“The Indian transaction was also found fault with. His Lordship, besides, observed, that their general courts were got upon the worst of footings, exercising the conduct of little parliaments; that he wondered that the inspectors were not sent to three different places. There were also other observations on the head of India. His Lordship added, that he doubted whether his health would ever again allow him to attend Parliament; but if it did, and if he should give his dissent to any measure, that his Majesty would be indulgent enough to believe that it would not arise from any personal consideration; for, he protested to his Majesty, as Lord Chatham, he had not a tittle to find fault with in the conduct of any one individual, and that his Majesty might be assured that it could not arise from ambition, as he felt so strongly the weak state from which he was recovering, and which might daily threaten him, that office, therefore, of any sort could no longer be desireable to him.” * * * * * From this time until the meeting of Parliament I saw no more of Lord Chatham. His suspicions of me were probably too firmly rooted to be removed by Lord Camden’s assurances that they were groundless. His Lordship desired no further interview; and I had such a sense of the unkindness and injustice of such a treatment, when I thought that I had a claim for the most friendly, that I was not disposed to seek any explanation. Lord Camden and myself, unfortunately, saw less of each other than in other summers; both of us profiting, by a retreat into the country, of the leisure which a recess from Chancery and Treasury business offered. The affair of petitions was becoming every day more serious, increasing in number; the consequences were ever uppermost in my thoughts. Mr. Stonehewer and a few friends were with us at Wakefield Lodge; with them I conversed much on all that I foresaw of mischief from these intemperate petitions, and I shall lay before you the copy, which I have in Mr. Stonehewer’s hand-writing, of the letter which I wrote, wishing to consult Lord Camden, the lawyer as well as the friend from whom I might expect the soundest advice, well convinced that his to me came on all occasions from the sincerity of his heart. “Wakefield Lodge, August 29, 1769. “MY DEAR LORD, “I have made use of the leisure which the Treasury holidays have given me to revolve over here in quiet such points as our duty seemed to call upon us, as public men, most to give attention to. The petitions, I must say, have greatly engrossed and puzzled my thoughts; indeed, the conduct on this strange occasion, which has been stirred up by the envy and malice of Opposition, without a single thought on its pernicious consequences hereafter, appears to me to be most delicate indeed.