him in favour of Hastings, and I am told he is very guarded and
reserved on his subject, but that some _females_ in his house talk
loud and warmly in his favour, which occasions the attributing the
same opinions to him.

On one of the adjourned questions on Hastings's trial in the House
of Lords, Lord Maitland, standing next to Dundas, asked him what he
thought would be the result of the inquiry, to which he replied in
these words: "I don't care what is done with him, for you and your
friends in Opposition have done our business, by keeping him out of
the Board of Control." Lord Maitland on this called up Colonel
Fitzpatrick and Dudley Long, in whose presence Dundas actually
repeated his words, and they, of course, trumpeted them all over
town, and they have occasioned much conversation and much abuse of
Dundas, in addition to their former abuse on the part of Hastings's
friends. The folly of such language, especially to three violent
Oppositionists, was very absurd, weak, and ill-judged, but the fact
is certain.

I hear many complaints of Pitt and his Secretaries' personal
inattentions to Members _of_ Parliament, but they will think twenty
times before they go into Opposition; and it is most probable that
these complaints are not made till _impossible jobs_ have been
refused; I therefore only mention them as certainly existing, and
most probably as to any consequences, _vox et praeterea nihil_, at
least till the last sessions.

* * * * *

Just as I was sealing my letter a person called on me, who tells
me that divisions in the Cabinet, or rather among the Cabinet
Ministers, certainly do exist, to a great degree, about Mr. Dundas,
and has confirmed to me what I have before told you, that every
corner of Buckingham House resounds with abuse, and opprobrious
epithets against him.

A passage in a letter of Mr. Grenville's, dated the 2nd of May,
indicates an approaching event, to which many circumstances, but chiefly
the increasing weight the writer had latterly acquired in the councils
of Mr. Pitt, had for some time been obviously tending.

I wish to mention to you that Lord S. has taken great offence, from
the circumstance of having at last found out that your despatches
to him come over enclosed to me. I could wish, ther