Wilkes, in the meantime, had gone to France to visit his daughter. There he received a challenge from one Forbes[348] an outlawed Scot in the French service, who could not digest the torrents of abuse which Wilkes had poured forth on his country. Alexander Murray, brother of Lord Elibank, and an outlaw too since the Westminster Election in 1751,[349] was the go-between in this quarrel, not without being suspected of inflaming it. Wilkes accepted the defiance for the next morning, but, when Forbes called on him, affected to laugh it off, saying, he was bound to fight Lord Egremont by preference before any other man. When that excuse availed not, he asked Forbes if he had provided a second; to which the other replied, such preparation was too dangerous in France. Altercations thickened, till at last the lieutenant de police was sent for, who obliged Forbes to promise not to proceed any farther. Had the duel with Lord Egremont been seriously intended, from that too would Wilkes have been delivered; for the earl, who was of a sanguine and apoplectic complexion, of which he had felt attacks, and though warned in vain to moderate the indulgence of his palate, to which he was ungovernably prone, died suddenly on the 21st of August, and put an end to a triumvirate which had involved their master and themselves in such a labyrinth of knotty and undecided questions. CHAPTER XX. Perplexity of the “Triumvirate.”--Lord Bute’s unsuccessful Manœuvres.--Lord Halifax and Mr. Grenville remonstrate with the King.--The Duchess of Bedford’s animosity to Lord Bute and the Princess of Wales.--Schemes of the Bedford Faction.--Mr. Pitt sent for by the King.--Negotiation with the former.--The Treaty broken off.--Causes of the Rupture.--The King’s Account of his Interviews with Pitt.--Pitt’s Proposals.--Proscriptions.-- Machinations of Lord Sandwich.--Ministerial Arrangements.-- Grenville’s Power.--Lord Temple’s Conduct.