reference to the Falkland Islands (Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, 1894, iv. 182). Disheartened by the divided state of the opposition, Shelburne went abroad in May 1771, accompanied by his friend and political intimate, Isaac Barré [q. v.] While at Paris he made the acquaintance of the Abbé Morellet, to whom he owed his conversion to the doctrines of the economic school. Upon his return to England, he interested himself on behalf of the nonconformists in their attempt to procure exemption from subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles. He also warmly opposed the passing of the Royal Marriage Bill. During the debate on the East India Company's Regulation Bill on 17 June 1773, Shelburne became involved in a long altercation with the Duke of Richmond, ‘which lasted almost the whole of that and the two following days’ (Life, ii. 274). His speech contributed largely to the success of the bill, and ‘it was universally said that Lord Shelburne showed more knowledge in the affairs of India than all the Ministers in either House’ (Chatham Correspondence, iv. 284 n.) The differences between the two sections of the whig party were still further increased by Shelburne's support of James Townshend in opposition to Wilkes, and by his refusal to sign the memorial of the whig peers against the Irish absentee tax. On 20 Jan. 1775 he supported Chatham's motion for the withdrawal of the troops from Boston, and condemned ‘the madness, injustice, and infatuation of coercing the Americans into a blind and servile submission’ (Parl. Hist. xviii. 162–3). On 1 Feb. he both spoke and voted for Chatham's plan of conciliation (ib. xviii. 206–7, 216), and on 7 Feb. made a violent attack upon Lord Mansfield, whom he accused of being the author of the American measures passed in the previous session (ib. xviii. 275–6, 281–282, 283). At the opening of the session in October 1775 he supported Rockingham's amendment to the address, and declared that ‘an uniform lurking spirit of despotism’ had pervaded every administration with regard to their American policy (ib. xviii. 722–6). He supported the petition of the American congress (ib. xviii. 920–7), and opposed the American Prohibitory Bill as being ‘to the last degree hasty, rash, unjust, and ruinous’ (ib. xviii. 1083–7, 1095, 1097–1100). In March 1776 he spoke in favour of Grafton's proposals for conciliation with America (ib. xviii. 1270–2).
At the opening of the session on 31 Oct. 1776, Shelburne denounced the king's speech as ‘a piece of metaphysical refinement,’ and the defence set up for it as ‘nothing more than a string of sophisms, no less wretched in their texture than insolent in their tenor’ (ib. xviii. 1384–91). In April 1777 he protested strongly against the payment of the arrears of the civil list (ib. xix. 181–6). On 30 May he supported Chatham's motion for an address to the crown for putting a stop to the hostilities in America, and fiercely attacked Archbishop Markham for preaching doctrines subversive of the constitution (ib. xix. 344–7, 349–51). Shelburne's speech on this occasion was described by the younger Pitt ‘as one of the most interesting and forcible’ that he had ever heard or could even imagine (Chatham Correspondence, iv. 438). In the debate on Lord North's conciliatory bills on 5 March 1778, Shelburne declared that ‘he would never consent that America should be independent’ (Parl. Hist. xix. 850–6; see also Chatham Correspondence, iv. 480–4). During this month North attempted to persuade Chatham and Shelburne to join the government. But Shelburne quickly put an end to the negotiations by expressing his opinion that, if any arrangement was to be made with the opposition, ‘Lord Chatham must be dictator,’ and that a complete change in the administration was absolutely necessary. He took part in the adjourned debate on the state of the nation the day after Chatham had been taken ill in the house (8 April 1778), and once more impeached the conduct of the ministry which was ‘the ruin as well as the disgrace of this country’ (Parl. Hist. xix. 1032–52, 1056–8). His motion, on 13 May following, that the House of Lords should attend Chatham's funeral in Westminster Abbey was lost by a single vote (ib. xix. 1233–4). The leadership of Chatham's small band of adherents now devolved upon Shelburne, who still persevered in his opposition to Lord North. In the debate on the address on 26 Nov., he candidly asserted that ‘he would cheerfully co-operate with any set of men’ to drag the ministers from office (ib. xix. 1306–19), though in the following month he solemnly declared that ‘he never would serve with any man, be his abilities what they might, who would either maintain it was right or consent to acknowledge the independency of America’ (ib. xx. 40). In February 1779 Shelburne refused to entertain the overtures made through Weymouth for the purpose of inducing him, Grafton, and Camden to form a government; and, in order to cement the ranks of the opposition, he promised, at Grafton's request, not to contest the treasury with Rockingham in the event of the formation of a whig ministry.
