The truth was, the clamours of the merchants, sometimes reasonable, always self-interested, terrified the Duke of Newcastle; and while, to prevent their outcries in the City of London, he minced the Navy of England into cruizers and convoys, every other service was neglected. I say it with truth (I say it with concern, considering who was his associate), this was the year of the worst Administration that I have seen in England; for now Newcastle’s incapacity was left to its full play. While conjoined with Sir Robert Walpole, the attention of the latter to the security of the House of Brunswick, and to the preservation of public tranquillity, prevented the mischiefs that the Duke’s insufficience might have occasioned. If Lord Granville, his next coadjutor, was rash and dangerous, yet he ventured with spirit, and had great ideas and purposes in view. He provided not the means of execution, but an heroic plan was not wanting; and if he improperly provoked some allies, he stuck at nothing to engross the whole co-operation of others. Mr. Pelham was too timorous not to provide against complaint: his life was employed in gathering up the slips of his brother. But now Fox was called in to support a Government, from a share in which it was determined he should be excluded, and every part of which, where he had influence, it was a measure with Newcastle to weaken, the consequences could not but be fatal--and fatal they were! Indeed, Fox himself was not totally excusable. He came in, despairing of the prosperity of his country; and neither conversant in, nor attentive to the province allotted to him; he thought too much of wresting the remains of power from his competitors. He had neither the patriotism which forms a virtuous character, nor the love of fame which composes a shining one, and often supplies the place of the other. His natural bent was the love of power, with a soul generous and profuse; but growing a fond father, he became a provident father--and from a provident father to a rapacious man, the transition was but too easy! In the midst of the anxious suspense I have mentioned, on June 3rd, came news that Admiral Byng, after a very tedious passage, arriving at Gibraltar on the 2nd of May, had, according to his orders, demanded of General Fowke, the Governor, a battalion to be transported to Minorca; but that the Governor, instead of obeying these directions, had called a Council of War, where, in pursuance of the opinion of engineers whom they consulted, it was determined to be impracticable to fling succours into St. Philip’s, and that it would be weakening the garrison of Gibraltar to part with so much force, which accordingly was refused.