Slight as our hopes were now of working any good on the party, Mr. Conway was urgent with Pitt to show them some civilities, and represented how much they were exasperated by his obstinate silence and coldness. Pitt said, he heard so, but could not believe it: all would come right again. Conway implored him to speak to them, or to empower him to soothe them. He was inflexible: said, the King did all. When done, he would go to Lord Rockingham; but would promise no further. Conway spoke of the Duke of Portland,[272] who, as nearly related to the Cavendishes, must be disposed to quit, and therefore required the more attention; and, as the last argument, stated the cruelty of his own situation. Nothing could move him. He replied coldly, If Portland should resign, he would be replaced by a man taken from no exceptionable quarter. This looked like no unwillingness to disgust; and though this absurdity of trampling on the greatest subjects, and even on those men on whose support he must lean, or leave himself at the mercy of the Court, was not abhorrent from Pitt’s character notwithstanding the inconveniencies it had often drawn on him; yet I have suspected that at the time in question, he might have studied or received intimations of the King’s inclination to get rid of some particular men. The Cavendishes had long been particularly obnoxious, had personally affronted the Princess on the Bill of Regency, and had been the chief obstructors of any approach to Lord Bute. The Duke of Portland, though his mother[273] was the intimate friend of Lady Bute, had wantonly piqued himself on enmity to the Favourite; and by local and county[274] circumstances was the declared rival in the North of Sir James Lowther,[275] the Favourite’s son-in-law. To these motives was added in Pitt a desire of making room for Lord Bristol; and an incidental offer to himself of support from another quarter contributed to augment his indifference to the consequences of the party’s anger.