In this uncommunicated state the dictator had left the business, and the Parliament had met without his assigning their departments in the action to any of the Ministers--not to the Duke of Grafton himself, the head of the Treasury, and who, though as a peer not qualified to conduct the plan through the House of Commons, yet was the person who must superintend and transact an affair which, whether in a greater or less proportion, was ultimately to centre in the revenue, had he disclosed how far he meant or wished to go. In the mean time had intervened the episode of Lord Edgcumbe; and Conway, the acting Minister in the House of Commons, had been disgusted. Never officious to thrust himself into business, and now indisposed to the great projector, he neither was ambitious to receive orders, nor forward to apply for them at the fountain-head; yet being well disposed to the plan, and, at least, too much versed in business, not to know the propriety of digesting so very daring a scheme before it was thrown into the House of Commons, where, had there been no men of ill intention, still a rude design must create confusion and impediment, he had pressed earnestly to have it well considered in Council, before it was introduced into Parliament. His prayers and remonstrances were vain; and though Lord Chatham depended on him for the conduct of the Ministerial part, he would not deign to impart a ray of instruction. There was another man still more necessary perhaps to the progress of a scheme of a monied nature; and that was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend. But him Lord Chatham neither trusted nor considered but as the mere slave of his orders. Be it so: yet could it be imagined that instead of employing either Secretary of State or Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister should have consigned his darling scheme to a private man--and that man the most absurd, and of as little weight as any member in the House of Commons? So the fact was, and so must I recount it. But ere the project was opened, it was known that the versatile genius of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was playing tricks and endeavouring to obstruct the measure yet in embryo. Conway, zealous for extracting some national advantage from the prosperous state of the Company’s affairs, laboured to surmount Townshend’s objections, and assembled a council at his own house to debate the point with him. Lord Chatham flamed at the notice of Townshend’s adverse conduct, and vowed himself would resign, or Townshend should be turned out; and he resented Conway’s interfering to serve him without his direction. Yet, ere the business came to any conclusion, Townshend exhibited many doubts; though for once his inconsistencies and treachery were not solely dictated by unsteadiness. It became known that his frequent fluctuations in the course of the affair were so many wiles to raise or lower the stock in which he was dealing, and which the Chancellor of the Exchequer could supremely