nothing disagreeable could have happened had I been trusted with my own affair. He ought to know what I take ill. That he should for months together know that the Minister and the King imagined I intended to resign and never tell me that they thought so, was not fair, and has been fatal, unless to a man determined to leave the world it may be some advantage to be quite sick of it."[1] Bute having written to him, on the subject of the appointment of Shelburne to the Board of Trade in the new Ministerial arrangements, saying that "it was a measure that he would not hear of being altered," Fox replied: "With regard to Lord Shelburne, as upon recollection I am more and more hurt with his conduct towards me, I think it quite unnecessary to say anything else, than that I am very glad he has behaved in a way so agreeable to your Lordship." The following day he again called on Bute,[2] and proposed that he should be made a Viscount as a proof of His Majesty "being more than ordinarily satisfied with him," and also "because, to those who mind precedence, it would be something that his family should stand before Pitt's in the list of Peers."[3] But this proposal did not find favour either with the King or with his Minister, for a few days after Fox began once more to suggest that he should stay in the House of Commons. This scheme, however, again proved abortive, as will be seen from the following letter written by him to Bute:
"I assure your Lordship, and will assure everybody, that in all I feel I have from you nothing to complain of, and I now write to you as my friend. I hate my situation, searching for a path that may lead me to my lost good humour and not knowing how to find it. But I must choose one, and your conversation yesterday shows me that I must not think of staying in the House of Commons without incurring the King's displeasure. It would be a great mortification to me, after I won't say sacrificing, but risking everything to please, I should be so unhappy as to
