Note 2 — HONOURS FOR MR. PITT (1761). Source.—Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Vol. ii., pp. 146 et seq. London, 1838-1840.

On the evening of this day Bubb Doddington (now Lord Melcombe) wrote thus to Lord Bute: “I sincerely wish your lordship joy of being delivered of a most impracticable colleague, his Majesty of a most imperious servant, and the country of a most dangerous minister. I am told that the people are sullen about it. Be that as it may, I think it my duty to my gracious Sovereign and my generous friend to say, that, if I can be of any service to either in anything that is most dangerous and difficult, I am most ready to undertake it.” In his answer of the following day, Lord Bute says: “Whatever private motives of uneasiness I might have in the late administration, I am far from thinking the dissolution of it favourable, in the present minute, to the King’s affairs. I shall not fail to acquaint the King with the very frank and generous declaration you made. Indeed, my good lord, my situation, at all times perilous, is become much more so; for I am no stranger to the language held in this great city: ‘Our darling’s resignation is owing to Lord Bute, and he must answer for all the consequences;’—which is, in other words, for the miscarriages of another system, that Pitt himself would not have prevented. All this keeps up my attention, and strengthens my mind, without alarming it; not only whispers caution, but steadiness and resolution; wherein my noble friend’s assistance will prove a real comfort to me.”