Such venom was not likely to bias Newcastle to Mr. Fox. It was the King’s wish that they should unite; and many messages passed; but in vain. It was pretended that the Duke had promised his Majesty never to join Pitt, unless by command. The King said, he would abdicate sooner than give him such command; and complaining bitterly of his ingratitude; imputing to him a refusal made by Lord Duplin to be made Chancellor of the Exchequer; and his leaving his Majesty at the mercy of Mr. Pitt, by not uniting with Fox. His Grace, who scrupled not to wipe out one imputation by deserving another, wrote a penitential letter, and sent it by Munchausen, lamenting his disgrace, after so many years of service, and hoping, when the inquiries should be at an end, that he might again have admission to the closet, where he should be ready to protest and promise whatever his Majesty expected. He had scarcely written this letter, but he laboured anew to obstruct the junction of his friends with Fox. In general, they outran his intentions: Lord Lincoln hated Fox; the little tools feared him. Murray and Hume Campbell and Arundel sincerely wished to bring them together. The Princess, who looked on any settlement in which Fox was concerned as an establishment of the Duke’s power, frowned on the new revolution; and though Fox made very humble overtures to Leicester House, they were flatly rejected. Pitt grew less and less austere to Newcastle; and now, when this vain man was arrived at the period of detected misgovernment with regard to his country, of ingratitude and disobedience to his master, of caprice, duplicity, and irresolution towards all factions; when under prosecution by Parliament, and frowned on by his sovereign; at this instant were the hopes, the vows of all men addressed to him! The outcast of the Ministry, the scorn of the Court, the jest of the people, was the arbiter of Britain: her King, her patriots, her factions, waited to see into what scale he would fling his influence!