it right to wait a day
or two, to know if the King would speak to him about it. He
never has; and Townshend is to mention the Order again to-day,
and send the approbation to night or to-morrow. Adieu.

Ever yours,
W. W. G.

[Footnote 1: The Premier did ask for it, but was refused.]

The "Coalition Administration" was now beginning to "loom" dimly in the
distance. Various changes were whispered, and from day to day new
reports got abroad of negotiations with Lord North's party. The first
step towards the consummation of an alliance may be said to have been
already taken when Townshend, abandoning the traditions of his party,
told Mr. Grenville that he saw no reason for proscribing all Lord
North's people from _office_, although he objected to giving them any
share in the _Government_. The meaning of this ingenious distinction is
clear. The Administration was tottering, and the only chance they saw of
strengthening their position was to buy off the opposition of the
followers of the late Cabinet. To swamp their opponents and at the same
time keep the actual power in their own hands, was a piece of strategy
which might be expected from the general character of Lord Shelburne's
tactics. But it failed, and failed conspicuously. Mr. Grenville
discerned clearly the danger of this clever plan, from which he could
anticipate no other result than that of sapping the foundations of the
existing Government. In the letters that follow we have a close running
commentary on the state of parties, and the rumours that hourly agitated
the public mind during this interval of intestine struggle. Mr.
Grenville considered the circumstances of the Ministry hopeless, as, we
gather from his previous communications, he appears to have done all
throughout. Their conduct upon the Irish Bill, which was still destined
to entail division and uneasiness, revealed to him the fatal want of
unity, earnestness and activity in their councils; and even if they had
had no perils to guard against from without, he saw sources of weakness
enough within the Cabinet itself to destroy all confidence in their
stability. There were only two parties from whose ranks the Ministry
could be recruited, and these two had hitherto acted in public life with
the fiercest animosity towards each other. The attempts that were made
to win over some of Lord North's adherents having failed, the only
alternative left was to apply to Fox. That this applicat