Majesty told them that they _were at liberty to vote against him and keep their places_."[47] [42] "Lord Rockingham afterwards declared that he had never enjoyed such distinguished marks of the royal kindness as during a period when the influence of Great Britain was paralysed; every foreign capital had the knowledge that the existing Prime Minister would not remain in office ten minutes after a successor could be found for him."--Trevelyan: _Early Life of Fox_. [43] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_. [44] _Ibid._ [45] _Bedford Correspondence._ [46] Basil Fielding, sixth Earl of Denbigh. [47] Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_. No self-respecting minister could tolerate this situation, and at the beginning of February Lord Rockingham intimated to the King that "a ministry undermined by the Household could not much longer drag on a precarious existence;"[48] but his representation availed nothing, for a day or two after, on some point in connexion with a Scotch petition, ministers secured a victory only by 148 to 139 votes, on which occasion in the minority were Lord Mountstuart, Jeremiah Dyson, a Lord of Trade, Lord George Sackville, lately appointed by Lord Rockingham Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, Lord Strange, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and several Grooms of the Bedchamber. Even more humiliating was the defeat of the Government on February 3 in the House of Lords, when the opposition carried the question "to enforce the execution of the Stamp Act _vi et armis_," by 63 to 60 votes. [48] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_. It seemed to all lookers-on that the days of the ministry were numbered. "The situation of ministers became every day more irksome and precarious," said Walpole; "the talk is of a new administration," Lord Hardwicke informed his brother; and Lord Chesterfield wrote on February 10: "Most people think, and I among the rest, that the date of the present ministers is pretty nearly out." The immediate result of these manoeuvres was to damage the prestige of the ministry abroad, and, in support of this statement, Lord Rockingham showed the King "an intercepted letter of the Russian Minister to his Court, in which he advised his mistress not to hasten to conclude the new treaty of commerce between England and Russia with the present ministers, for they could not maintain their ground. Lord Rockingham pointed out the damage the King brought on his own affairs by having a ministry who did not enjoy his confidence. This the King denied, and said they had his confidence."[49] [49] Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_.