etter
to you.

I do not recollect that anything else material passed, except
compliments, &c., &c.

I cannot help mentioning to you that you have never written to
Lord Sydney, either on his peerage, or your resignation, and
that I cannot help thinking that he feels it.

The Irish Bill sleeps in the House of Lords. The Chancellor
desired to put it off till something was settled. Lord Abingdon
has given notice, in a most ridiculous speech, of his intention
to oppose it. I spoke to Townshend yesterday about it, and he
promised to appoint some day to-morrow for its being read a
second time. They talk here of the Duke of Devonshire for
Ireland. He is a respectable man, undoubtedly, and if you except
the scale of his talents, which I think inferior to the
situation, I know only one objection to the appointment, and
that is a capital one.

Pray communicate a little with Mornington about your
resignation, &c. It will flatter him; and he is beyond measure
disposed to you both in Ireland and _here_, to which he looks in
a short time; but you must not let him know I have told you
that.

Adieu, my dearest brother,
Believe me ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.

T. Pitt's child is recovering very fast.

The allusion to Lord Mornington (afterwards Marquis Wellesley) is not
quite clear. We are left in some doubt as to whether his Lordship looked
at this time to office in England, or to the Lord-Lieutenancy of
Ireland. His ambition and his genius, however, had ample scope
subsequently in India and in Ireland, the Government of which latter
country was twice confided to him.

In the next letter Mr. Grenville reports another interview with the
King, in which His Majesty expressed his regret at the absence of Lord
Temple, to whom, even at the cost of still further delay, and some risk
of confusion in Irish affairs, he would still have applied, but for the
impediments which the distracted and unnatural state of parties threw in
the way of the formation of an honest and independent Administration.
Mr. Grenville saw that the attempt to form a Cabinet in the face of such
adverse circumstances would be attended with no credit to Lord Temple,
or permanent advantage to the King, and judiciously discouraged it. He
appears all throughout, from the dawn of the alliance between Fox and
Lord North, to have desired that they should b