The night I arrived, the Duke of Richmond came to me to intreat Mr. Conway to go on without Mr. Pitt, who had offended both the Administration and the City: and he told me there were thoughts of softening towards Lord Bute, and of suffering his brother Mackenzie to have a place. The plan of diverting the enmity of Lord Bute was not at all repugnant to my opinion. From the moment the Administration had come into place, I had seen the necessity of it. Justice demanded the restitution of Mackenzie. The Ministers could neither destroy the King’s confidence in his Favourite, nor get rid of him by force. He was in no employment, nor had they any proofs in their hands that would authorize impeachment. Ungrounded impeachment would have purged him--perhaps have made him popular. Two options only remained: to quit their places, if they thought it for their honour not to temporize with Bute; or to temporize with him. Why I preferred the latter, these were the reasons: if those Ministers surrendered their power, where was there another set of honest men to replace them? They could mitigate, perhaps ward off, the evil designs of the Court, while the executive part of government remained in their hands. If they resigned it, it must fall into the hands of Mr. Pitt, who must either take his obnoxious brothers Temple and Grenville, or lean entirely on Lord Bute; and with all my admiration of Mr. Pitt, I doubted whether he would not make too complacent a Minister to prerogative; or Grenville and the Bedfords (the worst of all) must resume their power, and they had smarted too severely for their attacks on the Favourite, not to have profited of that experience. The Nation had once escaped from that coalition. Any system was preferable to the return of it.