On the 29th the King sent a message to the Lords, desiring, instead of the four secret nominations, to have his four brothers and his uncle[95] specified in the bill; reserving only to himself the power of filling up their places if they died. This step seemed to exclude Lord Bute; but if ever he had been designed to be admitted, this measure was only a plausible evasion. Frederick, the youngest prince, was in a deep consumption. The Duke of Cumberland’s life was not less precarious; and without any such contingency, a place in the Cabinet Council would entitle the Favourite to one in the Regency. The bill was then read for the first time. It was followed by another bill sent from the other House, and brought in there by Lord John Cavendish, to oblige Peers and members of Parliament to appear to suits, and to allow suits to proceed, if such privileged persons refused to appear and make answer. This was occasioned by the indecent refusal of Lord Halifax to appear to Wilkes’s complaint. The Ministers had suffered the bill to pass the Commons, intending to have it rejected by the Lords. The Peers had read it twice, and were now going to commit it, when Lord Suffolk[96] moved to have it put off for three weeks--Lord Weymouth for two months, a method seldom used before the Committee has attempted to correct a bill. Lord Temple proposed to adjourn the consideration for a week, that their minds might not be diverted from the important consideration of the Regency-bill; but Lord Suffolk’s motion was carried by 61 to 52, though Lord Mansfield and Lord Bute voted _for_ the bill. This was a more explicit declaration of hostilities than the Favourite had yet attempted; at least it was paying court to the Opposition, and canvassing for their support to the Regency-bill. Still so great was the confidence of the Ministers in their own strength, or their want of judgment so capital, that they lost the moment of ruining the Favourite, and of establishing themselves at his expense. Had they peremptorily refused to carry the Regency-bill through, or had they resigned their places, pleading their disapprobation of it, the whole odium had fallen on Lord Bute; and as they would have been joined by the Opposition in that clamour, the Court must have yielded to any terms they had thought fit to impose. Instead of such strenuous conduct, they heaped nothing but disgrace and mortification on their own heads. The Court obtained its bill, however modified, but was equally offended at the Ministers. The nation beheld them with contempt, while they promoted obstruction to a bill, which they confessed they disapproved, and yet submitted to support. They flattered without humouring, impeded without preventing, and offended without hurting. This timid and double conduct they changed into open treachery and provoking insolence, when the moment was come in which they ought to have studied nothing but reconciliation.