Fox accepted the advice tendered him by his friend, and falling back on the plan of offering to resign at once and stay in the House of Commons, sought an interview with Bute which proved but little satisfactory, for a few days afterwards he writes to him, renewing the proposal contained in his letter to Mr. Nicholl, in these words:[1]
"I never went out of your room dissatisfied till Friday.[2] I did so then, and have been fluctuating ever since in the consideration of what conduct I have left me to pursue. I will begin with that frankness which I think your Lordship has been wanting in towards me. You have seen me often since you had been informed that I intended to resign my place at the end of this Session, which I vow to God I never thought of doing, and your Lordship has never mentioned it to me or given me the most distant hint. Surely, my Lord, I had a right to be talked to upon my own business before the King had formed a notion of my intention. You heard it from several other friends of mine as well as from Lord Shelburne. It would have been kind to have mentioned it to me the next visit after you first heard of it. You would then have known how much you was misinformed. I don't desire to know who these friends of mine were, but not having the same opinion of them as Lord Shelburne, I should think they had some bad design in it. There are very few who, collecting my opinion, could tell it your Lordship on a point that regarded me so nearly without letting me know it, that I should think honest men and wishing me extremely well. I do think so of Lord Shelburne. He imagined his judgment much better than mine, and that my notions of honor (as different from his, as commonsense is from romance) must at last be got the better of; and in this warmth could think he was serving me by giving his opinion for mine, without my leave or knowledge before or afterwards. This want of knowledge of the world, or the common rules among men, would have been corrected had your Lordship communicated to me what I had not the least idea of till Friday; viz. that the
