the
further prosecution of the war was impracticable, even if the
combination against us allowed the hope of success. This
testimony I have wished to bear, though it is not immediately
connected with my purpose.

Upon the resignation of Lord Shelburne, His Majesty was placed
in a situation in which, through the various events of his
reign, he never had yet found himself. The man[oe]uvres which he
tried, at different periods of the six weeks during which this
country was left literally without a Government, are well known.
Perhaps nothing can paint the situation of his mind so truly, as
a letter which he wrote to me on the 1st of April: this was an
answer to one which I thought it necessary to address to him
from Ireland, after receiving from him a message and a general
detail of his situation, through Mr. W. Grenville, to whom he
opened himself very confidentially upon the general state of the
kingdom.

Upon my return to England, I was honoured with every public
attention from His Majesty, who ostensibly held a language upon
my subject, calculated to raise in the strongest degree the
jealousy of his servants. In the audience which I asked, as a
matter of course, after being presented at his levee, he
recapitulated all the transactions of that period, with the
strongest encomium upon Mr. Pitt, and with much apparent
acrimony hinted at Lord Shelburne, whom he stated to have
abandoned a situation which was tenable, and particularly so
after the popular resentment had been roused. This was naturally
attended with strong expressions of resentment and disgust of
his Ministers, and of personal abhorrence of Lord North, whom he
charged with treachery and ingratitude of the blackest nature.
He repeated that, to such a Ministry he never would give his
confidence, and that he would take the first moment for
dismissing them. He then stated the proposition made to him by
the Duke of Portland, for the annual allowance of L100,000 to
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. I gave to him, very much
at length, my opinion of such a measure, and of the certain
consequences of it: in all which, as may reasonably be supposed,
His Majesty ran before me, and stated with strong disgust the
manner in which it was opened to him--as a thing _decided_, and
even drawn up in the shape of a me