The Queen, indeed, did not scruple to visit with her displeasure all those courtiers who showed themselves inclined to bring about a reconciliation; and yet she manifested some leaning towards Lord Carteret, the chief agent of her son. This disposition alarmed Walpole, who took upon himself to remind her that _her_ minister could serve her purpose better than her son’s, and that it was of the utmost importance that she should conquer in this strife. ‘Is your son to be bought?’ said Walpole. ‘If you will buy him, I will get him cheaper than Carteret.’ Caroline answered only with ‘a flood of grace, good words, favour, and professions’ of having full confidence in her own minister--that is, Walpole himself--who had served her so long and so faithfully. A trait of Caroline’s character may here be mentioned, as indicative of how she could help to build up her own reputation for shrewdness by using the materials of others. Sir Robert Walpole, in conversation with Lord Hervey, gave him some account of an interview he had had with the Queen. The last-named gentleman believed all the great minister had told him, because the Queen herself had, in speaking of the subject to Lord Hervey, used the precise terms now employed by Walpole. The subject was the lukewarmness of some of the noblemen about court to serve the King: the expression used was--‘People who keep hounds must not hang every one that runs a little slower than the rest, provided, in the main, they will go with the pack; one must not expect them all to run just alike and to be equally good.’ Hervey told Walpole of the use made by the Queen of this phrase, and Sir Robert naturally enough remarked, ‘He was always glad when he heard she repeated as her own any notion he had endeavoured to infuse, because it was a sign what he had laboured had taken place.’ Meanwhile the prince was of himself doing little that could tend to anything else than widen the breach already existing between him and his family. He spoke aloud of what he would do when he came to be King. His intentions, as reported by Caroline, were that she, when she was Queen-dowager, should be ‘fleeced, flayed, and minced.’ The Princess Amelia was to be kept in strict confinement; the Princess Caroline left to starve; of the little princesses, Mary and Louisa, then about fourteen and thirteen years of age, he made no mention; and of his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, he always spoke ‘with great affectation of kindness.’