Note J — LETTER

10. The changes here censured had taken place about three months before. The office of Foreign Secretary for the Southern Department was made vacant by the resignation of Lord Shelburne.[3] Lord Rochford, who had been minister to France, and thus made "acquainted with the temper of the Southern courts," ought naturally to have been appointed (if at all) to this department. Instead of this he was made Secretary of the Northern Department, for which he had been prepared by no previous knowledge; while Lord Weymouth was taken from the Home Department, and placed in the Southern, being "equally qualified" [that is, wholly unqualified by any "experience whatsoever"] for either department in the Foreign office, whether Southern or Northern.