sidered; first despatch them: the others would follow. I said grievances should be considered according to the time they happened; that as to their greatness, settle the small ones first that could be settled, leaving the difficult to stay to the last, and not to be soured with little jealousies. I found he did not like such close quarters, and wanted to get off the conversation when it got so close, but I desired he would not forget what I said, and would remember that the delay did not lie with me."
A final crisis at length arrived to end the distractions and divisions of the Ministry. In the midst of his schemes, and when apparently near the fulfilment of all his hopes, Charles Townshend suddenly died of a putrid fever on September 4th, 1767. Shortly after Northington resigned, nor did the changes in the Ministry rendered necessary by these events end there.
"I cannot be so near Hayes," wrote Shelburne to Lady Chatham, "without communicating to your Ladyship from London an event of a personal nature. It is General Conway's resigning the emoluments of his office as Secretary of State, on account of certain delicacies he felt for what passed last summer in regard to Lord Rockingham.[1] It has been some time in agitation, but was not communicated to me, till General Conway mentioned it, at the moment the Duke of Grafton was gone in to the King to acquaint His Majesty finally of his resolution. I must own, when it was first told me, I felt it an agreeable opening for me to do the same; and that I might by that means be freed from various delicacies, and some uneasiness in a situation in which Lord Chatham placed me, and which without his approbation I did not think myself at liberty to desert. Upon weighing it, however, I must own I saw as many objections, and what concluded me to defer such a step was, that I thought it wrong to do a thing which, however
- ↑ It appears that Conway, having now been appointed Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, which entitled him to the pay of that office, and to that of a Colonel on active service, was unwilling to be in the receipt of these emoluments and of the salary of the Secretary of State as well, fearing that the Rockingham party, who were eager to detach him from his present connection, would say he kept his office for the sake of money.
