I told his Majesty that he should, on this occasion, have my best service as a private soldier or as an officer, but I could not be both. I had a great deal of discourse, but he entered into no particular destination of me. He lamented the harm the Duke of Devonshire’s opinion would do him, and commended your Lordship exceedingly. I told the Duke of Newcastle (whom I saw by appointment with Lord Waldegrave, Saturday) that this was the last time I would ever come to see if we could agree. And so it is. Lord Granville says, if Legge won’t keep it (and to be sure he will not) I must be Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Duke of Newcastle says, that in that case we shall not agree a fortnight, and that it must not be. They quarrelled about it. I give readily into the Duke of Newcastle’s opinion. Nothing then remains but Secretary of State. How to make a vacancy I can’t tell, but there is nothing else. If this be done, I shall behave just as both you and they would have me; if not, I shall still be for the subsidies. It is my opinion. But I will be for them _out of place_; and in the act of vindicating the measure, declare war with the Minister. So you see that instead of the quiet state I thought of, I am brought, and indeed without my seeking, into such a one that I must (I hope you see with me the necessity) be within this week more, or within these six weeks less, than Secretary at War. I forgot to tell you that Lincoln advises the Duke of Newcastle to agree with me, and even prefers me to the others, or to any measure but that of his uncle’s retiring quite, which he thinks best. The Attorney and Stone are of the same mind. I am sorry to tell you that it is certain the latter has lost his credit at Kew for being my friend. You know where that must point; to the Duke, who has not been once mentioned in the negotiation. I think _he_ must have been Pitt’s reason for discarding me, and yet that does not quite solve it. _Extract of a Letter from Ditto to Ditto, Sept. 25, 1755._ ... If you have not yet received my letter by last Tuesday’s post, it is not now worth reading. The matter is settled, and I am to be Secretary of State in the room of Sir Thomas Robinson, and in order to have the conduct of the House of Commons. C. (_Vide page 234._) [As our author derived his information on Northern and German Courts, especially Dresden, from Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, of whose letters from abroad he speaks (p. 205, vol. i.) in terms of such high commendation, and has already given extracts in the Appendix, vol. i., a short account of that lively writer’s Embassies, taken in substance from the same author’s MS. notes, together with a farther specimen of his correspondence concerning the Court of Saxony, will not be misplaced here; at least they will afford some entertainment to the reader.]