On the 2nd of March Lord Chatham arrived from Marlborough. Any man in his senses would have concluded, that, having felt the disastrous effects of his inactivity, he had hurried to town to endeavour to retrieve his influence in the House of Commons, and to apply himself to more vigorous measures. On the contrary, as if there was dignity in folly, and magic in perverseness, as if the way to govern mankind was to insult their understandings, his conduct was the very reverse of common sense, and made up of so much undissembled scorn of all the world, that his friends could not palliate it, nor his enemies be blamed for resolving it into madness. He was scarce lame, and even paraded through the town in a morning to take the air. Yet he neither went to the King, nor suffered the Ministers to come to him.[331] After much importunity he saw the Duke of Grafton once or twice, but would not permit the other Councillors to wait even in his antichamber. A Cabinet Council being summoned on the East Indian affair, nobody could prevail on Lord Chatham to let it be held at his house. His few intimates ascribed this ill-humour to his dissatisfaction with Conway and Townshend, who had declared they thought the Company had a right to their conquests. Lord Chatham vowed he would risk his situation on that question, and would defend it himself in the House of Lords. Townshend went so far as to be unwilling to dispute their right. Conway was inclined to let them apprehend its being questioned, that they might offer more largely to the necessities of Government. Lord Chatham, who, when obstinacy failed, knew not how to make himself obeyed, privately waived the point of right, but insisted on its not being told that he had relaxed. His menaces, however, had so much effect, that the directors offered to give up half their revenues and half their trade, _with the right annexed_. These last words were differently interpreted: some of the Cabinet thinking the directors meant to waive, others to save their right; and in that dilemma the Cabinet broke up in confusion, though it was easy to have asked the directors the meaning of their own words. Conway declared he would not undertake the conduct of that business, but would cede his province to any man that would; and the King telling Lord Hertford that he (his Majesty) must support Lord Chatham, Conway and Townshend declined going to the meetings that were held at the Duke of Grafton’s on that subject. They were private meetings of some of the leading men in the House of Commons, the stiffness of Lord Chatham having reduced him to seek for any men in the subordinate class who would carry on the business--a disgrace which, at the moment of having lost a capital question, seemed sufficient to blast his whole Administration. Conway had in vain pressed for these meetings for four months together. Now, when the question was within two days of appearing in the House, no determination was taken, and