he desired no place, and liked very well to act with a few. “And how long,” said I, “do you think they will let a few only act? What are we doing? or why? is it not for our country? If we can serve it better by silence than by speaking, is not it preferable?” He said he preferred his character and the Cavendishes to his country. “Then,” said I, “I would never have embarked with any of you, had I known you only acted for the applause of the mob.” However, I made no impression on him but by one argument; and by that not enough. I said, “If you force a division against the Princess, you will have very few with you. Those few will hate you for it. Most of your friends will leave you, as they did last night, by which you discovered to the Ministers your weakness, and the divisions in your party. If you force most of your friends to abandon you, as most men will, by so ungentleman-like, outrageous, provoking, and unjustifiable an act, as stigmatizing the King’s mother, for which you cannot give a plausible, and dare not give the true reason,--(for will any of you venture to allege what none of you can prove, her intrigue with Lord Bute?)--you demolish the party at once. Those of you who shall vote against the Princess will abuse those who vote for her, as influenced by mercenary views; and thus, when you have once made them desperate, and shall have forced them to have merit with her, they will of course adhere to her whom they have been courting. I have divided the Ministry by suggesting to the Duke of Richmond to name the Princess: you are going to give the Ministers an opportunity of recovering the ground they have lost, by defending her against you.” “Why,” said Mr. Conway, “if the Ministers should break, to which division would you go?” “Certainly,” said I, “to Lord Bute and Mr. Pitt, rather than to the Bedfords.” He declared he should prefer the latter. In short, we did not agree at all; though he said all he could to soften me, and expressed the greatest concern at differing with me: but it was so material not to suffer Lord John’s inexperience and folly to govern the party, that I determined to make my stand there; for I saw that young man’s rashness was capable of over-turning in an instant all I had been planning for six months. I first had tried to form a party to overthrow the Administration, Bute, Grenville, Bedfords, and all. When I found the Opposition too weak and too foolish to compass that, I turned to the next best thing, dividing Bute and the Ministers. In that I succeeded; and then saw all my schemes and labours on the point of being blasted by a silly boy, who, when all I had foreseen happened, had not a word to say for himself. Thus did I perceive _how vexatious it was to live with many fools and not with enough_! I did not forget the lesson: it took deep root, and was the first inducement to me to form a resolution of quitting politics. Other events contributed; and I was wise enough not to throw away those fruits of