Lord Gower told me last night, that it might be a week before it was possible to guess in the least how things would [be] settled; he believed that the King would not send for you from Ireland, unless you chose it. I think, and so I told him, that that was more than the King himself could answer for. I am now confident they would give it to the Duke of Devonshire if he would accept it; he will not, and the Duke of Portland, that jolt-headed calf, certainly will.(221) I wish to have nothing but Buckinghams and Portlands for their subalternate ministers as long as they are at Court, and then their damned Administration will be over in six months, and they sunk into the herd of the people, and the contempt which they deserve from any man of sobriety and character. Rigby and Lord G(ower) werd in another room in close conference a great while. The negotiation has been carried on, but at present broke off, between the Chancellor and Lord Rock(ingham). Burke's Bill, they say, is insisted on, that is, a Bill which, while they promise the public to carry into execution, they are determine(d) shall be rendered (as) ineffectual as this they broke off. The Chancellor went yesterday out of town. The thought of a new Administration is so prevalent with Charles that he would not go to Newmarket. I heard him last night tell his people that he saw no reason, when he was Minister, that he or his assistants in Administration should sit upon the Treasury bench. The merry and the sad, as my Lord Clarendon says, have employment enough, while these actors are dressing themselves up for the play, and rehearsing their parts. (220) Lord Melbourne was returned with Selwyn as M.P. for borough of Ludgershall on September 12, 1780. (221) The Duke of Portland succeeded Lord Carlisle as Viceroy of Ireland on the formation of the Rockingham Ministry. (1782,) March 19, Tuesday, 11 o'clock, morning.--. . . . Gregg dines with me to-day. He has been ever since Friday last at Saffron Walden, so I have as yet not seen him. I have a great deal to say to him. The seeming impossibility of your staying in Ireland agreeably to your own sentiments, and the inconvenience which returning suddenly will be to your private affairs, gives me at this moment not a little disquietude, and Lord G(ower) cannot help it, by any lights which as yet he has himself.