But the most absurd part of all, was Burke’s discharging Lord Bute of all present influence,--a fact not only improbable, as had lately appeared by the influence of his brother Mackenzie--by Lord North’s taking Sir James Lowther’s steward for his secretary, and by Sir James’s late hostilities to the Duke of Grafton who had but half supported him, and by his co-operation with Lord North--by another clerk, whom Jenkinson had placed in Lord North’s service, and who grew to govern him;[90] and by the homage which all succeeding ministers were obliged to pay to the Bute-standard[91], or to risk their power: but it was extremely unwise in a politic light, for while the book thus removed from the people’s attention an odious and ostensible object, it presented them with nothing but a vague idea, which it called _a Double Cabinet_. Did Burke flatter himself that the Princess was so very sentimental, as to forgive a personal attack on herself in consideration of his tenderness to her favourite? Would their tools be content to be proscribed, to save their patron’s head? And who instructed, who disciplined, Lord Bute’s creatures, but himself? If the Princess was the intermediate agent between them and the King, who conveyed his commands or their advice from her to them, and _vice versâ_, but Lord Bute, Lady Bute, or Mr. Mackenzie? The exculpation of Lord Bute was therefore silly and impotent flattery, or sillier credulity instilled into Burke by Lord Holland, who always held that language.