named for considering the state of the nation; but when the day came, Lord Rockingham moved to adjourn the debate for ten days, which was allowed. The motive was, Lord Chatham’s having the gout in his hand. This was the more indecent and absurd in that some of the Opposition had the very day before protested against adjourning that very question for a week till a new Chancellor could be chosen. Lord Sandwich ridiculed their not being able to go on without Lord Chatham--which, he might have added, was saying that _the little finger of Lord Chatham was heavier than the loins of the law_. A more important officer was wanting than even a Chancellor. Mr. Conway had sent for me on the evening of the 22nd. It was to tell me that the Duke of Grafton had announced to him in the morning that he could not get a Chancellor; that his head turned, that he could not bear it, that he was determined to resign: that he should not have one great lawyer in the Cabinet to advise him; that Lord Mansfield had been pressed to accept it and had refused: that he could not fill up the empty places, so many persons had resigned. The posts of Chancellor, Privy Seal, Master of the Ordnance, Attorney and Solicitor to the Queen, a Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and two Lords of the Bedchamber, were vacant; that he had told his resolution to nobody but to Lord Gower, Lord Weymouth, and Lord Jersey, and to his own two Secretaries, Stonhewer and Bradshaw. The two last, the Duke said, approved his resolution; Lord Jersey did not. Lord Gower and Lord Weymouth had offered to stand against the storm with him, if he would venture. Conway had represented against the confusion into which his Grace would throw the kingdom--but in vain: he would hear no reasons. From the Duke Conway had gone to the King, whom he found in the utmost distress (or at least pretending to be), and persuaded that the Duke was inflexible, who, his Majesty said, had told him, his head turned. Conway hinted at trying Lord Rockingham, but the King said, he knew the disposition of Lord Rockingham and his friends, and would not hear of them. He was as thoroughly averse to Lord Chatham: both, he said, were engaged to dissolve the Parliament; but he would abdicate his Crown sooner. “Yes,” continued the King, laying his hand on his sword, “I will have recourse to this sooner than yield to a dissolution.” He talked of trying to go on, if Lord North would put himself at the head of the Treasury. Conway left me to go again to the Duke, to whom he hinted at the want of spirit in not standing his ground; but the resolution was too strongly taken, and he was deaf to all remonstrances.