Note 93 — Chapter XVI

"As Lord Bute gradually retired into the shade of private life, and became insensibly forgotten, Mr. Jenkinson proportionately came forward in his own person, and on his own proper merits. Throughout the whole period of Lord North's administration from 1770 down to 1782, his intercourse with the King, and even his influence over the royal mind, were assumed to be constant, progressive, commensurate with, and sometimes paramount to, or subversive of, the measures proposed by the First Minister. However difficult of proof such assertions were, and however contrary, as I believe, they were to truth or fact, they did not operate the less forcibly on the bulk of the nation, and were not less eagerly credited by men of all parties. No denials on the part of persons in power could erase the impression, which newspapers and pamphlets industriously circulated throughout the kingdom."—Wraxall: Historical Memoirs of My Own Times.