[22]
bind a statesman; and the less temptation to infidelity the greater virtue in the villainy. I scarcely need remark to you that I mean the Duke of Grafton. He who grew into power tinder the patronage of Lord Chatham, and deserted him the next day. He who cordially united with Lord Rockingham, and abandoned him immediately after. He who by turns sought the favour, and equally abused the confidence of Lord Bute and the Duke of Bedford. He who made Lord North a chancellor of the the Exchequer, and after plunging him into disasters, left him to shift for himself,—even as he betrayed his Sovereign, In the most distracted hour of his reign. If sympathy of soul can arise from similitude of nature, the Duke of Grafton and Lord-Shelburne must be connected. Both have given a thousand proofs that they can never differ but in the degrees of deception. Principle cannot separate them, and if in the variety of ministerial virtues which mark the character of the Duke of Grafton, any one part could, more effectually than another, link himself and the Earl of Shelburne close together, it is certainly this—that the Duke, in the affair of Corsica with Choiseul, made the Earl of Shelburne the most contemptible dupe that ever signed a King's dispatch as a secretary of state.
