therefore urged him to stay away on Elections, and take no active part in Parliament. This was particularly adapted to my views of preventing a hearty junction of that party with Grenville. Should Conway sit silent, whom Grenville always selected to attack on American affairs, I knew his rage on the Stamp Act would hurry him into the indiscretion of falling foul of that part of his allies who had contributed to its repeal--and indeed Grenville seldom failed of confirming my conjecture, but there is little merit in such sagacity. _The passions of men_, to those who are much conversant with them, _write a very legible hand_. I proved as little mistaken in what I foretold of the treachery of the Bedfords to Grafton. The consequences to him will show the necessity of these details. No account of _public_ measures would explain his conduct. It must be remembered that his mind, as Lord Camden said of it, was capable of embracing but one single object. The machine of Government was too complicated to occupy it at all. The Bedfords were so much the reverse, that when they had no point of cunning to carry, they still thought it cunning to do something, and thus often made their situation worse. At this moment to disgust Shelburne, whom they had not yet removed, they prevailed on the King to name Mr. Lynch,[130] one of their friends, Minister to Turin. Though this was in Shelburne’s department, he would not resent it openly. But though the King would not comply with the Faction, they had got such entire possession of the Duke of Grafton, that Shelburne’s removal[131] was determined, and at last extorted from his Majesty--a measure that produced an event of much greater _éclat_, and little apprehended. Lord Chatham, who had remained in voluntary confinement, unheard of and unthought of, scarce any man knowing the situation of his mind or intellects, offended at the meditated disgrace of Shelburne, or thinking the reigning confusions a proper opportunity of regaining his popularity and importance, wrote a letter to the King on the 12th of October, couched in terms of deplorable petition, begging mercy, begging leave to resign, begging to be delivered from his misery. His health, he said, would not permit him to serve, and he feared it never would. The King, with his own hand, answered his letter, and entreated him to keep his place.[132]