nuance, would have been necessary. They therefore determined to bring into Parliament a Bill, enabling the King to appoint a Regent by his will. But Mr. Grenville did not choose that the Princess Dowager of Wales should be the Regent; and he probably thought that the Princess Dowager would be the person whom the King would be most disposed to select for during the Princess Dowager's life, the Queen does not appear to have had much influence over the King. He therefore suggested to the King, that his power of appointment must be confined to the Queen, and the descendants of George II. The King resisted this, as he saw that by such a limitation he should be precluded from nominating the Princess Dowager. Mr. Grenville persevered; telling the King, that he could not undertake to carry the Bill through the House of Commons, except His Majesty's power were thus limited. The King at length yielded, and as the Bill was already in the House of Lords, he consented that the Earl of Halifax, Secretary of State, should be sent down to the House of Lords with a message to the Earl of Northington, at that time Chancel

lor, signifying that it was the King's pleasure that his power of appointment should be confined to the Queen, and the descendants of George II. I have been told, and from good authority, that the Earl of Northington replied, "Your Lordship astonishes me; I should not have given credit to such a message if it had not been brought to me by one of His Majesty's Secretaries of State." But the Bill was framed agreeably to this message, and sent down in that shape to the House of Commons. After the Bill had thus passed the Lords, the Earl of Northington waited on the King to inform him what had been done; adding, that in obedience to the message which he had received through the Earl of Halifax, His Majesty would not have the power of appointing the Princess Dowager of Wales. The King replied," Mr. Grenville tells me, that if my power of appointment had been extended to the Princess Dowager, he could not have undertaken to carry the Bill through the House of Commons."-"Would your Majesty have wished to have had the power of appointing the Princess Dowager?" -"Most certainly; provided the introduc

gave

tion of such a power would not have provoked a debate painful to the Princess Dowager herself." The Earl of Northington said no more; but on his retirement from the King's closet, sent for Mr. John Morton, Member for Abingdon. To Mr. Morton he these instructions: "When the Bill in your House is in a Committee, jump up, and move to insert the name of the Princess Dowager of Wales, and in the mean time keep the design to yourself." Mr. Morton followed the Earl of Northington's directions. The Opposition, not expecting such an amendment, was not prepared to oppose it. It would have been indecent in the Ministers to have opposed it, and the amendment was adopted without one dissenting voice. Mr. Morton was an intimate friend of my father, and related this anecdote to him. (Note 3.)

It will easily be supposed, that the Princess Dowager was highly indignant at the affront which Mr. Grenville had attempted to put on her; and the King immediately decided to dismiss him. I have been told, that the King did not conceal the

ground of his displeasure with Mr. Grenville; openly saying, "When Mr. Grenville told me, that, if the Princess Dowager's name were inserted in the Bill, he could not undertake to carry it through the House of Commons, either Mr. Grenville did not know the disposition of the House of Commons, or he practised a deception on me: in either case he is not fit to be my Minister."

On the removal of Mr. Grenville, the King appointed the Marquis of Rockingham Prime Minister. This Nobleman was a man of high honour and the strictest integrity; from his accession to office to the day of his death, he was never accused of being influenced by motives of personal interest: his understanding was sound, though not brilliant; but he had never before held any public situation, nor had he been much conversant in business: his friends saw, that with such habits, it would be advantageous that he should always have near him a man acquainted with political subjects, and accustomed to laborious application. They selected for this purpose Mr. Edmund Burke.

When William Gerard Hamilton (generally known by the name of Single-speech Hamilton) went to Ireland as Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, Mr. Edmund Burke attended Mr. Hamilton as his private Secretary: he was rewarded for this service with a pension of 3007. a year; which, as I have heard, he soon after sold to relieve his immediate necessities.

At the time when Mr. Burke was selected to be the private Secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, he was an author in the service of Mr. Dodsley the bookseller; he had conducted for that gentleman the Annual Register, a work of considerable reputation and merit, first established in the year 1758; and I believe that it was conducted under the direction of Mr. Burke to a very late period of his life. The political knowledge of Mr. Burke might be considered almost as an Encyclopædia: every man who approached him received instruction from his stores; and his failings (for failings he had) were not visible at that time; perhaps they did not then exist; perhaps they grew› up in the progress of his political life. When