reconcile this to myself, or stand a moment against the general opinion which must prevail that I am not let to keep the office. I shall be laughed at, and laugh myself at the pretence that I resign voluntarily what I have had no opportunity given me of even speaking about. Lord Shelburne (and perhaps others with less reason) has said I intended to resign, without telling me he intended to say so, or that he had said so. I never heard of or imagined this till Thursday, and find both Lord Bute and the King had taken it for granted. It is not only true, but I can prove it to be so, that since January last I never could intend to resign now. Let me add that, if I had intended it, Lord Bute's going would have changed my resolution. It is amazing that, in all the conversations I have had with Lord Bute, he never gave me the least hint of this supposition. It is still more so that Lord Shelburne never did till Thursday last.[1] But things being in the unexpected situation they are, what am I to do? All I can do is this—if the King and Lord Bute, keeping it the greatest secret can help the King's affairs by knowing that my office shall be resigned next Xmas, His Majesty is most welcome to it, and in that case I will not be a Peer now. If His Majesty's want of my place to give away now should be so urgent that it cannot be deferred, I must submit and beg to show that it is not voluntarily, or to be called so, my Lord, that I part with it. I can wish His Majesty's affairs well in the House of Commons to as much purpose as in the House of Lords, and my imagination is so struck that, thanking His Majesty for having satisfied all that is essential of my ambition regarding Peerage, an obligation I never will forget, I desire at all events to remain myself a Commoner."
But, after deciding on the above course with the approval of his friend Mr. Nicholl, Fox changed his mind, and in the following letter addressed to Mr. Nicholl, and returned by the latter with marginal observations, he developed another scheme:
- ↑ Compare Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., i. 258. Bute's resignation was determined upon very suddenly, and there is no reason to suppose that Shelburne had any earlier notice than Fox. See, as to Lord Bute and his retirement from office, Lord Stanhope's History of England, iv. 37.
