waiting the hour of appointment, and in the country with his hat and stick in his hand.
"It was a long time before I could learn from Mr. Pitt his opinion of Mr. Fox's private character. He then told me that he thought him the blackest man that ever lived; that he was a great dealer in anonymous letters to set people at variance with each other, and suggest to each such opinions as he thought convenient; that he carried it so far, that to his latter end, whenever he went about purchasing an estate, he had recourse to methods of undervaluing it, and deterring others from bidding for it; that he dealt much also in newspaper abuse, though he was continually complaining and crying about it; that he educated his children without the least regard to morality, and with such extravagant vulgar indulgence, that the great change which has taken place among our youth has been dated from the time of his son's going to Eton. His letters to his sons still exist in the family, inciting them to extravagance.
"It will easily be imagined that, considering their respective characters, the union between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox could not be very sincere, especially as Mr. Fox had a sort of precedence of him, by going into. the King as Secretary at War, and for the moment got himself much looked up to by means of the Duke of Cumberland, and a variety of connections, which he was daily enlisting, and more particularly by the opposition which he made to the Marriage Bill proposed by Lord Hardwicke.[1] Though he did not succeed against it, he gained himself great reputation, and some degree of popularity by the spirit and wit with which he opposed and attacked Lord Hardwicke. Finally, he accepted the seals in 1755.
"Such were the dramatis personæ previous to the war, which commenced by Captain Howe's capture of two French men-of-war in that year.
"The war was contrived by the Duke of Cumberland underhand. Mr. Fox was his instrument. Mr. Pitt was not sorry for it as things stood. The Duke of Newcastle
- ↑ In 1753. See Lord Stanhope's History, iv. ch. xxxi.
