Mr. Fox then observed, that as it would fall to his province in the House of Commons to defend the King’s refusal, if his Royal Highness should petition there for a larger allowance, he must know on what ground to defend it, for the Opposition would produce his Majesty’s former message, as evidence that the King had thought it right the Prince of Wales should have 40,000_l._ a year. “You must _explain_,” said the Chancellor, “that in the first message something was meant which was known to both parties”--and then went into a formal pleading against the Prince, at the conclusion of which Newcastle prevailed to have the determination put off for the present; though, on being pressed by Fox, he agreed that it should be considered again. After sacrificing the Princess in this cruel manner, they persuaded the King that Fox was making his court to her. At this conjuncture, the great office of Chief Justice being vacant by the death of Sir Dudley Rider, Murray demanded it without a competitor, because above competition; and agreeably to his constant asseverations, that he meant to rise by his profession, not by the House of Commons; though the jealousy of his aspiring in the latter had signally contributed to throw Pitt into his then opposition. As Murray was equally the buckler of Newcastle against his ally, Fox, and his antagonist, Pitt, one may conceive how a nature so apt to despond from conscious insufficience was alarmed at this event. No words can paint the distress it occasioned more strongly than what Charles Townshend said to Murray himself on the report of his intended promotion. “I wish you joy,” said he, “or rather myself, for you will ruin the Duke of Newcastle by quitting the House of Commons, and the Chancellor by going into the House of Lords.” The apostrophe was frank, considering Newcastle was his uncle;[63] but tenderness for his family seldom checked the burst of Townshend’s vivacity. It was at the same period he said, when the struggle about Lord Bute was depending, “Silly fellow for silly fellow; I think it is as well to be governed by my uncle with a blue riband, as by my cousin[64] with a green one.”