t I should be particularly desirous to
avoid it.

I have only to add my strong sense of the kindness of your
expressions and wishes towards me. I hope I have deserved your
affection, I am sure I have endeavoured to do so; and this
business, unhappy as it is, would be a thousand times more so to
me, if I could think it possible. I trust in God that it is not so,
that any event of it could produce the smallest diminution of that
mutual affection and confidence which has now so long subsisted
between us, and to which I have felt, and shall ever feel, that I
owe more than to any other circumstance of my life. In these
sentiments,

Believe me ever, my dear brother,
Most truly and affectionately yours,
W. W. G.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

St. James's Square, Nov. 12th, 1789.
MY DEAR BROTHER,

As I understand from Pitt that he means to write to you to-day in
answer to your letter, I have nothing to add to the account which
he will give you of the unfavourable result of his conversation of
yesterday. He mentioned to me an idea which he had of contriving to
see you if possible before you took the step of resigning the
Lieutenancy of the county. Perhaps if he comes down to Stowe for
that purpose, it would be more agreeable to you that I should
accompany him, and in that case I would certainly contrive to do
so. Otherwise, I feel that you are already so fully in possession
of all that I think and feel on this painful subject, that I could
not wish to give you the labour of a journey to Missenden for the
purpose of a conversation, which could only be a repetition of what
I have already said and written. I have turned the whole question
over and over again in my mind, and the result is the same with
what I have already stated to you, and is founded on the same
feeling: that though the object is a natural one for you to have
looked to, I cannot think that the King's refusal does, in any
manner, call upon you for that line of conduct which you can be
disposed to adopt only in the belief that you _are_ called upon so
to do. It is unnecessary for me to enlarge again on the grounds of
this opinion; but in stating it, I give you my sincere and honest
sentiments, freed, as far as I can free them, from the bias which