Note 305 — Chapter XVII
Reading edition
The best defence of his resignation is given by Mr. Adolphus, vol. i. p. 115, from private information. It by no means exculpates him from the charges in the text, and is also at variance with the statement of a writer who lived on terms of the closest intimacy with the Bute family. M. Dutens says, “That he resigned, because he was disgusted with the bustle of business, indignant at the behaviour of those who endeavoured to obtain his favour, at the baseness of some, and the duplicity of others.”—Memoirs of a Traveller now in Retirement, vol. iv. p. 181. This corresponds with all that has transpired of Lord Bute’s character.—E.