Mr. Burke entered into the service of the Marquis of Rockingham he was not rich, but the munificent generosity of that Nobleman immediately placed him in an affluent situation. Mr. Burke purchased a beautiful villa, at Beaconsfield, which was paid for by the Marquis of Rockingham. When Dr. Johnson, who, like Mr. Burke, had subsisted by his labours as an author, visited his friend at his new purchase, he could not help exclaming with the shepherd in Virgil's Eclogue,

"Non equidem invideo, miror magis."

But the Marquis of Rockingham's liberality was not confined to the person of Mr. Burke; he procured for Mr. William Burke, his cousin, and most confidential connexion, the employment of Under Secretary of State to General Conway; and he gave to Mr. Edmund Burke's brother, Richard Burke, the place of Collector of the Customs at Grenada. I mention these circumstances to show, that Lord Rockingham was fully entitled to that devoted attachment which Mr. Edmund Burke ever paid him to the end of that Noble Lord's life.

Let me pause, to reflect on the transactions of that year in which Lord Rockingham was Minister. I can discover no faults in the administration of public affairs during that year: the conduct of Government was wise and upright: by the repeal of the Stamp Act, they put an end to a civil dissension, which had been unnecessarily excited. Had the measures adopted by Lord Rockingham been persevered in, Great Britain, I might almost add, Europe itself, would not have experienced that misery, relief from which she now finds so difficult. Lord Rockingham repealed the Stamp Act; and from that hour the king determined to remove him. Lord Rockingham himself told me, that the King never showed him such distinguished marks of kindness, as after he had secretly determined to get rid of him. The Marquis of Rockingham accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act with another Act, declaratory of the right. I know that he has been much censured for this measure. Mr. Pitt recommended that the Stamp Act should be repealed by an Act declaring that the claim of the British Parliament was unconstitu

tional and illegal.

This would most certainly have been the bolder measure; but we must recollect the situation of Lord Rockingham when he proposed to Parliament the repeal of the Stamp Act. In his front he had a formidable opposition; in his rear the household troops, ready to declare against him it was his duty to consider what measures were practicable. I will even go one step further; it was his duty not unnecessarily to offend the King. The plan which he brought forward, of an Act declaratory of the right, while it relinquished the exercise of that right, had been formerly adopted on a dispute with Ireland, of a nature somewhat similar. When the civil dissension with America had been put an end to, who could imagine that the King and the interior Cabinet would wish to renew it?

The Administration of Lord Rockingham lasted one year, and, I believe, a few days more. On his removal, the King sent for the Ex-Secretary Mr. Pitt, and requested him to form an Administration. From the reports circulated at that time, it seems as

if Mr. Pitt had been the dupe of those apparent marks of kindness which the King knew so well how to practise whenever he thought them necessary. Mr. Pitt believed that he possessed the entire confidence of the King, and acted as if the selection of his colleagues depended wholly upon himself. This occasioned a breach between him and his brother-in-law, Earl Temple; and, as Mr. Burke has remarked in a pamphlet subsequently published, "When Mr. Pitt had formed his Cabinet, he was no longer Minister." It is much to be regretted, that when the Marquis of Rockingham formed his Administration, in 1765, he did not feel the advantage which would have been derived from Mr. Pitt being in his Cabinet. Lord Rockingham must at that time have fully known the King's character; he must have been sensible of the difficulty which every Administration would have in restraining the King from pursuing his own private views, in opposition to the opinion of his ostensible Ministers. The experienced mind, the popularity, the venerable character of that great Statesman Mr. Pitt, would have added strength to his government. government. What

a different Cabinet would it have been, if instead of that contemptible old man the Duke of Newcastle, he had made Mr. Pitt Lord Privy Seal! But, although an apparent union had subsisted, from 1757 to 1761, between the Pelham party and Mr. Pitt, yet the Pelham party had always hated Mr. Pitt; they felt themselves oppressed by the superiority of his mind; and, perhaps, he had sometimes unnecessarily made them sensible of their inferiority. Lord Rockingham had been educated from early life in this party; and, from that circumstance, most probably, felt no inclination to be united with Mr. Pitt. (Note 4.)

In forming his Cabinet, Mr. Pitt made the Duke of Grafton First Lord of the Treasury. His own health disqualified him from holding that office, and he chose for himself the office of Lord Privy Seal, with an earldom. But he admitted into his Cabinet so many persons not sincerely attached to him or to his measures, that, whenever ill health compelled him to absent himself from the Cabinet, measures were adopted wholly re