Peace has been made. Pitt continues supporting Ministers; the Grenvilles are in open opposition.[177] A negotiation has just broken off between Grey and Ld. St. Vincent, the purport of which was to bring in G., the Duke of Bedford, and Ld. Moira into the Cabinet. Grey gave up Fox with a quibble; the others excluded Sheridan, Lauderdale, and Lansdown; insisted upon maintaining Ld. Clare in Ireland, and Ld. Hardwick. G. said, if he is kept, we must have a Ld.-Lt.; they would not agree. Ld. Moira objected to D. of Portland; King could not be made to give him up. The arrangement, when they came to terms, could not take place. G. used the D. of B.’s name further than he was warranted, I suspect. It is all over now; only Tierney remains with Addington. Fox was given up shamefully. For if ever one man was bound to follow the bad and good fortunes of another, it is surely Grey, whose vehement and rash judgment drove the other out of the high post he occupied; and yet he is the first to negotiate and give him up. Fie, fie, for such patriots, when they are not true to their friends as private men. However, Grey is perfectly honest, only violent and irresolute, and easily swayed by sudden impressions. Pelham[178] is Secretary of State for the Home Department: he is married to Lady Mary Osborne, the Duke of Leeds’s sister, an amiable person, who will no doubt make him happy. _H. House, 18th Nov., 1801._--General Fitzpatrick told us yesterday of a curious circumstance about a copy of Gibbon’s works, which belonged to Mr. Fox. As a marginal note Fox wrote in the beginning of the book, ‘This gentleman, on such a day, told me that the country could not be saved unless the heads of three or four of the Cabinet Ministers were laid upon the table of the House of Commons. On such a day, about a week after he delivered that opinion, he was made a Lord of Trade by those very men.’ Topham Beauclerk, who was a _friend_ of Gibbon’s, offered him anything for the book, saying: ‘I must soon die, and my books will be sold after my death by public auction, so Gibbon’s shabbiness will be notorious and perpetuated.’ Some time after, an execution was put into Mr. Fox’s house, and his goods were seized, but, having been assigned over to Mr. Moore, their seizure was resisted. There was, in consequence, a trial in the Court of King’s Bench, and one of the opposite counsel handed up this very book to Ld. Loughborough, to prove to him that Mr. Fox must have considered the book as his own, and not as Mr. Moore’s, by the marginal notes, and that if necessary they should be read in court. Ld. L., who was a more cautious friend than Topham Beauclerk, gave the book back, saying it was unnecessary to read them to the court. Ye General was a party to the bond, and was in court himself when this passed. * * * * *