Note 319 — Chapter XIX

The fact, as I have since learnt from Rigby’s own account, who bragged of it long afterwards, stood thus. He and Wedderburne went to Grenville at Wootton, before the Parliament met, and proposed to him to try to take off two shillings in the pound. Grenville, who not only knew the impossibility of sparing so much, and the mischief the country would suffer, but flattered himself he should soon be Minister again, vehemently opposed the plan; however, as they persisted, he compromised the matter, by making them promise they would confine the reduction to one shilling, for which he not only voted but spoke ably, though so much against his opinion. Perhaps he would have done less hurt, if he had joined in the attempt to reduce it two shillings in the pound, which would have appeared so capital a mischief, that it might possibly have miscarried; and, indeed, supposing a possibility of so much conscientiousness in that or the next Parliament, is paying a compliment to them that may be thought to be overstrained.