor man_. It certainly must be founded upon a supposition that a war with Spain is inevitable, which I should hope is not true; and even in that case I think England ought to be very cautious not to appear the aggressor, which this conduct would make her. But I had rather hear his Lordship’s judgment upon this question than give my own.” [340] Charles Lyttelton, Dean of Carlisle. [341] Charles, 2nd Earl of Egremont, born 1710, died 1763. [342] Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwick, born 1690, died 1764. [Page heading: LORD BATH’S JOURNEY] [Page heading: THE POSITION OF MINISTERS] Lord Bath had left Sandleford before this letter arrived there. On October 8 he writes-- “I can never sufficiently, Madam, acknowledge my great obligations to you and to Mr. Montagu for the honours I received at Sandleford. Six more agreeable days I never passed in my whole Life, but when one has been excessively happy we always pay most severely for the change, when forced to quit it. This made the Doctor’s[343] journey and mine most excessively stupid and melancholy. He was seized with such a soporifick Torpor (as if a deluge of rain was hanging in the clouds), and yet we had not a drop the whole way, and I was so wretchedly miserable, that all I could say to him was, ‘Doctor, I passed over this same ground yesterday from coming from Padworth much more cheerfully and happily than I do now, but one comfort is that we are allowed the liberty of hoping for a renewal of the same happiness some other time.’ When we got to Reading, where we stopped for 10 or 12 minutes (without getting out of our chaize), our landlady seeing we looked melancholy, endeavoured to comfort us by telling us a piece of good news, that an express was just arrived with an account of a complete victory obtained by the King of Prussia over the Russians. On this we speculated and ruminated for some time, when we met Mr. Cambridge, who assured us it was all a lye, but that another event had occurred which would surprize us extremely, and then told us Mr. Pitt[344] had quitted the seals; this astonished the Doctor more than it did me, who had received some hint of it before, but we both agreed it was a very unlucky time for adventuring on such rough measures, so near the Meeting of Parliament, and before anything was fixed for the obtaining of peace, or preparing for a further prosecution of the War; in short,