Then there arose the eternal question of patronage. Fox had been promised by the King himself that on becoming Secretary of State he should have the conduct of the House of Commons with all that that involved. But Newcastle could not bring himself to fulfil the royal pledges or his own. When the list of the Prince of Wales's household was published, Fox saw in it the names of eight or ten members of Parliament as to whom he had never been even consulted. Newcastle moreover, as Fox asserted, broke a solemn promise that Fox's nephew, Lord Digby, should be included. A still greater affront was that he told Fox that he destined a vacant seat at the Board of Trade for a person whom he was not at liberty to mention. More than this, he took occasion to remind Fox of a former offer to make way for Pitt if it were for the King's service, and Fox again readily agreed. All this took place on September 30.[331] Such an insulting and accumulated want of confidence between the leaders of the two Houses was not to be tolerated, and Fox wrote at once to Bubb that things were going ill. The final explosion was caused by the exclusion of Digby, which was notified to Fox on October 5. The King, said the Duke, refused this nomination peremptorily and bitterly, but had said that, if the Duke himself pressed it, he would yield to oblige the Duke. On receiving this letter, Fox wrote a furious letter to Stone, Newcastle's secretary. The draft of a letter commonly reveals much more of the writer's mind than the letter itself, and the draft of this is fortunately preserved.[332] 'I do not know,' wrote Fox, 'whether I am to imagine from hence that the negotiation with Mr. Pitt is far advanced, but I am told it is not begun. In these circumstances, dear Sir, I must beg you to stop it. I retract all good-humoured dealing. I may be turned out, and I suppose shall. But I will not be used like a dog without having given the least provocation (suppose I should say with the utmost merit to those who use me so) and be like that dog a spaniel. I do not consent that Mr. Pitt should have my place, and promise to be in good humour or even on any terms with those who give it him.'[333] Fox was in a blind fury, but sensibly expunged all this from the letter he sent. To Welbore Ellis, his confidant, he wrote: 'The King has carried his displeasure to me beyond common bounds, and I vow to God I don't guess the reason. The Duke of Newcastle, instead of growing better, has outdone himself, and show'd me the Prince's establishment on which eight members of the House of Commons are plac'd whose names he never mention'd to me, and he had the assurance to make a merit of shewing me the List after it was _fix'd_ with the King. He has been Fool enough to ask my consent, and to intend to offer my place to Mr. Pitt without (as I believe) trying whether or no he will accept it. This makes it necessary for me to take a step in which my view is to get out of court and never come into it again....