was the least odious of the Ministers with whom he acted; and though servile in obedience to a Prince who meant so ill, there was reason to think that Lord North neither stimulated, nor was more than the passive instrument of the black designs of the Court. The other chief Ministers were, Lord Dartmouth, Lord Suffolk, Lord Gower, Lord Weymouth, Lord Sandwich, Lord Rochford, and afterwards Lord George Germaine, besides two, who, though not ostensible Ministers, had more weight with the King than Lord North himself. Of those, Lord Dartmouth only stayed long enough to prostitute his character and authenticate his hypocrisy. The Chancellor, Bathurst, was too poor a creature to have any weight; and Lord Rochford, though more employed, had still less claim to sense, and none at all to knowledge. Lord Suffolk’s soul was harrowed by ambition, and as he had not parts to gratify it, he sought the despotism of the Crown as means of gratifying his own pride. Lord Gower, Lord Weymouth, and Lord Sandwich, all had parts, and never used them to any good or creditable purpose. The first had spirit enough to attempt any crime; the other two, though notorious cowards, were equally fitted to serve a prosperous Court; and Sandwich had a predilection to guilt if he could couple it with artifice and treachery. Lord George Germaine was proud, haughty, and desperate. Success by any means was necessary to restore his credit; and a Court that was capable of adopting him, was sure he would not boggle at anything to maintain himself. Lord Mansfield was by birth, education, principle, cowardice, and revenge for the public odium, a bigot to tyranny. He would have sacrificed the universe, and everything but his personal safety, to overturn the constitution and freedom of England. But in the blindness of that rage, and from not daring to open the attempt where the danger to himself would have been imminent, he was the author of the liberty of America, and the instrument of Providence to bless a whole continent, whose destruction he sought to involve with that of his country. Jenkinson had, and deserved, no marked character; he was the tool of the King and Lord Mansfield, and had just parts enough to make his servility inexcusable. Wedderburne, Sir Gilbert Elliot, and Dyson were also much implicated in the following counsels; but the two latter died early in the American war. Thurlow, Rigby, and Ellis bore their part in kindling that fatal flame--but I am anticipating what did not appear till three or four years later--though it was both necessary to specify the chief incendiaries of the ensuing calamities, and to account for Lord North’s escaping capital hatred for seeming to bear so capital a part in so criminal a scene; but as not one of the set I have recapitulated had recommended himself to the favour of the public, Lord North, by his good humour, easily drew most good will to himself, and did not, like most of the rest, push it from him by insolence and avowed profligacy.